20/09/18
This meeting we did the Brownie Traditions badge from the old programme, as this is what our girls had requested last term. We also noticed that a few of these fell into two of the UMAs, the Century Time Travel one from the Know Myself theme and the Strike a Light one from the Have Adventures theme.
We started off by discussing if girls knew what a tradition was and if they could think of any traditions we have at Brownies. I was quite surprised at the two girls who, between them, managed to perfectly define a tradition. The girls als managed to name the uniform, badges, and name as some traditions that we still have now. We also bought in a short chat about how those three have changed over the years (Rosebuds used to wear blue).
We then played a game from the UMA called "Brownie/Broomstick". We went round the circle and named each girl "Brownie" or "Broomstick". We then got the Broomsticks to stand up and got the girls to look round and remember who was who. We then spread them out in the hall and shouted "Brownies" and the Brownies had to chase the Broomsticks until Brown Owl shouted "Broomsticks" when they had to swap and chase the Brownies. After a few swaps, we stopped and asked the girls what they thought. A lot of them asked what they were supposed to do if they had been caught and Brown Owl told them that the instructions didn't say so we asked the girls what they thought the rule should be. One girl immediately said "anyone who is caught swaps sides" and another just said "drop and gimme 20!". We voted on which rule we should add (unanimous decision to swap sides!) and then played again with these new rules for a bit.
We then stopped and played The Card Game, which I introduced to the unit a while back, from one of the many Facebook groups I am part of. Our girls love playing, especially as this week we had to add in Brown Owl because we had 20 girls and it doesn't work with a multiple of 4. They enjoyed playing this so much that we had to play until every girl had got back to her chair.
We then moved onto the clauses from the Traditions Badge. We set up 3 tables and split the girls into 3 groups. On the tables, we set up candle lighting, penny cleaning and knot tying. I ran the penny shining - each girl was given a dirty 2p coin and some brasso to polish it with. We explained that girls used to pay their subs with a penny but it couldn't be any penny, it had to be a nice shiny one. We had one really black penny which some of the girls decided they wanted to have a go at cleaning (but then gave up quickly as it was almost impossible to make a difference. Brown Owl ran the candle lighting station - each girl was given the opportunity to strike a match and light a candle and then blow out the candle to complete the Strike a Light UMA. She also talked to them about fire safety, such as not playing with matches without an adult, and not putting your hands/clothes near flames. The final table was run by our Young Leader and was knots - reef knots, shoelaces, and plaits. At one point they had several pairs of shoes up on the table so I think it was a success!
We then explained to the girls that we were going to vote for our first Skills Builder. We had selected 4 Stage 2s for them to choose from - Innovate from the Express Myself theme, First Aid from the Be Well theme, and Live Smart and Lead from the Skills for My Future theme. We explained roughly what each Skills Builder consisted of and then we gave each girl a lolly stick with their name written on and put 4 labelled pots around the room. The girls had to put their stick in the one they wanted to do. We then took the sticks out of the two least favourite and said that those girls had to choose one of the 2 favourite ones to do. We will then run these two badges side by side. The girls chose Lead and Innovate, and we only had 4 who had to move their stick, which was quite impressive.
After all that, it was time to go home. We sang Brownie Bells and let the girls go. Brown Owl stood by the door saying goodbye to the girls and making sure they didn't go outside alone. We eventually were left with 3 girls, two older ones and brand new one (it was her first night). We packed away our stuff and moved into the foyer while talking to the girls about who was supposed to be picking them up. The two older girls said they thought one of their Mums was picking them both up and we were getting ready to ring them when she appeared in a fluster saying her car hadn't started so she had to get the other children dressed and walk round! They left and we just had our one brand new Brownie left. We thought it was a bit odd as she is the 4th sister we have had through us although her Mum had emailed before she started asking us what time we started and where we met! We tried the mobile number we had for her with no luck so we started asking the Brownie if she knew any of the girls. She said there were a couple who were friends with her sister so we rang them but they also didn't answer. At this point, we had been waiting for 25 minutes so I ran our Young Leader home while Brown Owl waited in the hall. When I got back there was still no sign of either parent so we decided to drive the girl to her house. We told the Scouts that if a panicked parent arrived, to send her home where we would be waiting! We got her to her house (there were two of us in the car with her and the law states girls under the height limit can ride without a booster seat in an emergency for short distances) and no one was there either! We had a phone call from one of our other leaders (who wasn't at the meeting tonight) sating that the mum had phoned her in a panic because Dad had failed in his instruction to drop one daughter at gym and then pick up the Brownie (he'd done half a job!). Mum showed up a minute after we got to her house and apologised profusely! We just said that it will give the girl something to talk about when she gets older - the day that she got forgotten at her first Brownie meeting! It was certainly an eventful end to a busy meeting!
