Rangers online Escape rooms

A few weeks ago we started with a quite quick and fairly straight forward Harry Potter Escape room freely available at:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflNxNM0jzbZJjUqOcXkwhGTfii4CM_CA3kCxImbY8c3AABEA/viewform

It took the Rangers maybe 20 mins to get through it.

So another week we moved onto the www.saintmichaelsscouts.org.uk/escape/

They enjoyed this one more, it is really well done and you moved interactively around rooms hunting for objects and solving clues.

You need to register in advance, and it would be good to make a donation.



We had 4 working on it all together as a group, they said afterwards that maybe it would have been more controlled if they still all went in as individuals but only one person was doing the typing.  

Do look at the hints (I printed them out and used them to guide a little at the beginning.) Also note that you cannot start the meeting and join it from the same computer it does mess it up.

It took the Rangers about an hour to do this escape room challenge. 

To pad time out to the end of the meeting they did the Camp Mystery.  You can download it from here

This is not my resource, I cannot remember where I picked it up from and if you want to claim copyright of it, please contact me

This took the Rangers about 15 minutes as a group, with me screen sharing it and reading the clues and them telling me what to type in to help them solve it.

It's easy for this age, but everything in life doesn't have to be hard, as long as it is fun!

So where we are headed next if they fancy another night at it is one of the following:

https://www.escapedurham.co.uk/mr-x

https://www.escapedurham.co.uk/thehunters

A Scouty one:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFLHw9zTCyOAP5AbgQlJwC9b4_k_F3qx1bltOaF5vOjxV48w/viewform

And a what-3-words trail :

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepBDLBp9dDgAI_uYTYNOdxXJa4YqWz3wiKujvSGZofV2cbGA/viewform

So plenty of resources to keep any group of Rangers keen on this type of activity going through a couple of virtual meetings.

Have Fun.

Welcome to our Escape Room Experience. I created this escape room experience for my scouts to play during the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK as part of our virtual meetings. It proved a great hit with both the scouts and their families so I have decided to release it to the wider scouting community to....

Read more...

Rangers Expect the Unexpected and Alphabetical Scavenger hunt - online meeting

We started the online meeting night with the UMA Expect the Unexpected.

The girls were basically doing  improvisation and we followed the card fairly well until they needed to 'stay in character' for a wacky part and some of my quieter girls were really struggling.  Luckily another Ranger came to the rescue by randomly talking about a childhood book she'd been reminded off during the course of the activity.  The little Mole who knew it was none of his business.  Which basically led to each ranger being an animal and stating why they knew it wasn't their poo on the moles head.  Yes bizarre but it did set the ball rolling, the girl's imaginations working and them in fits of laughter.

This led very nicely into a meeting idea from a Ranger leader in a leader's online forum.  An Alphabetical scavenger hunt. I sent the girls off to find something starting with each letter from the work ALPHABETICAL.

They all showed their article for each letter in turn.

If they were the only one to have the object then they got a point.  If anyone else had the same object, neither of them got a point.

It was also really good fun and I felt it tied in nicely to the 'improvisation' skills night as they tried to justify why their object was totally different to the other girls, despite them being the same thing!!

Read more...

Rangers Get Rafty - online meeting

 Get Rafty UMA worked really well on line

As preparation I asked them to prototype a raft they could float in a bowl of water and it should be able to carry a cup of water and then told them they would need to make it from scratch during the meeting and float it.


And so they did

 Some were simple - but it worked!

 Some were lashed to perfection

 And floated very well - this Ranger will be an engineer when she is older or I will eat my hat - she designs some very clever things naturally in many of our meetings.

 There were a lot of corks being used in many rafts - they all assured me it was because there were plenty in the houses at the moment!

 Odd concept but again it achieved the original specification!

 They all really enjoyed doing it.

I recommend this one for an online (outdoor) meeting

We will do this one again when we can get together and head out for a walk up the river to float rafts properly.

Read more...

Rangers Land Art - online meeting

 Another UMA that worked really well online was Land Art

I just read the card out to them and set them off on it.

 A life size mermaid  ("What I want to be")

 "Where I am right now"

 "My home town"

The hill it is on, the countryside, the industrialisation and new builds are all in here.

 "The holiday I didn't have"

This image left me completely moved and will be the lasting image of the current lock down that I remember for many. many year to come.

Profound.

Read more...

