24/01/19
This evening we started off by naming our new Polar Bear who arrived a few weeks ago. We wrote all the suggested names on pieces of paper and spread them out around the room on chairs. Each girl was then given 2 tokens with which to vote for her favourite. Once everyone had voted, we removed the names which got no or very few votes and everyone took back their 2 tokens and voted again. This time there was a very clear winner so we accepted it as his name - Snowy. If the votes had been more spread out, we would have removed the lower few again and repeated until a winner was found.
Now we had named our polar bear, the 5 new girls were given the opportunity to choose which of our two Skills Builders groups they wanted to join. I then took the Innovate group and we did the 'I Have an Idea' activity. We started off with Kim's game - we had a variety of different items which we hid under a blanket. We then uncovered the items and the girls had 30 seconds to look at them all and remember as many as they could. They then had to go and write down all the ones they could remember in small groups. We then came back to the pile and went through all the different items. I was quite impressed - one group managed to get 16 of the 17 items! The girls then split off into their groups again and thought of an invention they wanted to make. They had to draw a picture of their idea, label it, and give it a name. We had varying degrees of success with that activity - one group, with the help of the Young Leader, came up with a hob which you could set a maximum temperature for an it would turn off if it went over that temperature, so your food didn't bubble over. The second group designed a robot that would do anything you asked it to. They ended up with 4 slightly different designs of the same thing, as each girl wanted to do it 'her way'! The third and final group ended up with 3 completely different inventions - a pizza maker, a toy maker, and a tree house maker. We then had all the girls present their ideas to the rest of the groups and then we voted on the girls favourite one - this time they had 3 tokens and placed them on the ideas they thought were the best. The winner, by 1 point, was the pizza maker, followed by the hob.
The Lead group were doing the 'Leader Goals' card. They had to think of all the qualities a good leader should have and then think about a role model (real or fictional) who was a good leader. They had to draw a picture of them and write all their leadership traits around them. They then had to draw a picture of themselves and write their leadership traits around their picture. Finally, they had to compare the role model with themselves and see where they could improve to become a better leader.
The girls all seemed to enjoy this evening, although the girls who chose Innovate back when we chose got the better deal tonight in my opinion. I think the activity the Lead girls were doing was by far the least interesting of the 5 but at least they have got it out the way and can have fun for the remaining sessions.
Monday 28 January 2019
Monday 21 January 2019
Pantomime time (oh no it isn't!)
17/01/19
Tonight we went to the local amateur pantomime production with the Brownies. As usual, there was another unit there at the same time as us so we found ourselves a table and stared gathering in the consent forms and ticking off our girls on the register. We also started a ticklist of which ice creams the girls wanted and then handed it in to the bar before we went in. We got the girls ensconced in their seats and then it started. This year was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves performed by the local amateur dramatic society. Some of our ex-Brownies are in the dance group and we have been going for so many years now that the leaders recognise a lot of the cast (and the girls do on occasion too).
This years performance was very good, although each year there seem to more adult jokes and less that the kids understand - even some of the more kid-friendly ones the girls sat near me didn't quite get. They seemed to enjoy themselves either way though. We did a quick toilet run in the interval and then handed out all the ice creams. The girls were very well behaved during the performance - the only shouting was done where it was appropriate and I only had to tell one or two to sit down during the whole 2 hours.
Once the second half was over, we all trooped out into the foyer to wait for the parents, who for once were all on time picking up and shortly later we were on our way home too. It was a good evening, the girls always look forwards to coming, and the first question we get from girl who have to leave at Christmas is "can I still come to panto?" - the answer is always "yes!".
Tonight we went to the local amateur pantomime production with the Brownies. As usual, there was another unit there at the same time as us so we found ourselves a table and stared gathering in the consent forms and ticking off our girls on the register. We also started a ticklist of which ice creams the girls wanted and then handed it in to the bar before we went in. We got the girls ensconced in their seats and then it started. This year was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves performed by the local amateur dramatic society. Some of our ex-Brownies are in the dance group and we have been going for so many years now that the leaders recognise a lot of the cast (and the girls do on occasion too).
This years performance was very good, although each year there seem to more adult jokes and less that the kids understand - even some of the more kid-friendly ones the girls sat near me didn't quite get. They seemed to enjoy themselves either way though. We did a quick toilet run in the interval and then handed out all the ice creams. The girls were very well behaved during the performance - the only shouting was done where it was appropriate and I only had to tell one or two to sit down during the whole 2 hours.
Once the second half was over, we all trooped out into the foyer to wait for the parents, who for once were all on time picking up and shortly later we were on our way home too. It was a good evening, the girls always look forwards to coming, and the first question we get from girl who have to leave at Christmas is "can I still come to panto?" - the answer is always "yes!".