Monday, 24 September 2018
Monday, 17 September 2018
Story Making and Pack Holiday Posters
13/09/18
This evening we started with a vote. Every year we do a sale (see here for a previous year's) to raise money for a charity. The last sale they did (while I was at university), we raised money for WWF so we could sponsor an animal. We have sponsored several animals in the past and always get a cuddly toy to go with it which then goes home with a different girl each week. We currently have a dolphin, a gorilla, and an elephant but the dolphin is getting a bit old and so we wanted to retire him to join the dog (they now sit under the toadstool) and get a new animal. I had looked online at the choices and chosen 5 to vote on: lion, panda, penguin, polar bear, and rhino. We printed out the picture of the toy onto paper which we spread round the room. Each girl was given 3 token, a red, a yellow and a blue. They then had to put the red token on their favourite, the yellow on their second choice and the blue on their third. I then counted up the votes - red getting 3 points, yellow getting 2 and blue getting 1. While I was counting, the girls sang 'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar'. I then announced that the winner, who got 56 points, was the polar bear. We now just need to send off the money to the WWF and wait for the toy to arrive.
We then decided we would do another of the new programme UMAs - we chose 'Catch a Story' from the Express Myself theme. We had a small soft ball which we passed across the circle and each girl had to add a word to the story (we specified no rude words first!). Brown Owl started by saying 'Once' so that the next 3 would have to say 'upon a time' so that the girls got the idea and then we let it continue, with occasional prompting from leaders about the best word. If we did it again, we would definitely write the story down as we went along as by the end we couldn't remember the whole thing. We might also consider adding a time limit to the length of time a girl had to think of a word as we frequently got stuck waiting. We did eventually get a sort of story about a dog called Max who didn't like puppies because they were weird! I was quite impressed with some girls choice of words, we had a few say 'because' and 'however', although I would say it is an activity more suited to older girls as the younger ones were having trouble keeping up with what had laready been said and making sensible suggestions of words (we went round in circles at one point saying things the dog hated).
Once we had done that for around 15 minutes we stopped and got out some tables. We handed out various A5 pictures relating to the Olympics, there were some simple ones such as the rings, and some more complex ones like a man with an Olympic torch. These will form the decorations on pack holiday, and are also a great way to keep the noise down a little bit while we hold the parents meeting for girls who haven't been on pack holiday before. I sat on a table with some of the newer girls and coloured in my own picture, and got to know them a bit more.
This was quite a nice relaxed evening and went very smoothly. I always enjoy meetings where I can just sit and talk to girls and get to know them a bit more, especially with so many girls who've joined since I went away for university. And we always end up having some entertaining conversations, such as tonight when I was asked how old I was so I said "22" and one girl said "I think you look more like you're 23"!
This evening we started with a vote. Every year we do a sale (see here for a previous year's) to raise money for a charity. The last sale they did (while I was at university), we raised money for WWF so we could sponsor an animal. We have sponsored several animals in the past and always get a cuddly toy to go with it which then goes home with a different girl each week. We currently have a dolphin, a gorilla, and an elephant but the dolphin is getting a bit old and so we wanted to retire him to join the dog (they now sit under the toadstool) and get a new animal. I had looked online at the choices and chosen 5 to vote on: lion, panda, penguin, polar bear, and rhino. We printed out the picture of the toy onto paper which we spread round the room. Each girl was given 3 token, a red, a yellow and a blue. They then had to put the red token on their favourite, the yellow on their second choice and the blue on their third. I then counted up the votes - red getting 3 points, yellow getting 2 and blue getting 1. While I was counting, the girls sang 'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar'. I then announced that the winner, who got 56 points, was the polar bear. We now just need to send off the money to the WWF and wait for the toy to arrive.
We then decided we would do another of the new programme UMAs - we chose 'Catch a Story' from the Express Myself theme. We had a small soft ball which we passed across the circle and each girl had to add a word to the story (we specified no rude words first!). Brown Owl started by saying 'Once' so that the next 3 would have to say 'upon a time' so that the girls got the idea and then we let it continue, with occasional prompting from leaders about the best word. If we did it again, we would definitely write the story down as we went along as by the end we couldn't remember the whole thing. We might also consider adding a time limit to the length of time a girl had to think of a word as we frequently got stuck waiting. We did eventually get a sort of story about a dog called Max who didn't like puppies because they were weird! I was quite impressed with some girls choice of words, we had a few say 'because' and 'however', although I would say it is an activity more suited to older girls as the younger ones were having trouble keeping up with what had laready been said and making sensible suggestions of words (we went round in circles at one point saying things the dog hated).
Once we had done that for around 15 minutes we stopped and got out some tables. We handed out various A5 pictures relating to the Olympics, there were some simple ones such as the rings, and some more complex ones like a man with an Olympic torch. These will form the decorations on pack holiday, and are also a great way to keep the noise down a little bit while we hold the parents meeting for girls who haven't been on pack holiday before. I sat on a table with some of the newer girls and coloured in my own picture, and got to know them a bit more.
This was quite a nice relaxed evening and went very smoothly. I always enjoy meetings where I can just sit and talk to girls and get to know them a bit more, especially with so many girls who've joined since I went away for university. And we always end up having some entertaining conversations, such as tonight when I was asked how old I was so I said "22" and one girl said "I think you look more like you're 23"!
