Guiders Staff Room Part 3

I've considered a separate mobile Groovee as someone took it upon themself to hand my number to someone who text anonymously the other week, and I've had several middle of the night texts/calls. It doesn't seem to make financial sense though, when I have unlimited texts and more minutes than I can use on here, to go buying another one just for 'business' use.

I need help with consent forms - MS Edge will NOT let me edit to put details in . I was sure there was an edit button or similar but can't find one! Any ideas? If not I'll see if there's space on the laptop for Adobe.

Inflagrante oh no!

Inflagrante they are only checking gender for the additional children (children of leaders, mainly) because clearly despite their biological sex ALL Guiding members identify as female (which is why we've been told to manage out girls who ID as male or non-binary).

But I'm hoping they'll say "gender neutral" children can share with girls as then I can say my DS is gender neutral.

Bollocks. Checking accounts before handing on to audit and ice discovered a cheque from last summer paid in to the post office, but never reached the account. Really not helpful

Sorry to hear about the security problem still not solved. Are there many alternatives where you are?

The gender bit on the new REN is mind boggling, are we supposed to check what gender each of our girls thinks they are? I can imagine a lot of faces.

You and the rest of us Herat
I would ask GG but they are refusing to answer questions on any gender related issues.

Re the new REN- I'm perplexed by the male/female/gender neutral question.
Males can't sleep with females on residentials.
Can gender neutrals sleep with females? Because m>f transgender people can, pre-op, self ID'd or whatever.
Or for that matter, can gender neutrals sleep with males?
Or do all three categories now need separate sleeping arrangements?

Very confusing, and no guidance from Guiding.

Also, the announcement about the changes to the REN almost went unnoticed. They were announced at the bottom of an email titled GDPR.

Have any of you seen the new REN forms? And the new rules for home contacts etc?
12 weeks in advance and then a more detailed one 4 weeks in advance. Home contact must be a guider and will need special training! New rules/forms out now for info/to try out and then compulsory from September.
This, above everything else, is making me seriously rethink volunteering. The additional admin over the last few years almost made me go, then the change of promise, then additional training for things we had already done, but I managed (eventually) to recruit a small team and we're just about up to speed, and then along comes this..... 6 page REN!!! 6 pages!!!! I usually do 3 residentials a year and was hoping to pop in a few sleepovers as well now there's a few of us. The paperwork for a sleepover is going to take me longer than a sleepover lasts! So disappointed. I thought the changes were supposed to be making it easier. It seems to me that the activities have been dumbed down to make the meetings 'simpler' to run and everything else is being made more complicated. Gah!

The risk needs to be assessed for security (people getting in) and fire (people getting out).
If the landlord's assessment is that fire safety takes priority and your is that security takes priority then you are at an impasse unless someone compromises.
May I suggest one of these:
magnetic alarm or similar? I use them on fire doors on residentials so if a girl goes wandering in the night we all wake up, after a sleepwalker gave us a bit of a fright one year. They attach with double sided tape and have an off switch so perhaps you could leave it on the door and just flick it on when you would normally lock the door?

Locked doors for us; it's rare that anyone passes tbh as our meeting place is on a very quiet street but we're all agreed we feel safer with the doors locked & there's a door bell should someone actually need to get in.

They're opened for a 25 minute ish window between Rainbows and Guides for pick ups and drop offs but parents are asked to stay in the entrance & they generally respect that. Plus there's always a Guider out there keeping an eye.

Doors locked. We meet in a community centre next to a park, and if we don't lock the, risk random people coming in to use the toilets. One side of our hall has some emergency exits we open when it's hot.

We have open doors due to the layout of the area. Will discuss with the dc when she visits next term in case she thinks it's a problem.

ILookedintheWater thanks, that looks good, off to research it now!

www.instructables.com/id/Bird-House-From-One-Plank/ This is a great pattern for a birdhouse, especially if you have opportunity to cut the planks up to size in advance of the meeting.

Flat pack kit is a good shout, I will have a look!

Can you get a flat pack kit?
We did book ends with a power saw (our family one - the kind which is part of a power drill), they were very good at it apart from not really appreciating that lines need to be straight!

I keep forgetting about this thread too, but feeling Guide-y today after a good unit meeting last night and planning for summer term!
Has anyone successfully made bird houses/ bird boxes with Guides? They've asked to do it, but I can't see anything online that looks the right level of challenging but not full on carpentry!

Can you tie it in with rights and the corresponding responsibilities? So right to education, but responsibility to learn/work hard, and why we have these? This can all tie back into the promise, eg to do our best, to not drop litter, to speak politely.

Right; I'm going with debate for my Guides for the first week back. Do these topics sound ok...?

Should kids have to do chores around the house?
Are school uniforms a good or bad idea?
Girls have it better than boys...

Just need something to do with respecting belongings as well as people to go with it now I think :)

Can't beat a good brainstorming activity Lucysmam

We used earth hour to cover our keeping the promise activity. Each girl, after a group discussion, wrote down one small thing they could do to help the world they live in. We'll look at them after Easter, and see how we got on.

Good turn sticker charts for rainbows?

20th a good spreadsheet is all you need programme currently has 3 areas, You, Community and World. Your programme is balanced if you cover these areas relatively equally. New programme is announced in July. Think it'll be very similar to the scout one in format.