Rangers 20 random things - online meeting

We needed to get Reflect Stage 5 Constructive Communities finished to allow 1 ranger to finish a theme.  It felt like a tricky challenge to do online

We started with tower building, each of them had been told to have random things ready to build a tower.  Some of them were more random than others




















but this alone was not enough to meet an aim of co-operation and compromise.




















But another leader had posted a 20 Random things exercise into a forum so I asked the Rangers to bring 20 random things to the meeting too.   And then read out this list to them one thing at a time:

1. Something made of a textile
2. The oldest thing in your collection
3. Something with writing on it
4. Something with a story that you’d like to share.
5. Something heavy
6. Something you made
7. Something damaged
8. Something that was a gift
9. The thing you’ve had longest
10. Something you bought yourself
11. The most brightly-coloured thing you have left
12. Something you’d like to give away
13. Something that you’ve given a name to
14. Your most recent acquisition from what’s left
15. Something that makes you smile
16. Something that you can’t think why you’ve kept it
17. The softest thing you have left
18. Something hard
19. You decide what to get rid of this round – there’s only one round left!
20. And finally – something that is only one colour

Items can be used once only, and then put aside. The aim is to be sufficiently ingenious to have nothing left at the end!  And one of them managed it.

But here is the twist, I did it a second time with them and the challenge was they all had to finish with nothing or they all lost but item 'swapping' between them was allowed.  They had to work together as a group working out what items they might 'trade' to ensure they all got through every round.

It worked well, they talked about their things, shared their things (virtually) and more of them ended up with no things at the end.

It felt like a sterling team effort from them and the 'I want to win' nature of some of them was challenged hard.

So acknowledgement to Caroline Selwyn-Jones for a great idea for an online night, which I then hacked into a team came, and hammered into a skills builder!!

Flexible Guiding rules!

Read more...

Subs for online meetings and spreading Guiding good.

Pre lockdown life I was running Rangers meeting every two weeks.  Week on, week off was less onerous for me.  I had time to get plans together, get accounts done and all the other gazillion paper work jobs that come with running a unit.

Once girlguiding sent out the notice that meetings were to stop (a week or so before the government lockdown came into force) I knew I needed to move online.

It was no stress, online meetings are my life at work, I know it works fine and activities would present themselves if I spent a bit of time thinking about it.

I reviewed software I already use like Skype, web-ex, gotomeeting but ultimately Zoom won through sheer ease of use and with careful use of security controls it would be safe.  I was eye rolling in the extreme as the media went wild about meetings being zoom-bombed etc.   It's not so hard to apply some basic security that means most triers will just no bother with your meeting and move on!

I also decided a paid for account would be best, no messing with timeouts, guaranteed feature usage rather than an at a whim "no longer available to free accounts" and I also hoped for some bandwidth priority to paying customers.  This is easy to justify as a unit expense and actually less expensive than rent.

The girls got on really well with it and really enjoyed the time they were 'virtually' spending together.  So we upped to weekly and sometimes twice weekly meetings and they started to fly through the programme and badges...now I am having to buy a lot of badges.

So whilst I am not buying biscuits and other normal meeting type expenses I am paying virtual rent and paying for badges.   To ask for subs or not to ask for subs?   This is a difficult question, many parents will be furloughed or without work but at the same time I am now putting in 3 times as much effort to delivering meetings and support  (for usual volunteer free though) , and I have the unit expenses to pay out.  

So after a long thunk I decided  to ask for a payment of one quarter of the normal subs, made it very clear it was a voluntary contribution not a required payment and that I would only ask for it once and never chase for payment again.

So far a few parents have sent the money through but I think what has made me more heartened than anything is the comments that have come with it:

"Thank you so much for putting on the sessions via Zoom, she has really enjoyed these so far, it's great for the girls to still be able to get together as a group & have some chilled out fun and giggles"

"I think the meetings you've been doing with them have been brilliant and she has got loads from them."

"last night sounded so much fun. A much needed morale boost. thank you"

"Many thanks for doing the meetings it is definitely a highlight of her week."

"Wanted to say thank you for all your hard work with rangers online- it really does make a difference giving them some structure still.  Its lovely hearing her chatter and laughter from upstairs.  You're doing a fab job and it's really appreciated by rangers and parents"

And that is why I am a guider, I make a difference to a few girls lives.  And those few girls will develop more because of that and they in turn will do the same for others. 

It's the same exponential growth as a virus except with only good bits!

Read more...