Monday, 10 September 2018
First Meeting Back - Introducing the New Programme
06/09/18
This was our first meeting back after the summer and we thought we would take the time to introduce the girls to the new programme. We are going to be running a bit of a mixture while we, as leaders, get our heads round how it all works but we wanted to get the girls enthused from the beginning and help them understand the different themes a bit more. We also had a Scouting imposter this week - my other half (who's a Beaver Leader) came to the meeting as he is coming on pack holiday with us and we thought it best he meet the girls properly before then!
We started off by explaining to the girls in the pow wow that Guiding had changed the programme, which we told them meant that all the books and badges had changed, but that we would still do the same sorts of things in meetings. We then split them into their sixes and gave each six a pack containing all of the badges (just printed onto paper and cut out) and a badge book. We got them to group them into interest badges, skills builders, and theme awards. We then asked them to pick an interest badge which sounded interesting and find it in the book to decide if they would actually do it after reading the clauses. We had a few problems with them finding the badges in the books but once we pointed out there was a contents page at the front, they were fine! Quite a few, however, didn't understand what part they had to read to see what they had to do and a lot of them said "doI really have to read all of this?!". This was something us as leaders had picked up on when we first opened the books - it is very wordy for some of the younger girls and is not as clear as the old badges what the actual clause is.
We then collected in all the theme awards and put them to one side. The leaders all handed out skills builders and interest badges randomly, one to each girl. They then had to find a partner who had the other part of the theme award (we told them about the 4 hours of activities but didn't include it in the game). Once they were in a pair, one girl with an interest badge, and one with a skills builder, they could go and claim the theme award. We encountered a lot of confusion over which theme the badges were, as there are pale pink, dark pink, and purple ones, and the badges in each theme are not a uniform colour. I had already flagged this as a potential issue, and my suspicions were confirmed in this game! If they could not find a partner, they could go and swap their badge for a different one with a leader. We ended up strategically giving out badges to the last few girls to make sure they found a partner! Once they were in pairs, with a theme award between them, we then told them the requirements for the Brownie Gold badge. We then got them to get into a group of girls who could get the award, i.e. one of each theme award. There was mass confusion for a bit, especially in needing all 6 colours, not just 6 badges, and then we discovered that no one had gained the Express Myself theme award and so no one could get the Gold!
We then told the girls we were going to play a game which was part of the new programme. We chose 'Fox, Frog, Flea', from the Have Adventures UMAs. We gave up trying to explain food webs - the girls had heard of food chains but couldn't grasp the concept that it could be a web instead. We explained the rules - essentially you have 2 teams, they choose to be one of the three animals, each team lines up facing each other down the middle of the room and does the action associated with their animal, and then one chases the other according to the rules on the card with any girls that get caught swapping teams. The game itself went pretty well, although we started off with quite a few rounds which were draws which the girls thought was hilarious. The girls really seemed to enjoy it, but we did have to put a time limit on it instead of playing until all girls were on one team.
We then needed to sort out sixes for pack holiday which is coming up pretty soon. We have 3 sixes which are different to our regular meeting sixes so we named the three sixers and then asked the rest of the girls to split themselves evenly between them. Some years we specific that each six must have a certain number of girls who have been on a pack holiday before in them but this year we only have 5 of the 18 who have been before (of which, 3 are the sixers) so we let them just choose whoever they wanted to be with. They then had to choose a name for their six which fits in with our Olympics theme. We decided to go with Olympic sports instead of countries as last year we did Around the World. Luckily they chose pretty quickly, and we now have Swimming, Gymnastics, and Horse Riding. We made a note of who was in each six and then moved onto another part of the new programme.
We chose the 'Magic Moving Postcards' from the Express Myself UMAs. We got the girls into their actual sixes and gave them 15 minutes to come up with whatever they wanted. As leaders, we moved round the room settling small disagreements and giving suggestions. We then got each six to perform their mime and all the other girls had to guess where they had been and what they had done. There were a few slightly tenuous links but we guessed all of them eventually.
We had a few minutes to spare so we decided to play a game to end the meeting. We chose Pirates but decided not to get girls out and treat it as a practice game for the new girls to learn how to play as we didn't have enough time to get all the girls out.
This was a great first meeting back, it is nice to see all the girls again, especially as I have been away at university and haven't seen them as regularly, although there are a lot of new faces and names to learn! Our first foray into the new programme wasn't too bad, but it will take time to get used to having prescribed activities to do rather than free reign to do whatever we want all the time. The girls seemed to enjoy the activities we did, although they did also seem a bit confused to start, but that will work itself out, especially once we have made our sticker chart for the new programme (we have ones for the Adventure badges and they work really well as a visual aid to the girls).
This was our first meeting back after the summer and we thought we would take the time to introduce the girls to the new programme. We are going to be running a bit of a mixture while we, as leaders, get our heads round how it all works but we wanted to get the girls enthused from the beginning and help them understand the different themes a bit more. We also had a Scouting imposter this week - my other half (who's a Beaver Leader) came to the meeting as he is coming on pack holiday with us and we thought it best he meet the girls properly before then!
