The UK's Most Empowering Charity

There has been a bit of bad press recently about the promise change.  The press have particularly hooked into anything that implies Guiding has dropped God and church halls throwing hissy fits because Guide units meet in them.  I find this particularly irritating when previously they were complaining that we all vowed allegence to an invisible sky fairy.  Do you ever feel you couldn't win with the DailyFail unless you were using it as toilet paper?

Anyhoo, just to clarify ...

"Spiritual development is one of the six aspects of development of girls and young women that Girlguiding focuses on, alongside the social, emotional, moral, intellectual and physical aspects. Spirituality is open and accessible to everyone. It is concerned with the inner life and its meaning and purpose, and with making sense of the world around us. Spiritual development is an independent journey that continues throughout our lives.
Within the guiding programme we define spiritual development as making your own spiritual choices, respecting the spiritual choices of others and achieving inner peace."

I think my God is in there, I think the Church Hall wardens would see that too if we could get clear communication without the media trying to stir up a storm in teacup.

I like the way Guiding is going right now.  The numbers are continuing to grow.  The activities available at a national level are ever increasing.  Events like the Big Gig and Wellies and Wristbands are organised nationally but each region has organised events.  This makes it easier for leaders with little time or without appropriate licenses to give their units opportunities.

Money can be a problem with many of these events. They tend to be expensive but it is relatively speaking, I think they still come in cheaper than if you tried to do these things independently. All the same it ultimately means fund raising, which is hard work, or parents paying out and in so many areas this is a big ask.

There are small things like the accounts packs make accounts easier, online training, download areas, online manuals.

Yes the system we use to access them is flaky in terms of reliability. Yes, getting to grips with some of the new forms can be hard.  In some ways the higher visibility of the program, the manuals, the handbook, the qualifications means that many things feel less flexible but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Common sense must prevail at all times I think and remembering we are in it for the girl's development.  The high visibility of the program, and the ever growing resources enabling that, is working for me.

The whole organisation has a modern feel, it has movement.

I like the Chief Guide we currently have, I like the Chief Executive and I like where they are leading us at the moment.  And I feel like they are listening to us and our needs.

I like the fact that Guides have interest badges again.   I didn't like the change to the cards, I like that someone has listened to that general feeling that we wanted badges back but the new badges are new and vibrant looking.

I may just be post camp, start of new term loved up.  Ask me again by Christmas and I'll be moaning about the girl's not turning up, the paper work or GO but I know I won't be moaning about the program.

But for now it's enough to know we are the UK's most empowering Charity!