Not bashing thread, but concerned about belittling behaviour of some GG Leaders

GG have recently appointed several inclusion advisers.. presumably they would be the people to ask?

As regards the change to the Promise, the results of that consultation were never published. Almost certainly taking out God was - yet another - top-down decision pushed by the then-CEO. Totally ignoring who the [vast majority of the] actual volunteers are & the fact that lots of Units in deprived areas could afford to run thanks to churches charging a peppercorn rent/not charging at all. Girlguiding - like the Scout Association - has never been a Christian organisation, but rather a theist one. At an early Jamboree there was a Scouter who was wanting to do Christian prayers at Scouts’ Own; Baden-Powell asked him how he’d fancy doing Hindu or Muslim ones & when your one had stopped flailing about making spluttery horrified noises enough that words could be heard over his indignation and perturbation once more, B-P asked what he thought he was about asking the equivalent of other Scouts at the camp then…

It was such a fundamental change to the founding principles of Guiding that a not-insignificant number of Volunteers left. And no, atheists haven’t flooded in; in the same way that Volunteers are leaving over the policy on trans members & while they get a certain amount of social media applause it’s not translating to new volunteers.

The “new” Promise is horrendously clunky & rather than do what the Scouts did & make the line about God optional; they came up with the utterly nonsensical be true to myself and develop my beliefs. There are still no resources to explain what they actually meant by this. 7 year olds, however, almost invariably have plenty of ideas about it - mostly how ridiculous it is. “Why did they get rid of God and then have this bit about beliefs… or does it mean I should do RESEARCH into the things I believe in? Like using the Santa tracker? And did you know he used to be a saint? Or maybe he still is, in his spare time…” Absolute derision for “be true to yourself” though, with lots of lurid suggestions as to why - eg being an axe murderer - that might not be desirable.

@NotThatHomer

In theory there’s a Fund For Members With Disabilities, which can be used to help fund certain things - sorry, can’t remember what rules are - for any Girlguiding member.

In practice, adults with disabilities probably don’t want HQ to know because their take is that people making up wild lies because they’re “concerned” is reasonable & that rather than tackle a culture of ableism & bullying they’ll force out dedicated volunteers.

Can I ask (as there seem to be a few leaders on this thread) how you include less able guiders in your unit? DD's unit has some members who aren't able to physically and/or mentally do some of the activities. I don't want to out myself with details, but there doesn't seem to be any support financial or otherwise from GG HQ. The leaders muddle on best they can, but it does limit activities for all the girls as they have to be inclusive.

When I was young, guiding and scouting were normally both connected to local churches and would often meet in church halls.

I'm glad the connection to religion has been reduced or hopefully severed. I wasn't allowed to join the Brownies because the religious local leader knew my parents were atheists and not married. All my friends belonged. It was hugely tied to a local church too.

I just want to speak up in defence of Guides!

The paperwork is overwhelming, it's insane. Every little thing has to be formally risk assessed and approved by the district commissioner, it's so time consuming. Hours and hours every week. Every activity, every time we leave the hall, needs a separate consent form completed by every Guide, either a paper form over 2 sides of A4 or a clunky PDF email. Every camp or holiday needs a approval form in stages done over months in advance. There's no convenient online system unlike Scouts where the parents just log in and give consent once and done. That's before I start on the accounts, the fundraising, grant application letters, training sessions, updating the database with girls badge work, uniform orders, writing letters to parents, chasing outstanding subs.
The new programme is dire. Way too much like school, too sedentary, too 'be kind', too many post its and very little excitement or outdoor fun.

Great defence :-)

Seriously, I think we all get that leaders are volunteers and largely do a terrific job.

What seems sad is that (from the outside) it looks like the top of the organisation is awful and this is actively hurting the grass roots.

When I was young, guiding and scouting were normally both connected to local churches and would often meet in church halls. They had connections to the Remembrance Day services because they normally had a connection to a specific church (not necessarily Anglican; mine was Methodist).

GG made a big thing in the 2000s about going secular - eg removing “do my duty to God” etc from the promises. Without the quasi-militarist thing of Scouts and the loss of the Christian bits of the whole Baden-Powell shebang, I think the connection between churches and Guiding must be quite fragile if nonexistent now as a result. Our current district does occasionally do the local Remembrance Day service, but I don’t think there is a strong link between them and the local church any more.

[quote espresso14]@WarriorN to a certain extent the lack of Brownies etc on parade is partly down to the parents of the girls. All are told about it, and here, very few come, and obviously they can't get there themselves.[/quote]

Yes I it must be the same here, obviously there were some reps from the army and there were air cadets etc.

I find it odd though as remembrance is now a v big thing in schools. Far bigger than it was 10 years ago, through the history curriculum and also since the large scale poppy art installations. They all recreate them.

Thanks for the replies on Guiding and Rememberance. I know someone who is involved in arranging our local service/parade so I will check with them if the local guides are invited. It might be that they attend a different local service or decline to attend but it may be that they aren't invited. As it's not GG policy to not attend I'll make sure they know they can next year.