We started off by explaining to the girls in the pow wow that Guiding had changed the programme, which we told them meant that all the books and badges had changed, but that we would still do the same sorts of things in meetings. We then split them into their sixes and gave each six a pack containing all of the badges (just printed onto paper and cut out) and a badge book. We got them to group them into interest badges, skills builders, and theme awards. We then asked them to pick an interest badge which sounded interesting and find it in the book to decide if they would actually do it after reading the clauses. We had a few problems with them finding the badges in the books but once we pointed out there was a contents page at the front, they were fine! Quite a few, however, didn't understand what part they had to read to see what they had to do and a lot of them said "doI really have to read all of this?!". This was something us as leaders had picked up on when we first opened the books - it is very wordy for some of the younger girls and is not as clear as the old badges what the actual clause is.
We then collected in all the theme awards and put them to one side. The leaders all handed out skills builders and interest badges randomly, one to each girl. They then had to find a partner who had the other part of the theme award (we told them about the 4 hours of activities but didn't include it in the game). Once they were in a pair, one girl with an interest badge, and one with a skills builder, they could go and claim the theme award. We encountered a lot of confusion over which theme the badges were, as there are pale pink, dark pink, and purple ones, and the badges in each theme are not a uniform colour. I had already flagged this as a potential issue, and my suspicions were confirmed in this game! If they could not find a partner, they could go and swap their badge for a different one with a leader. We ended up strategically giving out badges to the last few girls to make sure they found a partner! Once they were in pairs, with a theme award between them, we then told them the requirements for the Brownie Gold badge. We then got them to get into a group of girls who could get the award, i.e. one of each theme award. There was mass confusion for a bit, especially in needing all 6 colours, not just 6 badges, and then we discovered that no one had gained the Express Myself theme award and so no one could get the Gold!
We then told the girls we were going to play a game which was part of the new programme. We chose 'Fox, Frog, Flea', from the Have Adventures UMAs. We gave up trying to explain food webs - the girls had heard of food chains but couldn't grasp the concept that it could be a web instead. We explained the rules - essentially you have 2 teams, they choose to be one of the three animals, each team lines up facing each other down the middle of the room and does the action associated with their animal, and then one chases the other according to the rules on the card with any girls that get caught swapping teams. The game itself went pretty well, although we started off with quite a few rounds which were draws which the girls thought was hilarious. The girls really seemed to enjoy it, but we did have to put a time limit on it instead of playing until all girls were on one team.
We then needed to sort out sixes for pack holiday which is coming up pretty soon. We have 3 sixes which are different to our regular meeting sixes so we named the three sixers and then asked the rest of the girls to split themselves evenly between them. Some years we specific that each six must have a certain number of girls who have been on a pack holiday before in them but this year we only have 5 of the 18 who have been before (of which, 3 are the sixers) so we let them just choose whoever they wanted to be with. They then had to choose a name for their six which fits in with our Olympics theme. We decided to go with Olympic sports instead of countries as last year we did Around the World. Luckily they chose pretty quickly, and we now have Swimming, Gymnastics, and Horse Riding. We made a note of who was in each six and then moved onto another part of the new programme.
We chose the 'Magic Moving Postcards' from the Express Myself UMAs. We got the girls into their actual sixes and gave them 15 minutes to come up with whatever they wanted. As leaders, we moved round the room settling small disagreements and giving suggestions. We then got each six to perform their mime and all the other girls had to guess where they had been and what they had done. There were a few slightly tenuous links but we guessed all of them eventually.
We had a few minutes to spare so we decided to play a game to end the meeting. We chose Pirates but decided not to get girls out and treat it as a practice game for the new girls to learn how to play as we didn't have enough time to get all the girls out.
This was a great first meeting back, it is nice to see all the girls again, especially as I have been away at university and haven't seen them as regularly, although there are a lot of new faces and names to learn! Our first foray into the new programme wasn't too bad, but it will take time to get used to having prescribed activities to do rather than free reign to do whatever we want all the time. The girls seemed to enjoy the activities we did, although they did also seem a bit confused to start, but that will work itself out, especially once we have made our sticker chart for the new programme (we have ones for the Adventure badges and they work really well as a visual aid to the girls).
Monday, 20 August 2018
My First Impressions of the New Programme
As many of you will be aware, Girlguiding has released a new programme for all sections. I only do Brownies, so can only comment on that part, but I thought I would write down my first impressions of it.
Initially, reading the information provided to leaders in the latest Guiding magazine, I was pretty confused. There seems to be a lot of parts to it, which all interlink. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to which parts link together, and what girls have to do to get the theme awards and skills builders. This, however, is something I think we will all get used to pretty quickly once we actually start implementing it.
