Flat Brownie pays a visit

I volunteered to receive a flat brownie on behalf of our Ranger unit in a Guiding forum. I had no idea what to expect but it turns out it's a marvellous idea.

A drawn brownie (albeit in her school uniform!) turned up with a diary to fill out of her adventures.

I've enjoyed writing parts of her diary but the Rangers also immediately took to the idea and have filled it out too. 

I took her geocaching with me alone, we were chased but young cows and I wrote up her tale of it.  

She went to Rangers and 'did' temporary mehindi with them, they wrote up about it.

She went geocaching with the brownies They loved the idea that she came from another unit and was going back to them. They asked if they could make one to send somewhere too.

 

She came on the Big Brownie Sleepover with us.  Our very tired Young Leaders, that had been up most of the night with chatty brownies, wrote up the diary.  They mention not sleeping a lot!














I've taken photos of her with different things she has done, like eating smores.

And I've put some into the diary.

She is coming on our 'Elephant trail' with us and then she will be sent home for her 'owners' to read all about what she has been doing.
 

I would do this again.  I've found it fun, not overly onerous and it's good for the Rangers to be raising their profile with the younger girls.  When I've asked brownies, they mostly don't know what Rangers or the Senior Section are and I have found many Guides to be the same.  It seems to have fallen off the radar a bit around here and I'm trying hard to bring us back into the heart of Guiding in our area.

 

Read more...

#widrn It's all wires and papers really

This week's gallery is "What I’m Doing Right Now #widrn"

As in: exactly what was I doing when I read the theme for the gallery?  Well, reading the blog post obviously!  

But you can at least note all the wires I've got lying around.  Mainly because my KVM switch gave up the ghost a while back and I've not got around to replacing it yet so I'm forever swapping cables around.

I was sat at my desk because I'd been here for hours already.  I'd written up the minutes to the Division meeting I went to last week.  I'd mailed the school most of the Rangers go to in order to ask for permission for them to do the 'wear your uniform to school' day.  I'd rang the train company to get group ticket prices for our London trip in the summer, added this to my budget spreadsheet and typed up a letter about it for the girls and printed them.  I've done a 'dates for your diary' letter for Rangers and printed a mass of them.  I write the girls name on each letter so I know who's been given one or not. I've sent the dates to the Rainbow leader who I know has a lot of Young Leaders that aren't involved with Senior Section and had an email discussion with her about how to get them involved. I've updated my paper work for the residential qualification I am doing so I can take the girls away to London.  I've up dated my paper work for my Adult Leader Qualification Module I am having to do because I am currently Guider in Charge.  I'd done my expenses for all the bits and pieces I've bought for the elephants we are making at Rangers this week.  I've updated the records for the leaders in the Division that are currently being mentored whilst they take Leader qualifications as I currently have the role of Division Adult Support. And sent off lots of mails asking questions about where they are at with them. To be blunt I've spent most of the late afternoon and evening doing Guiding paper work.  It's a drain.

I've also been looking through the boxes of seeds and insect houses I've received from Kew and trying to work out what we need to do with them.

I've sent emails to the Guide Unit leaders asking them to help me with transferring girls to Rangers and ideas for how we can do it.

I think this list could go on forever!

And I've tried to follow the #FridayTwiz whilst I did all that.  It's something I used to have time to join in with.

Currently I seem to have no time to myself at all.

My calendar is awash with Guiding.

It's a guiding life !

Read more...

T-shirt up-cycling

You might recall a long time ago I messed around with 'redesigning' old t-shirts and we also did it as an activity at Rangers.

Turning a t-shirt that looks like this.

Into something more like this.

and this.

I took the evening into a local Guide unit and ran it for them there.  They really enjoyed it.  It is really easy to do.  They just need an old jersey t-shirt and a pair of sharp scissors.

 With very little guidance they were off, making neckbands, headbands, cutting arms, lacing sides, all manner of their own ideas.

They enjoyed a fashion show at the end of it too.

A really good night.

If you are interested to learn more Salina has the best set of tutorials I have found on YouTube.

Read more...

Guiding BigGig 2012

I had yet another privileged opportunity because of GuidingUK yesterday.  The BigGig is just that, a huge concert put on just for members aged 10 and over. Our fantastic District Commissioner, despite not being a Guide or Ranger Guider, organised for a coach from our district to go to Sheffield.  I was very happy to go along as an extra leader.  With a headcount of 1 to 5 it's easy peazy lemon squeezy and I get to have fun too.

Although I realised on arrival I was seriously under dressed. Note to self: next year buy tutu and wig.

The line-up was fantastic: JLS, Conor Maynard, Little Mix, Amelia Lily, Loveable Rogues, Lawson, Scouting for Girls, and others.

I decided to leave the squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeling Guides  at the end of JLS and nip to the loo.