Monday 14 January 2019
First Meeting Back - Life Skills
10/01/19
Tonight was our first meeting back after Christmas. We had 5 new girls down to start tonight, 4 of which came (the last was ill). It was quite a challenge to remember all of their names, especially when 2 of them were already in uniform - one is a transfer and another has taken the place of her sister so is wearing her old uniform! They all got stuck in quite quickly though, and joined in the slightly crazy game of tag going on before we started.
Our first order of business was the introduction of our new sponsored animal - the polar bear. Before the summer (while I was away), the girls had raised money for Winston's Wish and WWF and we had then voted to sponsor a polar bear. We had sent the money off and, over Christmas, the polar bear toy came. However, all the other animals we have sponsored have come with a name, but the polar bear's certificate just said 'Thank you for sponsoring the Svalbard Polar Bears' so we asked the girls for suggestions for his name and we will vote (again!) in 2 weeks. We had lots of suggestions, including 'Fluffy', 'Snowball', and 'Misty' and now we need to work out the fairest way of voting for the winning name.
We then started by playing a nice running around game, to try and burn off some of the girls energy! We bought out a game we haven't played for a long while, so long so that it doesn't feature in my blog! Split the unit roughly into 3 and have the three groups line up against the wall, one behind the other. The leaders throw 4 or 5 bouncy balls from behind the girls at the wall opposite and the front row of girls run after them and try and catch them. All those girls then line up behind the rest of the unit and the girls who caught a ball can then throw it for the next group. Keep cycling through until you are bored! Our girls find it really fun, although we did learn the hard way that clear bouncy balls are not a great idea, especially when you have a girl with limited peripheral vision... Lesson learnt for next time though! When we stopped and asked for the balls in though, there was one missing so all the girls went running around looking under all the chairs but it was no where to be seen.
Now the girls had burnt off all their energy, we split into two groups to do some Skills for my Future Unit Meeting Activities. Half the girls did the 'In a Fix' one, and the other half did 'Coin Hunt' and then they swapped over. The girls doing 'In a Fix' were provided with some screws and nails, and some polystyrene boxes saved from Christmas presents. The two leaders with them supervised each girl hammering a nail and screwing a screw into the boxes. The girls were then allowed to practice more with the rest of the screws and nails. I ran the 'Coin Hunt' one - I split the girls into two teams, trying to get them split pretty evenly by age. I gave each group one of each coin (plastic ones bought on Amazon, including the new pound coin) and got them to line them up in order from smallest value to largest. All the girls did very well at that, and I then got them to tell me what values each coin was. A few of them tripped up after 1p and 2p and said 3p! We got a few giggles out of that. I then tipped the coins in a heap at one end of the hall (we decided hiding them around the hall was way too convoluted and we would just end up losing coins). I shouted out an amount to the girls and they had to run to the pile, one at a time, and get a coin until they had made the amount needed. I started off with some simple amounts, like 11p or £1.50 and then slowly increased the difficulty unti we were doing ones such as £1.89, and £3.52. We had a couple of confusions between 1p and 2p coins, but other than that I was very impressed by the girls ability to do mental maths, especially some of the younger girls.
Once the girls had had a chance to do both of the activities, we tidied up the bits of polystyrene from all over the floor and then it was time to hand out the various toys and some new sixer and seconder badges. In the process of tidying up, the lost bouncy ball made a reappearance too, apparently it "just rolled across the floor"... This was one of the better 'new programme' meetings we have done and the girls seemed to really enjoy all of it.
Tonight was our first meeting back after Christmas. We had 5 new girls down to start tonight, 4 of which came (the last was ill). It was quite a challenge to remember all of their names, especially when 2 of them were already in uniform - one is a transfer and another has taken the place of her sister so is wearing her old uniform! They all got stuck in quite quickly though, and joined in the slightly crazy game of tag going on before we started.
Our first order of business was the introduction of our new sponsored animal - the polar bear. Before the summer (while I was away), the girls had raised money for Winston's Wish and WWF and we had then voted to sponsor a polar bear. We had sent the money off and, over Christmas, the polar bear toy came. However, all the other animals we have sponsored have come with a name, but the polar bear's certificate just said 'Thank you for sponsoring the Svalbard Polar Bears' so we asked the girls for suggestions for his name and we will vote (again!) in 2 weeks. We had lots of suggestions, including 'Fluffy', 'Snowball', and 'Misty' and now we need to work out the fairest way of voting for the winning name.
We then started by playing a nice running around game, to try and burn off some of the girls energy! We bought out a game we haven't played for a long while, so long so that it doesn't feature in my blog! Split the unit roughly into 3 and have the three groups line up against the wall, one behind the other. The leaders throw 4 or 5 bouncy balls from behind the girls at the wall opposite and the front row of girls run after them and try and catch them. All those girls then line up behind the rest of the unit and the girls who caught a ball can then throw it for the next group. Keep cycling through until you are bored! Our girls find it really fun, although we did learn the hard way that clear bouncy balls are not a great idea, especially when you have a girl with limited peripheral vision... Lesson learnt for next time though! When we stopped and asked for the balls in though, there was one missing so all the girls went running around looking under all the chairs but it was no where to be seen.