In terms of interest badges, I was personally disappointed by the choice Brownies now have. I enjoyed having badges related to things the girls do outside of meetings, such as musician, horse rider, and booklover. Personally I loved being able to get a badge for things I loved. In our unit we also use the hostess badge at every promise ceremony. The oldest girl who does not already have her badge is offered the opportunity to do her hostess badge at the promise ceremony of the newest girls. I feel like this teaches them valuable life skills; skills which I still use to this day, such as making tea and coffee, addressing envelopes, and entertaining guests. I do however like the sound of some of the new badges, especially aviation (my sister is training to be a pilot and there are almost no girls there), inventing, and space. A few of the others sound a bit odd, like mindfulness, zero waste, and archaeology. As a graduate software engineer, I am also slightly disappointed that there is no coding or computing badge in the new programme (yes, I have seen the Google badge which is a step in the right direction but very basic). It is slightly annoying that we cannot see any of the syllabuses online either. In our unit, we have a few badge books for girls to flick through and then we direct them online to read the syllabuses. Now, every girl will need a copy of the badge book, or we will have to photocopy the unit copy (not sure where we stand on that either). It would also be helpful for us leaders to be able to see what girls needed to do so we can encourage them to do them. Time will only tell if the girls actually complete them at home too, currently very few girls from our unit do, and most of the time they only get ones we complete as a unit.
I think the skills builders are a really nice idea, and help girls develop skills across all the sections. I am however, annoyed that there is a camping skills builder but no skills buiilder that can be obtained by going on an indoor residential. Personally, we do not take girls camping as none of our other leaders enjoy sleeping in tents and this means that they cannot complete level 2 of the camp skills builder as this requires them to put up and take down a tent. We cannot offer this as we do not have a tent or the know-how. I know we could invite Guides or other leaders to come along but it a lot of hassle to teach girls a skill which they would definitely never use at Brownies, and many of our girls do not go on to Guides and wouldn't use it there either. We will certainly be seeing which parts of other skills builders we can complete on pack holiday but this is also not fair on the girls that we cannot take. Our pack holiday house can only sleep 18 girls and we have 24+ girls in the unit most of the time (and woe-betide anyone who suggests swapping venues, there would be a mutiny amongst the girls!). In the old programme, there was a badge for each and I am disappointed this has not stayed the same, and have emailed Guiding with that feedback.
Having read the magazine, and looked on GO, it also appears that the only activities you are allowed to do towards the 4 hours for the theme awards are the ones on the Unit Meeting Activity cards. I agree that grab-and-go activities are incredibly helpful, especially for leaders that do not have the time to plan anything else, or other plans have fallen through. However, I feel very restricted by being forced to use them. I have been going to Brownies with Mum since I was a few days old, and she has been doing Brownies for over 30 years and we are both more than capable of creating our own activities that also fit the theme. I have emailed Guiding asking them to clarify, and give my feedback.
I do like the idea of the anniversary badges, however I am not a fan of the colours (the girls may disagree!). The system on GO also doesn't seem to be quite right either, as short gaps between girls being removed from the Rainbow list and added to the Brownie one seem to be counted as time outside of guiding which isn't fair on the girls. I also can't quite see why GO lists times as a decimal number of years, instead of years and months which would be much more intuitive!
Additionally, on a personal note, I am disappointed that the Look Wider badges are being stopped too. I have thoroughly enjoyed working towards mine, and fully intend on finishing them (my District Commissioner has already said she will buy me the 4 badges I am missing ready for when I do complete them). I can see the logic that they are overhauling the Senior Section and splitting it into Rangers and 18-25 year olds but I feel like those of us who had already started the Look Wider should be allowed to continue until we finish or turn 26. I have put at least 5 years work into it now, and am only missing a couple of parts of each Octant (you can see how close I am here) and I'm sure many other girls are in the same situation so it would be a shame for us to miss out due to a technicality.
Reading back over this, it feels very negative. I guess change is hard! I will hopefully find it much easier to get my head around once we have started running this new programme, and maybe the girls will find it much better than the old version. As with all programme changes, we will eventually forget how it used to be and get used to the new version, I guess. After all, the new girls will not know any different!
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my initial reaction? You can email any suggestions and thoughts to ourjourney@girlguiding.org.uk.
Initially, reading the information provided to leaders in the latest Guiding magazine, I was pretty confused. There seems to be a lot of parts to it, which all interlink. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to which parts link together, and what girls have to do to get the theme awards and skills builders. This, however, is something I think we will all get used to pretty quickly once we actually start implementing it.
In terms of interest badges, I was personally disappointed by the choice Brownies now have. I enjoyed having badges related to things the girls do outside of meetings, such as musician, horse rider, and booklover. Personally I loved being able to get a badge for things I loved. In our unit we also use the hostess badge at every promise ceremony. The oldest girl who does not already have her badge is offered the opportunity to do her hostess badge at the promise ceremony of the newest girls. I feel like this teaches them valuable life skills; skills which I still use to this day, such as making tea and coffee, addressing envelopes, and entertaining guests. I do however like the sound of some of the new badges, especially aviation (my sister is training to be a pilot and there are almost no girls there), inventing, and space. A few of the others sound a bit odd, like mindfulness, zero waste, and archaeology. As a graduate software engineer, I am also slightly disappointed that there is no coding or computing badge in the new programme (yes, I have seen the Google badge which is a step in the right direction but very basic). It is slightly annoying that we cannot see any of the syllabuses online either. In our unit, we have a few badge books for girls to flick through and then we direct them online to read the syllabuses. Now, every girl will need a copy of the badge book, or we will have to photocopy the unit copy (not sure where we stand on that either). It would also be helpful for us leaders to be able to see what girls needed to do so we can encourage them to do them. Time will only tell if the girls actually complete them at home too, currently very few girls from our unit do, and most of the time they only get ones we complete as a unit.