And this shows how much the girls were enjoying the show,  12,000 girls in the venue and all stalls empty!

I was impressed that everyone on stage seemed to grab the Guiding ethos with both hands.  There were no over or under the top clothes, no inappropriate dancing, just talented people doing what they are good at without any level of sexualisation whatsoever.  Amelia Lily did come out.....as an ex-Guide.

Little Mix were great role models and the screaming Guides showed their appreciation very loudly.

This was a really easy night for me, literally on the bus, off the bus, short walk to the venue, no queueing, straight in, and the older girls were free to roam to the loos, drinks stall in groups. We did the usual: allocate girls to individual leaders for regular head counting, wrist labelled them with an emergency phone number for them to ring if they got lost. But this really felt like a safe space, full of Guiders, Guides and no others.  There was no stress, just dancing, singing, shouting, screaming, laughing, happy Guides and a lot of older bemused Guiders!

I know that this was the first experience of a concert for a lot of the Guides we took including COG.  And what an exhilarating experience, what a great unintimidating way to give them confidence to want to do it again.

I had a slight wobble as we were leaving when one of my 'head count' dashed off with another of our Leaders, I wasn't squeezing my peazy lemon at that point.  But a few swift text messages between leaders to our Guider in Charge and we knew exactly where all our girls were and we were all on the coach within 15 minutes of the concert finishing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we are really lucky to have some wonderful commissioners at the moment who are prepared to go the extra mile to make sure the girls in our area get to go to these opportunities.  If you are thinking about going next year DO IT.  Your Girls will remember it forever and you will have a ball too.

Read more...

Where's Kelloggsville?

No, I'm not in a crowd of Romans wearing a striped shirt.

I am doing a Parenting Teenagers course, I'll tell you all about it when I'm finished it.

I am trying to (re)do part of my Adult Leaders Qualification because I have changed sections and if you move, you have to retrain and prove you are capable.  Guiders are not just mums entertaining children, we have a full program, method of delivery, standards and rules. These are all common but change as the ages of the girls change and we must be fully up to date and able to deliver the program and be able to develop the girls we are responsible for.  So I have a bit of work to do on that right now too.

I am starting to plan our international trip to Europe next summer...did I mention I volunteered to travel around Europe with teenagers I don't know for my summer hols next year, and pay for the privilege! 

I have our County Leader's meal this weekend and the Big Gig in Sheffield next weekend.

I do this on top of working full time and running the family....

.....sooooooo, I think I am saying that the writing might be a little light on the page for a while because I am a busy Betty-Boo doing the do  earworm for you!

I'll leave you with my current favourite photos from one of our recent camps:

I call this 'spot the Ranger'.  There really isn't much to put between Senior Section and Rainbows.

COG ran her own craft table for Rainbows, Brownies and Guides.  I was impressed.

This craft she found funniest though, the little rainbows kept prodding her saying "'scuse me, 'scuse me".  Bless.

Read more...

Sharing a commitment to a common standard

 "Sharing a commitment to a common standard" is one of Guiding's Five Essentials.

Just recently I have been to a lot of cross sectional/cross district/cross division events. To the unintiated, this means girls of all ages from different units all getting together at the same thing.

It makes a big difference to the way the girls interact with each other.  Today we had Brownies from 3 different units all stood in the same area and before long they were talking about the London Jubilee Trip just gone, about a planned trip and then school.  The girls start to realise that Brownies is bigger than their unit, that there are lots of us.  Yes they go to events with Brownies in their hundreds sometimes but these smaller groups of mixed girls work like magic.

Girls from 2 Rainbow units were there, a handful of Guides (aren't all Guides a handful?!) and to top it off I had Rangers make an appearance too.  The more of these events we have, the better the leaders get to know each other, the more of these events we have and Guiding grows.

Growing Guiding means we can do more of the good stuff.  That's not cheering torches, or Royal Family, it's not making crafts, playing games, sleepovers at space centres or pond dipping on pack holiday.  No, the good stuff is teaching our girls how to be great citizens, upstanding people, honest, caring, hard working (the people that are going to pay for your pension, not drain it!).  Oh by the way, we teach them that very skillfully by cheering torches and Royal Family, making crafts, playing games.....!

If you are in any doubt about how our older girls have an effect on the younger ones, look at the way this Brownie is looking up at the Guide.  The Rainbows were looking at the Brownies like that too.  And me?  Well see the lady in the background? I look up to her and and my DC.  They have the leadership skills a big corporation board would die for.  They create the motivation, the enthusiasm and do a lot of hard work to make sure these events happen.

If you are thinking of interviewing people anytime soon you'd do well to take note of any Guiding commitment.  Women with this background can move mountains.

Oh yes, sorry, I forget to mention we saw the Olympic Torch.  The Olympic Athletes also share a common commitment and the rest of us get swept into the good feeling it generates.  I rather like it.

Read more...