Guiders Staff Room Part 2

Seem to have lost my mojo.

We go back tomorrow night, and right now I just can't be bothered :S

How do I get the will back?

One of my rather lovely brownies has just been confirmed to start at a unit next week and is wait listed for Guides after Easter.

Awesome, thanks Becles.

House move:

I always contact the parents to ask if they want to continue guiding then ask for the new address and permission to share info with local unit.

Find relevant district on join us and then make contact. If problem with a reply I track by Facebook

Email tends to be sent to dc with flossie dob membership number xx is moving to address y in x. She would like to continue and is looking for a x unit.

Have copied parents into this email so please contact directly or on this phone number.

Have always been sorted out rather quickly .

I need your advice, lovely ladies. I have just taken on a Rainbows group (was a helper before). One of our girls is moving house and wants to rejoin Rainbows there. Am I supposed to do anything? I noticed that you mentioned house moves get priority on waiting lists. Her mum has not asked for my help but if I should be doing something I want to do it. If it helps, she is moving countries within the UK - I don't know if the rules are different out of England. TIA

that sounds like fun Lucy.

If your area is anything like mine, the girls rarely go to "traditional" birthday parties, but have more things like bowling and ice skating, so they love them as a novelty

momb, I have no experience of that sort of situation at all but seems like you were fair enough to me!

I know it's early to be thinking about this but I'm going to use it for part of the LQ - what are your units planning to mark the Queen's 90th birthday?

I was thinking Rainbows and Brownies could have a joint celebration - sort of afternoon tea but in the evening & with some traditional parlour games. Either fancy dress or just party clothes.

Any thoughts?

I think that your approach was right. Manage your waiting list and transfers only following discussions with the other unit leader and agreement of your own leadership team.

As my nephew would say Tough Tetris. The priority is supposed to be for house moves not queue jumping and skewing the waiting lists.

Stick to your guns as ultimately each unit decides their criteria which can change from term to term or according to your district or unit priorities.

If girls move house, they do get priority. If it's just convenience, no.

Oh god nightmare Momb, I'm not sure what you could have done to be fair!

DC=Div Comm by the way, forgot which board I was on for a moment!

Aaargh! Please tell me I've done the right thing....
I run a large Brownie unit with a big waiting list: right up until this week there were 8 year olds on the list who'd been waiting since they first were 7.
We don't have a feeder Rainbow Unit or Guides in our village, but nearby in villages which also have Brownies, so some girls go to Rainbows elsewhere but come to us for Brownies.
A Brownie parent from a nearby village contacted me in the middle of last term and asked for a transfer as the night of Brownies didn't suit them. I said that I'd put them on the list and that they'd go to the top as a transfer rather than a new recruit.
Within a fortnight of this conversation another 5 families contacted me asking for a transfer because their girls attend our local school or it fits better with other extracurricular clubs or whatever.
The waiting list for the other unit is very short (sometimes none at all), and it occurred to me that I may have set up a situation where parents go to the other unit and then essentially jump to the top of my list.....So I had a rethink, contacted all the transferring families, and said that I'd put them on my list but as they had entered Girlguiding after some of my waiting list had registered on my list, it wouldn't be fair to put them at the top and I'd be assigning places based on age, as they all had a current unit anyway.
DC has been in touch to say that parents are unhappy that they aren't jumping the queue, and that other Brown Owl is unhappy as I'm taking her girls. What should/could I have done differently. Other brown Owl copied in at every stage BTW.

auto correct fail

dialing= diwali

You can use resources from any region.

Laser has some great ones if you're heading to London or anything to do with the big smoke; and of course my current obsessions are the amazing growing up wild pawprints. I love the emphasis on taking the girls out whenever you can but I'm to say that my head has been turned by some pretty badges

Anglia also have some great resources on their site.

girlguidinglaser.org.uk/growingupwild/paw-prints/

www.girlguidinglaser.org.uk/laser-london-challenge/

Both North West and North East England regions will have their own but do use anything from all regions too.
I take it you're not in a particularly diverse area!

Sorry for another thick question - I'm just getting to grips with JoinUs/Go - is there a resources website like that for Northern England or can anyone use them all?

Thanks Becles, I've never tried to organise an outside visitor for anything before! I might include a note in my newsletter & ask the parents first. There's a little Asian grocery shop in town, I might call in there too and see if there's anyone who could help me while I'm in town tomorrow morning to meet my mentor (finally).

Thankyou for the link too - I'll check it out now

Have you thought about asking parents? We've had them in for Hanukkah Ramadan, Chinese new year and dialing. I'm sure that if you contact a local place of worship, different types of bakeries or restaurants you could go with the oldie but goodie standby - food...

Check out the Girlguiding South-West England resource 'Make it Multicultural' for some more ideas.

www.girlguidingsouthwest.co.uk/resources-8-c.asp

Hello all, hope everyone has had a restful Christmas and New Year?

I need to pick your brains ladies - we're doing the Festivals roundabout next term. Can anyone think of a visitor I could organise to come for a session?

Happy new year to all you lovely people.

My mag came a couple of days ago and have only just finished the read through.

Very impressed with some of the changes and the senior section spectacular pull out. I'm definitely going to Alexandra Palace ☺

I thought Gill Slocome's quote about balancing guiding and your life as well as making sure that any role or task you are asked to do are right for you was really thoughtful and important. So many of us are balancing roles and responsibilities because they need to be done and the biggest moaners are strangely silent when a job needs to be done.

Planning meeting this week...

Happy new year everyone I hope you all have some great guiding adventures this year!

Is there a primary school that doesn't have a "logical" Brownie unit? You can usually get enough girls for a viable unit (anything from about 8-10 girls upwards) with a few assembly/leaflet drops within a one form entry primary school I'd say. It would be very unlikely that anyone could complain you were poaching if a whole school had no accessible unit geographically and this is very common in many areas. I can think of one and a half schools in our area that are like this (one has no logical unit and the other does but all the girls at the logical unit are actually from another school, and the logical unit is full).

It's harder for Guides but Brownies are just smaller Guides, honest!

Or a Brownie unit that doesn't have a feeder Guides, or Brownies with no Rainbows? Obviously where you get on with the Brownie leaders!

Sadly there isn't the numbers. There is always the discussion about raising numbers but never any action about it. Guides seem to be run more like a friends meeting group without much connection to the outside. When discussing going to Our Chalet and Kanderstag as a holiday for DH and I fellow Guiders asked why I would want to go. .

I've had no help in finding a new unit to go to. I live in Hull and the solution was to send me outside of the city. I miss proper Guiding so much.

Horrible situation birdboo. Maybe start your own unit?

Hello lovely ladies. I'm currently a district spare leader after being speaking out about a terribly lead Guide unit. It was horrible and went all the way to division but none of my concerns were raised. The apparent solution was to move me out the division and leave the unit alone. It has left a sour taste and mojo.

DH is an explorer leader so I keep toying going beige but my heart keeps me in Guides.