I think the skills builders are a really nice idea, and help girls develop skills across all the sections. I am however, annoyed that there is a camping skills builder but no skills buiilder that can be obtained by going on an indoor residential. Personally, we do not take girls camping as none of our other leaders enjoy sleeping in tents and this means that they cannot complete level 2 of the camp skills builder as this requires them to put up and take down a tent. We cannot offer this as we do not have a tent or the know-how. I know we could invite Guides or other leaders to come along but it a lot of hassle to teach girls a skill which they would definitely never use at Brownies, and many of our girls do not go on to Guides and wouldn't use it there either. We will certainly be seeing which parts of other skills builders we can complete on pack holiday but this is also not fair on the girls that we cannot take. Our pack holiday house can only sleep 18 girls and we have 24+ girls in the unit most of the time (and woe-betide anyone who suggests swapping venues, there would be a mutiny amongst the girls!). In the old programme, there was a badge for each and I am disappointed this has not stayed the same, and have emailed Guiding with that feedback.
Having read the magazine, and looked on GO, it also appears that the only activities you are allowed to do towards the 4 hours for the theme awards are the ones on the Unit Meeting Activity cards. I agree that grab-and-go activities are incredibly helpful, especially for leaders that do not have the time to plan anything else, or other plans have fallen through. However, I feel very restricted by being forced to use them. I have been going to Brownies with Mum since I was a few days old, and she has been doing Brownies for over 30 years and we are both more than capable of creating our own activities that also fit the theme. I have emailed Guiding asking them to clarify, and give my feedback.
I do like the idea of the anniversary badges, however I am not a fan of the colours (the girls may disagree!). The system on GO also doesn't seem to be quite right either, as short gaps between girls being removed from the Rainbow list and added to the Brownie one seem to be counted as time outside of guiding which isn't fair on the girls. I also can't quite see why GO lists times as a decimal number of years, instead of years and months which would be much more intuitive!
Additionally, on a personal note, I am disappointed that the Look Wider badges are being stopped too. I have thoroughly enjoyed working towards mine, and fully intend on finishing them (my District Commissioner has already said she will buy me the 4 badges I am missing ready for when I do complete them). I can see the logic that they are overhauling the Senior Section and splitting it into Rangers and 18-25 year olds but I feel like those of us who had already started the Look Wider should be allowed to continue until we finish or turn 26. I have put at least 5 years work into it now, and am only missing a couple of parts of each Octant (you can see how close I am here) and I'm sure many other girls are in the same situation so it would be a shame for us to miss out due to a technicality.
Reading back over this, it feels very negative. I guess change is hard! I will hopefully find it much easier to get my head around once we have started running this new programme, and maybe the girls will find it much better than the old version. As with all programme changes, we will eventually forget how it used to be and get used to the new version, I guess. After all, the new girls will not know any different!
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my initial reaction? You can email any suggestions and thoughts to ourjourney@girlguiding.org.uk.
Monday, 6 August 2018
Starting Queen's Guide!
On the 17th July, I officially started my Queen's Guide Award! For those of you who don't know, the Queen's Guide is the highest award you can earn in Girlguiding, and is similar to the DofE Gold Award. You have 3 years to complete it once you have started and you must also complete it before your 26th birthday.
It consists of 4 sections: Service in Guiding, Outdoor Challenge, Personal Skill & Development, and Community Action. Each of these have various sub-elements which must all be completed. You also have to go on a residential with a group of people you do not know.
I am going to be documenting my progress on this blog, alongside my regular meetings. Click the link in the top navigation bar to see what stage I am at in planning and completing each element! Hopefully this will serve as an interesting insight into what things you could possibly do for your Queen's Guide if you are thinking of starting it.
It consists of 4 sections: Service in Guiding, Outdoor Challenge, Personal Skill & Development, and Community Action. Each of these have various sub-elements which must all be completed. You also have to go on a residential with a group of people you do not know.
I am going to be documenting my progress on this blog, alongside my regular meetings. Click the link in the top navigation bar to see what stage I am at in planning and completing each element! Hopefully this will serve as an interesting insight into what things you could possibly do for your Queen's Guide if you are thinking of starting it.