Now the girls had burnt off all their energy, we split into two groups to do some Skills for my Future Unit Meeting Activities. Half the girls did the 'In a Fix' one, and the other half did 'Coin Hunt' and then they swapped over. The girls doing 'In a Fix' were provided with some screws and nails, and some polystyrene boxes saved from Christmas presents. The two leaders with them supervised each girl hammering a nail and screwing a screw into the boxes. The girls were then allowed to practice more with the rest of the screws and nails. I ran the 'Coin Hunt' one - I split the girls into two teams, trying to get them split pretty evenly by age. I gave each group one of each coin (plastic ones bought on Amazon, including the new pound coin) and got them to line them up in order from smallest value to largest. All the girls did very well at that, and I then got them to tell me what values each coin was. A few of them tripped up after 1p and 2p and said 3p! We got a few giggles out of that. I then tipped the coins in a heap at one end of the hall (we decided hiding them around the hall was way too convoluted and we would just end up losing coins). I shouted out an amount to the girls and they had to run to the pile, one at a time, and get a coin until they had made the amount needed. I started off with some simple amounts, like 11p or £1.50 and then slowly increased the difficulty unti we were doing ones such as £1.89, and £3.52. We had a couple of confusions between 1p and 2p coins, but other than that I was very impressed by the girls ability to do mental maths, especially some of the younger girls.
Once the girls had had a chance to do both of the activities, we tidied up the bits of polystyrene from all over the floor and then it was time to hand out the various toys and some new sixer and seconder badges. In the process of tidying up, the lost bouncy ball made a reappearance too, apparently it "just rolled across the floor"... This was one of the better 'new programme' meetings we have done and the girls seemed to really enjoy all of it.
Monday 7 January 2019
Queen's Guide Update #2
Here is another update of my progress towards completing my Queen's Guide. It's been going slowly since the last update, but I have just bought a house and am still planning the last bits of my wedding too, so that's understandable! You can keep up with what I
have done on my Queen's Guide page too. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers!
We finally got the keys for our new house on Friday and I have put some feelers out into the District I will be moving to. There is a Brownie unit there who will be closing if they don't find a new Leader to take over so I have put my name into the mix as a possibility (although the current Leaders want to leave by Christmas and I won't be moving until April). If I take over that unit, that should quite quickly tick off the 40 hours of volunteering that I need to do!
Residential
I have not looked into this any further yet, as you would have to be absolutely nuts to go camping at this time of year!
Event for 2 Units
I am in the process of organising District Thinking Day 2019. I am going to do a full blog on the trip and all the planning that went into it, after it has happened, but currently I am waiting on numbers and deposits from all the Leaders in the District.
Working Group/Committee
I am still no further forwards with this either.
Service in Guiding
Regular VolunteeringWe finally got the keys for our new house on Friday and I have put some feelers out into the District I will be moving to. There is a Brownie unit there who will be closing if they don't find a new Leader to take over so I have put my name into the mix as a possibility (although the current Leaders want to leave by Christmas and I won't be moving until April). If I take over that unit, that should quite quickly tick off the 40 hours of volunteering that I need to do!
Residential
I have not looked into this any further yet, as you would have to be absolutely nuts to go camping at this time of year!
Event for 2 Units
I am in the process of organising District Thinking Day 2019. I am going to do a full blog on the trip and all the planning that went into it, after it has happened, but currently I am waiting on numbers and deposits from all the Leaders in the District.
Working Group/Committee
I am still no further forwards with this either.
Outdoor Challenge
Again, this is something which has been put on the back burner for now, it is in my plan for Summer 2020 so I have plenty of time!Personal Skill
I have been carrying on with my clarinet lessons. I am now up to 16 hours of the 60 I need to complete the clause. I am still finding it quite hard to fit in practice during the week as, when I get in from work, I just want to crash out and do very little! I also missed a few weeks in the run up to Christmas as I was busy one week, my teacher was busy the next, and then I got horrendously ill with a cold (luckily I recovered before Christmas itself). I have still been steadily improving though, and we're starting to get really nitpicky over little things. I am also picking up lots of tips and tricks for nailing rhythms and speeding up playing runs and scales which will help me once I have passed my Grade 8 and can join an orchestra (currently I don't have time in the week for lessons and a group).Community Action
Hopefully I can start planning this in the New Year, once all the craziness associated with buying a house calms down!Residential
I'm still waiting on the dates for my fiancé's next Beaver camp and then this one can be ticked off.
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