They own HQ on Buckingham palace road. They have a boutique hotel in Victoria, London. They have dozens of properties through the UK. They just choose to prioritise different things. Like money.

Again, like the inconsistency between troops, I think the structure is the key. Scout money is held by the scout group, then there is a district structure with its own independent governance. The national structure is held to account by 400ish commissioners from all the regions, who all work on the ground with leaders and often kids.

Scouts HQ couldn't spend a huge wodge of cash on an enormous London office even if they wanted to.

It does very much depend on the leaders as to the activities they do. I was very active when young so at my rainbows we do lots of different activities including den building and lots of sporty activities as well as crafts and of course a bit of colouring (I'm always amazed at how much 5 years olds love a bit of colouring). But I understand some groups can be a bit sedentary so it just depends on the leaders.

I'm loathed to say it, but I am quite critical of GG management and I've definitely seen the attitudes that the OP described. Luckily I love working with the girls and my fellow leaders so we adapt and have fun at our unit .

And we recently got an email locally saying it
Was “unsustainable” to check volunteers had actually completed training, so even the piss poor training isn’t completed.

If it wasn’t a single sex organisation until recently I’m confident there would have been loads of adverse events in the organisation.

It's very typical of schools and kids activities in general.

And to be fair, there's huge variations in schools now, especially since the curriculum became looser in primary and free schools / academies etc came about.

But there's a clear distinction on the gg and scout twitter in terms of the sorts of things they're focusing on. Gg does seem more "community spirit / be kind" focussed, in my opinion.

That's interesting. I didn't know that.
Subs are also being hiked up, the amount that units have to pay to HQ per member, quite substantially for the next 2 years. Something like an extra £7 this year and a further £10 next year. They definitely don't have the network of huts and fields/woods that Scouts do.

They own HQ on Buckingham palace road. They have a boutique hotel in Victoria, London. They have dozens of properties through the UK. They just choose to prioritise different things. Like money.

Mine does both brownies and she is a beaver.

She was a rainbow too. Shes been going about 3 years now. There was a break dorncovid. Where they did the meetings online.
At brownies. Theres a lot of crafts. And they always meet at the same village church.

The beavers. We usually meet at an activity centre. Shes done fire lighting. Bulding a tent. Bush craft. Sometimes they ask us to drop her off somewhere different.
They went to a country park about 2 weeks ago- we missed that one.
They did the horse care badge. So the leaders arranged for someone to bring a pony and the week after a horse at the activity centre. They had a ride on a small cart being pulled by the horse and learned about the horse and fed the horse.

We also dropped her off in the late evening at an astronomy centre where they learned about the night sky.

I'm glad shes doing beavers.
With brownies she gets to spend some time with girls her age and so does enjoy it too. There hasnt been any trips only once I think a divisional meeting where lots of groups met up.
I know its difficult with volunteers to arrange. I'm going to see if they arrange a trip to a local pantomime or not. But in the next year or so, I'm going to have a drop one of her activities and may need to drop the GG group.

Also - I think that part of this is pushed by the culture of liability. There are so many things they can't do, so much training they have to have for each leader, etc. It becomes difficult for them to function. These and even some of the safeguarding rules often seem to be more about liability than any expectation that they make a difference.

Similar issues in my country with Guides and Scouting. I think it reflects general trends with child related activities.

It's weirdly split, I find. My husband was involved for many years in scouts, and as a child, at 13, he and his friends hiked a 72 km trail alone, based on the experience they had camping in the scouting program. My kids in scouts and guides have never had anything like that level of experience. Even though we had quite good Guiding leaders they were increasingly limited in what they could do.

By conversly, the meetings and the bade system were very much changed in focus to be led by the kids. What this meant in practice is they tended to choose to do things like play dodge ball, there was little badge work and what was done didn't really get them to any kind of skill level or competence. And mainly this is because being young they didn't know what they could learn or what would be involved in learning it. So the leaders stepping back in this area was in reality quite disempowering for the kids.

It's very typical of schools and kids activities in general.

Another thing that's very different between Scouts and Guides is how well resourced they are.

Yes I've noticed this.

My brownies and guides borrowed a playgroup and school premises.

All the cub, scout and venture scout groups I've been to either myself or via my son have had a hut and then a larger joint local area activity centre with land and forest. There's a huge one in Gateshead too that you can hire for other things that has zip wires etc.

DD is heavily invested in GG. Belongs to a unit, volunteers for other units. If I had things to do again I would have enrolled her in Scouts instead. She's been in a few units as we relocated due to DH's job. When she started out, they camped, they had sleepovers, lots of outdoor things. Now they bake, draw, put on plays, the only good thing they've done in a long while is collect for the food bank. Everything is so sedentary.
They also have a couple of less able members, one who won't cope with camping, there's no one to support her, so no one gets to camp.
Also get annoyed by the cost and quality of uniform, DDs top logo has peeled, the hoodie is bobbly (her old Guide one still looks new after years of wear) her badge holder was so feeble that the pin fell off it. The leaders hunted down some older senior section ones to replace them.