Monday, 23 July 2018
Grass Sledging and Archery
19/07/18
This evening we finally managed to get back up to our local campsite and went grass sledging and did archery. We had a 2 hour meeting instead of our usual 90 minutes and split the girls into two groups as there could only be 12 doing archery at one time. I took the first group through to get the grass sledges and our first challenge was pulling them up to the top of the hill! They are stored in a shed at the bottom of the slope and are quite heavy! We took 6 sledges and eventually made it to the top. We did a quick safety brief on how to slow down, turn, stop, and where to walk to pull them back up to the top and then we set the first girls off. The rule is that no more than 2 people can be on the slope at a time which is pretty good because it spaces out the girls eventually as it takes them a while to pull it back up again. We only had one major crash where one girl couldn't work out how to steer and crashed into the strip of long grass that runs up each side of the run and flipped out of her sledge. She claimed her wrist was hurting but she could move all her fingers and then part way up the hill swapped hands so she was pulling the sledge with that hand so I was happy that nothing major was wrong with it! I spent most of my time at the top giving girls push starts, chatting to the ones who were waiting at the top, and ensuring everyone had an even number of turns. We then swapped groups and I stayed at the grass sledging area. We got the first group to leave the sledges at the bottom at the end of their last turn and the second group pulled them up to the top (we thought it was only fair as the first group had to pull them up before their first turn too!). I gave another safety brief to the second group and then set them off as with the first group. The second group was a slightly older group (we had let them decide what group to be in) and so they needed less help to organise themselves and so I chatted to the other leaders about some plans for next term and pack holiday.
As we neared the end of the secod hour, we got the girls to wait at the bottom with their sledge after their last turn. It worked out quite nicely that everyone had had 6 turns and we had one sledge left at the top so we loaded it up with all the water bottles that had been left at the top and got one of the girls to pull it down for us! We then watched the last few girls have their turn at archery and then we did the Brownie circle and gave presents to a Brownie, a Young Leader, and an Adult Leader who are all leaving us before sending all the girls home.
This was a nice relaxed evening and didn't require much work from a leaders perspective, except turning up and using the equipment! And the girls thoroughly enjoyed being outside and having fun. If you have a campsite or activity centre nearby that you can use, definitely look into it for an evening in September when it is still warm and dry enough to make use of it!
This evening we finally managed to get back up to our local campsite and went grass sledging and did archery. We had a 2 hour meeting instead of our usual 90 minutes and split the girls into two groups as there could only be 12 doing archery at one time. I took the first group through to get the grass sledges and our first challenge was pulling them up to the top of the hill! They are stored in a shed at the bottom of the slope and are quite heavy! We took 6 sledges and eventually made it to the top. We did a quick safety brief on how to slow down, turn, stop, and where to walk to pull them back up to the top and then we set the first girls off. The rule is that no more than 2 people can be on the slope at a time which is pretty good because it spaces out the girls eventually as it takes them a while to pull it back up again. We only had one major crash where one girl couldn't work out how to steer and crashed into the strip of long grass that runs up each side of the run and flipped out of her sledge. She claimed her wrist was hurting but she could move all her fingers and then part way up the hill swapped hands so she was pulling the sledge with that hand so I was happy that nothing major was wrong with it! I spent most of my time at the top giving girls push starts, chatting to the ones who were waiting at the top, and ensuring everyone had an even number of turns. We then swapped groups and I stayed at the grass sledging area. We got the first group to leave the sledges at the bottom at the end of their last turn and the second group pulled them up to the top (we thought it was only fair as the first group had to pull them up before their first turn too!). I gave another safety brief to the second group and then set them off as with the first group. The second group was a slightly older group (we had let them decide what group to be in) and so they needed less help to organise themselves and so I chatted to the other leaders about some plans for next term and pack holiday.
As we neared the end of the secod hour, we got the girls to wait at the bottom with their sledge after their last turn. It worked out quite nicely that everyone had had 6 turns and we had one sledge left at the top so we loaded it up with all the water bottles that had been left at the top and got one of the girls to pull it down for us! We then watched the last few girls have their turn at archery and then we did the Brownie circle and gave presents to a Brownie, a Young Leader, and an Adult Leader who are all leaving us before sending all the girls home.
This was a nice relaxed evening and didn't require much work from a leaders perspective, except turning up and using the equipment! And the girls thoroughly enjoyed being outside and having fun. If you have a campsite or activity centre nearby that you can use, definitely look into it for an evening in September when it is still warm and dry enough to make use of it!
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This is our last meeting until September, regular posts will resume on September 10th, although look out for an exciting announcement coming in the next few weeks!
Monday, 18 June 2018
Tunnelling
07/06/18
This week we went to the local Guiding headquarters to go grass sledging and tunneling. Unfortunately, it started raining as we left to go up there so we couldn't grass sledge as the brakes would not work on wet grass. Instead, we just did the tunnels with all the girls at once, instead of half and half.
We met the girls in the car park and then walked up the hill to the tunnels, which luckily are under a giant tree so the leaders don't get soaked while the girls are in them! We made a pile of water bottles and some leaders went round removing the plastic stoppers from the ends of all the tunnels which keep animals out. We then did a quick safety brief for the girls: essentially, which holes were the entrances to each tunnel system, and that we had head torches and knee pads if they needed them. There are three tunnel systems here, one is a simple straight line where you can see the other end which most of the girls go through first, to get a feel for what the tunnels are like inside. There is then one which is like a lowercase letter 'h' with a bit of a bend in the left hand leg so you can't see any exits when you go in. The final one has about 6 exits and part of it goes round in a circle so the girls can really explore.
