Learning to Lead for Brownies

There was a training day happening in my area and I been feeling a bit out of the Guiding loop recently, not seeing many people, so I volunteered to go and help out for the day.  Not being a trainer I offered my services as car park attendant (I love the hi-vis work!), tea maker and general clearerupper.  Many hands make light work and offers of help like that are rarely going to be turned down.

So my cold day started as a meet and greet.  You see the relief on parent's faces as they see the uniform and know they have arrived at the right place and you see the smile on the Brownie's faces as I wave and grin at them.  I think it makes for a happy start to the day.

 I then moved straight on to gluing bits and pieces for the trainers.

There were the trainers there, some peer-educators (Senior Section girls trained  to deliver specific training courses), myself as a spare hand and the leaders that had come with the brownies and were also receiving training alongside them.  In total there were 17 adults for 30 girls.

That is a lot of guiding leaders giving up their spare time voluntarily for a few girls I thought.  (It's only an hour a week Leaders always joke - this was a 7 hour day!!)

I was deliberating over whether it was worth that many adults giving up time for so few girls, but this training was for the older brownies the ones that were sixers and seconders, they have a level of responsibility in the unit themselves.  It was to help them 'do their job' and to help their leaders let them do it.

As a leader it can sometimes be hard to 'let go of the reins' and let the girls do it themselves.  And we are an organisation that is girl lead.

The training given (by the volunteer trainers) was very much like work training sessions I have been on for management and team building trainings.  The exercises seemed quite similar.

As the girls worked through the day on different exercises, making things in teams, learning about their different leadership styles I could see them growing.

They learnt about communication, democracy, inclusion.

By the end of the day in groups of 6, with other brownies they had never met before, they chose a theme, planned a meeting night around it, set a time table, budgeted and wrote lists of what they needed.

And they stood up and presented it to the adults there.  It was a huge achievement.

I think they wouldn't have believed at the start of the day they were capable of it.

I wish their parents could see this sort of thing as it unfolds, they would be so proud.

I've been having a hard time at work myself recently with a new manager that has not had any training himself in leadership skills.

 I was thinking whilst watching these girls develop, if they only carry through a small bit of what they learnt here beyond Guiding and into their later lives they could transform the lives of people like myself working for people without these skills.  If every one of those 30 brownies has 10 people working for them, that's 300 people  touched right there.  When I think about the benefits of this long term that's when I know the time is worth giving up and know we are doing the right thing developing these children now for the future.

Read more...

Christmas is here Charlie Brown

"Of all of the Charlie Browns in the world you are the Charlie Brownest"



I make no excuses for showing you this again, in fact it has become a bloggety Christmas tradition for me.  So just kick back and enjoy the familiarity.

Read more...

London - a quick turn around

Cog had tickets to see a band, so we went into London together, a first class treat and a very fine hotel.

We started at Covent Garden which felt very christmassy.

Although there was the 'odd' shopper

The smell of mulled wine added to the atmosphere.

The shop to which I pay my salary directly is always a lighting treat, the odd shopper was still there!

We had a wander around and then went for a meal

We walked across to Carnaby street.

I always find the area a disappointment but Cog likes it.

I liked these.

Regent Street was a London as ever, it really is just about as London as it gets at any time of year I think.

The O2 had made an effort.

But again, when would it not look impressive.

And St Pancras on a misty early morning looked as though Peter and Wendy were flying past.

It was a perfect trip start to end.  A good train service, a good shop, an especially good hotel (The Great Northern at St Pancras), a fantastic concert (so Cog tells me), a fine few hours spent killing time whilst I waited for her, a fun trip across London with thousands of others and all in one tube carriage as far as we could tell, a 1am cup of tea and mince pie with a cracking view of Station happenings, a good (if short sleep), and a first class journey home to get Cog to work in the morning.

A grand adventure.

Read more...

My last primary school Christmas service - possibly!

 Since 2004 I have been helping the school out with their 3 times a year whole school visits to our local church. The services are done in 3 'sittings' as the church can only fit a third of the school at a time.

This year the religious education lead is retiring.  I guess it's an opportunity for me to 'retire' too.

For as long as I can remember I've gone up to school for 9am (taking tea, coffee, sugar, milk), walked the 15 or so children that will be 'performers' to church.  Helped them get into costumes, put out comment slips and pencils, handed out service sheets, greeted and smiled, fetched chairs, collected up service sheets, dashed to the church hall to get the kettle on and make juice for the performers and choir and put out biscuits, made tea and coffee for the adults, washed up, put break time away.  Greeted the next set of parents and pupils with service sheets, collected them up again, walked children back to school.  Walked home for dinner, walked back up to school, walked them down to church again, done it all over again (without the tea break), walked them back to school and done.


