Girl Guides to sell off 5 activity centres.

I think they only got £920k for selling off their Scottish centre, netherurd. I can’t imagine there is a huge market for these places. £920k might sound like a lot to an individual but it’s tiny for an organisation like this. If they sell of all 5, what are they going to get, £5 million? It’s not very much.

I was sad about what Girlguiding had become a couple of years ago. Now I see they’re hellbent on continuing to make it a f*ed up organisation, I’m delighted to see it all falling apart like this.

Interesting I believe they still have their central London “boutique hotel”. Not sure how that benefits the girls, but appears to be a priority to be kept. I think it’s clear where their priorities lie, and it’s not with girls and women.

Ironically we will arrive at what girls asked Baden-Powell for in the first place - to be (only) scouts.

Slow hand clap for the leadership of Guiding (central leadership - not the Guiders doing the hard graft at the grassroots). You have betrayed girls, and betrayed your legacy.

Let’s face it guiding will be hollowed out by the TRAs, some leaders have left now. Some are continuing because it’s not yet a problem for their troops. They will leave when it reaches them - and it will.

Sadly it will die, it’s a loss but the leadership have had so many opportunities to do the right thing and they haven’t.

I've been a leader 20+ years - I gave up 2 years ago due to a family crisis. I haven't gone back - I miss the guiding of my youth - lots of outdoor, challenging activities. Yes there was twee stuff (hides that laundress badge in shame - but at least I learnt how to remove stains!!) But it was adventurous and most of all fun. I got disillusioned as a Guider the programme was too prescriptive and there was far too much tick boxing and recording. Also a lot of the programme materials were far too like school for the girls. I don't think I'll go back - scouting seems to me where the guiding of my youth went. Personally I think guiding needs a real reorientation towards adventure and outdoors while keeping the values of the Promise.

I think guiding is in trouble
I left over the whole trans thing
As much as anything over the amount of money spent on legal fees on cases against leaders
Had been a Guider for 20 years
I agree lots of units are carrying on and just ignoring the guidance from HQ,to me that would be hypocritical

My dd is a Ranger (14+). When she joined, there were only two girls attending, dd was 3 and she convinced her good friend to join who is 4.

4 girls is not very exciting. They’re limited to what they can do I suppose. Dd has tried to encourage others to join, and her friends are the sort you could imagine at Guides, but none are interested. They won’t even come along for a trial evening.

Sorry more women do themselves no favours with kids spa days etc

Scouting doesn't do mock tails - that's just stupid sexism to start with

Scouts have sold loads too...so not a feminist issue imho. Scouting and guiding really suffer for volunteers- frequently we get messages asking for extra parent help and that without the weekly meeting won't happen.

2 parents working long hours etc mean it's hard for families to help. We do when we can. Also scouting is mixed so maybe girls prefer to do that...I know mine does

Really sad. DD stayed in one of the centres that is closing as a brownie guide. I think falling numbers in our area are due to lack of volunteers more than anything and so many other competing activities.

Mocktails? FFS - let’s normalise alcohol consumption for young teens. Great idea. (I know mocktails don’t contain booze, but they imitate drinks that do).

The new badges are not what I want for my daughters, making mocktails and brand me seem more about preparing girls for pre drinks for nights out and curating their social media profiles. No thanks. Bring back camp fire cooking, crafts, etc

DD is a guide. She goes as a couple of friends also go. But has almost quit a couple of times.

The badges are shit. They are not inspiring, don't encourage learning of new skills and are predominantly handwaving waffle. They need a complete revamp.

I love Ynysgain. I used to take the cub scouts there, and my pack was 50:50 boys and girls. It is an amazing spot.

Somewhere there will be an entire group having their boundaries eroded. Those girls matter. We cant just write them off because its only a few.

The inebriati- parents could maybe raise the cost for the repairs needed (unlikely though) but that doesn’t help with ongoing costs though - the cost of heating is huge! I agree that the London hq could go and keep foxlease instead.

I went off GG for this reason. A friend's parents ran scouts so I'd go to things such as discos with her.

Then we both joined venture scouts and loved it.

They are selling the centres because they are so expensive. To cover the cost the activities/ weekends would have to be prohibitively expensive.

there is a massive difference between the wokeness coming from hq and what actually happens at a local level. I don’t know of any units that actually have any boys that believe they are girls in them so in reality, in most places guiding is still single sex.

Sad but true!

DD left guides because Brownies is so over subscribed they move a bunch up early to make
space. What DD liked was a space full of teenage girls alone, it’s quite a rare thing. She wasn’t interested in the badges or anything, just socialising in a safe space (suddenly full of 10 year olds so she left).

I don’t understand how economically organisations decide to bend to literally a handful of users over thousands of others. It’s literal insanity. When I was her age 40
years ago they struggled to attract Guides, Brownies was always full. It’s like they don’t know their audience at all.

I felt the same at the time but, looking back, our Guider was running the meetings in a deprived urban area, with no easy access to countryside, and with most parents unable to contribute more than the basic subs (and I bet she was quietly turning a blind eye to those who couldn't pay). Although I was sometimes frustrated because it wasn't outdoorsy enough, I look back on it as a really positive experience.

I was at a mixed-sex school, which I did like, but it was still really nice to have a girls-only activity. I'm sad that girls of today won't have that opportunity

Relatives of mine who were leaders stopped because males could join so it was no different to scouts and the red tape increased. Once single sex organisations stop being single sex they lose a main reason to join them. I've never been that bothered about single sex organisations but if I do join one then I join a single sex org ( which tend to be 2nd gen feminist groups). Feminine males/ non binary males or males identifying as women make it mixed sex which is fine but be honest about it being mixed sex and let all males in.

I will never forgive them.

the charlatan who instigated this went on to the Samaritans

I expect they’ll go broke too

absolute fuckers

Well at least any boys identifying as girls can go back to the boy scouts if the girl scouts closes down!