We then started handing out head torches. There are not enough for all the girls to have one, so we said they should line up at the entrance to the tunnel they wanted to go in and anyone who had just come out of a tunnel had to go and give their torch to someone at the front of a line. Some of the girls decided that they didn't want to wait for torches and they would go in without one.
I spent most of my time stood near the entrances, making sure there were no arguments about the torches, and that girls weren't left waiting for too long. We then had the problem that the torches were running out of batteries so Brown Owl went to find the organiser to get some more. She came back with a box of 48 so we were set then!
One of the girls came over to me part way through and said that people kept getting stuck in a dead end and were scared so I asked her to take me to the dead end because we were pretty sure there weren't any. We climbed over the tunnels to a point where a tunnel seemed to disappear into the nettles at the endge of the field. I was explaining to the girl that even if there was supposed to be a way out, they wouldn't want come out of it or they would get stung when I realised that it actually did a 90 degree left turn so we followed it a bit more and lo and behold, there was still a stopper on the end! I took it off and let the girls know that there was no longer a dead end!
A bit later, I caught site of some girls playing next to an exit, and then a small flash of something black rolling. I headed over there quickly, confusing Brown Owl as I thrust spare batteries back in her hand and disappeared at speed! As I came out from under the trees, I realised that some of the older girls were attempting to roll one of the stoppers down the hill. I shouted at them to stop and then made them roll it back up the bit of the hill it had gone down, while explaining to them that that was quite dangerous, especially as there is a tented village at the bottom of the hill!
We eventually had to tell the girls to get out of the tunnels - they didn't want to leave! The leaders quickly went round putting the stoppers back on and then we headed back down to meet the parents.
This meeting, although not quite as planned, still went very well. If we do it again though, we will suggest to the girls to bring their own torch as that then stops them spending time waiting around for a head torch. We have also asked if there any other dates than we could reattempt the grass sledging as the girls were annoyed that we couldn't do it.
This week we went to the local Guiding headquarters to go grass sledging and tunneling. Unfortunately, it started raining as we left to go up there so we couldn't grass sledge as the brakes would not work on wet grass. Instead, we just did the tunnels with all the girls at once, instead of half and half.
We met the girls in the car park and then walked up the hill to the tunnels, which luckily are under a giant tree so the leaders don't get soaked while the girls are in them! We made a pile of water bottles and some leaders went round removing the plastic stoppers from the ends of all the tunnels which keep animals out. We then did a quick safety brief for the girls: essentially, which holes were the entrances to each tunnel system, and that we had head torches and knee pads if they needed them. There are three tunnel systems here, one is a simple straight line where you can see the other end which most of the girls go through first, to get a feel for what the tunnels are like inside. There is then one which is like a lowercase letter 'h' with a bit of a bend in the left hand leg so you can't see any exits when you go in. The final one has about 6 exits and part of it goes round in a circle so the girls can really explore.
 |
| Small tunnel system |
 |
| Loop of large tunnel system |
We then started handing out head torches. There are not enough for all the girls to have one, so we said they should line up at the entrance to the tunnel they wanted to go in and anyone who had just come out of a tunnel had to go and give their torch to someone at the front of a line. Some of the girls decided that they didn't want to wait for torches and they would go in without one.
I spent most of my time stood near the entrances, making sure there were no arguments about the torches, and that girls weren't left waiting for too long. We then had the problem that the torches were running out of batteries so Brown Owl went to find the organiser to get some more. She came back with a box of 48 so we were set then!
One of the girls came over to me part way through and said that people kept getting stuck in a dead end and were scared so I asked her to take me to the dead end because we were pretty sure there weren't any. We climbed over the tunnels to a point where a tunnel seemed to disappear into the nettles at the endge of the field. I was explaining to the girl that even if there was supposed to be a way out, they wouldn't want come out of it or they would get stung when I realised that it actually did a 90 degree left turn so we followed it a bit more and lo and behold, there was still a stopper on the end! I took it off and let the girls know that there was no longer a dead end!
A bit later, I caught site of some girls playing next to an exit, and then a small flash of something black rolling. I headed over there quickly, confusing Brown Owl as I thrust spare batteries back in her hand and disappeared at speed! As I came out from under the trees, I realised that some of the older girls were attempting to roll one of the stoppers down the hill. I shouted at them to stop and then made them roll it back up the bit of the hill it had gone down, while explaining to them that that was quite dangerous, especially as there is a tented village at the bottom of the hill!
We eventually had to tell the girls to get out of the tunnels - they didn't want to leave! The leaders quickly went round putting the stoppers back on and then we headed back down to meet the parents.
This meeting, although not quite as planned, still went very well. If we do it again though, we will suggest to the girls to bring their own torch as that then stops them spending time waiting around for a head torch. We have also asked if there any other dates than we could reattempt the grass sledging as the girls were annoyed that we couldn't do it.
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I am now going on holiday and graduating so there will be no new posts until July 23rd 2018.
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