All this is interspersed in church with parents to be helped with prams, crying babies, running around toddlers, bleeding noses, and this year a sick bowl and chair in the vestry!!!

And I've loved every second of it.  It's always felt such a privilege to be part of school life for a short time and even more so after Cog left the school.


I've guided little tots down the aisles. I'll never forget the year we had 3 Marys because the first one was poorly and the second one crumbled into tears and didn't want to walk down the aisle.  They are only 4 years old bless them.

Each years I think I recognise a child and then realise that it can't be them, that child is 17 years old now! Funny how similar they look (but then I live in a village with a small gene pool!)

There was the service in the year that the headmaster died, it was hard not to cry through his favourite carol.

The service just 2 days after my friend died, it touched the whole school and was a very hard day.

This year the vicar that has always done the school services died.  He went into school regularly, but the services at church were extra special because he always took animals in to be part of the sermon. A rabbit or a dove, perhaps his quails.  He was sadly missed this year.

The passing of the years marked by familiar traditions with missing people.

But it's not all about sadness, sorry.  The happy children, the bright faces, the beautiful clear voices in cheery songs and actions, the excitement of Christmas coming.  Even the current headmaster's dreadful jokes on his huge handmade advent calendar.  I've loved it all.

I've done Easter, Harvest and Christmas for 12 years.

That's 35 days (1 Easter to go).  I've taken holiday from work to do them or unpaid leave.

That's 105 services.  36 times of helping children put crowns on or sending a tiddler carrying a basket of apples down the aisle.

87 miles walked. 70 pints of milk bought.

Actually, I do hope they will still want me to help again in the future, those numbers do not still well with me at all, not round enough.  I think I should stop when one of them is on a 100!

I'm just not ready to retire!

Read more...

Rangers Ghost Walk

Another Senior Section unit in the division has joined us a few times with different things, I invite them along to help out the new leaders there and to help boost our numbers to make things more viable.  But this time it was our turn to join them in their town.

We went on a local ghost walk.

It's a lovely town regardless, but great with a bit of added spook!

There was a lot of  "at that very window there" talk.

It was great fun, the blue badge guide was fantastic and toned down some of the stories to make them more age appropriate but kept enough of the drama to make the hairs stand on the back of your neck.

Thoroughly recommend it for the Seniors.

Read more...

Florence - the pimp my hutch edition

Bunny is growing.  Bunny was refusing to sleep in her bedroom and was displaying her dissatisfaction by constantly emptying anything I put in there all over the rest of her hutch, upstairs and down and throwing her litter tray around until she blocked her stairs.

So Cog's father gave her an upgrade,  a bedroom twice the size and still in keeping with the rest of the hutch.  She is much happier and now sleeps in there. Snuggly.

Not to be out done, Cog's step-father upgraded the run.



















This is better because with the long dark winter nights upon us, I've not been bringing her in home for a run around.

I doubt we will let the garden look like this all summer and that we will turn it into less of an eye sore but for now it is at least giving her plenty of hop around.

She loves it.

Read more...

Florence II

Florence's cage is ok in terms of can stretch up and hop a bit but I was worried that she was only getting to her run when I could put her in it.

So I got her a pipe.














To come and go as she pleases.

I still think this run is too small.

But for now she has discovered the stairs.





















and I try to give her at least an hour a day in home to have a good run around.

Up and down, up and down.  She follows us around the house.

Florence loves CookingFat and follows her everywhere. CookingFat is tolerating her fairly well.

FatCat is not and cannot be trusted to be in the house with her.

Florence thanks CookingFat's kindness by taking liberties.

and taking the mickey.
















Followed by taking further liberties.
















No cat toy is safe.

Read more...

Christmas Candy-Cane Mice

You need:


Felt
Scissors
Black pens/Googly eyes
Candy-Cane


Cut out body and ears from felt










Cut 2 small vertical slits in head end of body and thread eyes through

Cut 2 small horizontal slits midway in the body

(If you fold the felt in half the opposite way to where you are making the cuts you can just do a small snip and you have your slit - I watched brownies trying to poke scissors through the material and cut slits with it flat)














Thread the candy-cane through the slits in the body and  the ears on the back of the body










Fiddle the ears into shape and add eyes

I drew a quick nose but maybe you could add a little felt nose and some different coloured felt inner ears.

I liked my realistic mouse colour but the brownies made them in many bright colours and they looked lovely.

Read more...