To think this is a fair rule re interest badges in GGing?

[InterestBadgesForGG]

DD is 6, and does Rainbows but I know this is the rule throughout girlguiding locally with the interest badges.

Each girl has the opportunity to do 1 interest badge per theme. They are not stopped from doing any of the other badges, but their subs only cover 1 badge. After that parents/the girl is expected to pay 50p per badge.

The only exception is if girls can’t complete any of the interest badges in one theme due to disability or SN, they’re allowed to choose 1 other interest badge instead for that theme.

I think that’s fair enough. We’re a very middle class area where most girls have 2 working parents. Most girls around here seem to do all the interest badges in 1 theme as that’s what the girl wants.

I’m a single parent and it’s never been an issue if I say “DD wants to do this but I can’t afford the 50p until next half term” they’ve still let DD do the badge and given it to her and I’ve just paid it on the next lot of subs. Occasionally we’ll get emails asking if we can donate to interest badges as some girls want to do extras in a theme – and I have sent 50p or £1 if I can afford it so I assume there are things in place for girls/families who want to do more but can’t afford to

I was talking to a friend about it and she’s a guides leader in another district/area. She thinks its not on and that’s what subs are for, for any badge a girl wants to do.

For context our Rainbows and Brownies meet in a school hall (they have a display board and a cupboard for supplies) so I assume they pay the school for allowing them the use of the space so that’s probably what most of the subs cover (it’s £25 for a 12 week term, slightly less for shorter terms and slightly more for longer terms but never goes above £30)

I explained this to friend but she still thinks it’s not on. I didn’t ask her how much the subs in her area are to compare but it does seem fair to me to let them do 1 per theme and then charge for extras.

So WIBU? Me or friend?

YABU – Friend is right
YANBU – You’re right

I am giving up my whole Saturday for a guiding event next week so I’m not a total bad mom by the way

Thinking through the Brownies badges, I think only Dancing would be a complete no for a child with a muscle condition. But there are 3 options in each theme in Brownies so lots to choose from there.
She sounds like she got a lot from Rainbows so I wish her well for the future, in my opinion it’s an organisation that works really well for children who sometimes are excluded from other activities.

@Rover83 Sorry 8 interest badges just counted them, I'd forgotten she'd done some extras

I must confess I think particularly with rainbows it does involve a lot of parental input for the interest badges. One of DDs friends has just left as the mum didn't want to do the interest badges but her DD was getting upset when the others were getting badges. My DD has worked really hard at her healthy mind badge but I have no idea how to help her 'present' what she's done when it mainly involved being outside and off devices.

@coffeecup88

Hi, I'm a rainbow and brownie leader. Our subs is 10/month and all badges are included in that.

I have to say you're getting a real bargain at £25/term and I can understand why they've got this policy in place of trying to keep subs that low.

You are right, rent is probably the biggest cost, our village school charges £15/h for rental so that really add up especially if you are running a small-medium sized unit.

Hth
X

It’s £25 a term here too ( NW ) ....that said my GD who’s 6 and 3 months has never done a single interest badge.....don’t think they do them .....she loves it though...they do lots of fun stuff

@Rover83

I must confess I think particularly with rainbows it does involve a lot of parental input for the interest badges. One of DDs friends has just left as the mum didn't want to do the interest badges but her DD was getting upset when the others were getting badges. My DD has worked really hard at her healthy mind badge but I have no idea how to help her 'present' what she's done when it mainly involved being outside and off devices.

@Rover83 Is that for Fruit and Veg? Our leaders let the girls go in and say a poem or sing for the final part, school also said DD could do that bit there and they'd email the leaders and say she'd done it.

I just recorded DD doing hers to my DNs (with my brothers permission) and that was accepted.

Those of you who are Brownie/Guide leaders, does the subs include the annual capitation or do the girls pay separately for that.? This year at £42 per girl, that takes up a very large chunk of their subs. We charge £2.50 a week, which just about covers rent with a small amount left over towards their capitation. Most resources are funded by myself and the other leader, unless we manage to get any donations or grants.

@Cryingbutstilltrying

Thinking through the Brownies badges, I think only Dancing would be a complete no for a child with a muscle condition. But there are 3 options in each theme in Brownies so lots to choose from there. She sounds like she got a lot from Rainbows so I wish her well for the future, in my opinion it’s an organisation that works really well for children who sometimes are excluded from other activities.

@Cryingbutstilltrying Thank you, Dancing will be a big no no for her but I've just had a look and for that theme it seems there will be at least 1 other option.

She gets so much out of Rainbows, she absolutely loves it and has gained so much confidence. She's not the most academic (partially due to her muscle condition affecting her fine motor skills) so finds school hard, being somewhere where it doesn't matter how good you are is really great for her.

Healthy mind is the other purple one she didn't like the sound of the fruit and veg one, she did a sensory safari, bedtime relaxation breathing every night for a week and then a weekend of no Tv or devices

@sweeneytoddsrazor ours is covered by subs but only because 20 out of 24 girls I am able to claim gift aid too. It was £37.50 per head this time for us. I had a ‘no spend’ term this time other than badges and hall hire, using what we had already. I’ve found if I put a plea for things on our local village Facebook group I get all sorts of stuff. We will be having a stall at the village fete in the summer to fundraise as next year’s subscription will be brutal. I do know of some places who charge the subscription fee on top of meeting fees though.

That's fab, it's great when they're really motivated to do them! Unfortunately my current group just don't seem to be - or they're so busy doing 15 other extra-curricular activities that they/their parents don't have time.

I’m a guide leader and census and hall fees are our biggest costs. There aren’t an abundance of halls, we use a church hall and they charge even when we are not there. There’s no flexibility eg we cancelled as most girls had covid a few weeks ago (local schools were rife) and still had to pay full. We try to include day to day stuff in subs but extras like trips are paid or part paid eg we went to a pottery place think it was £6 each so we paid half out of subs they paid £3 cash.
We are very mc area I’m sure a lot of parents would just pay £x a term and not have to find cash and deal with emails but we have to mindful it might not suit everyone and we find it fairer to do this way. They are doing an activity day tomorrow £15 cash on day. I do hope a parent would say if child would like to go but can’t pay.

Your subs are very cheap. I guess the arrangement with the badges reflects that. Whilst interest badges are meant to be girl led, Rainbows/Brownies are likely to need parental help. It probably makes sense to communicate to parents the requirements for one badge for the term.
The Guide/Ranger unit I'm familiar with allows girls to do as many badges as they want. We have quite a few girls striving to do them all.
Regarding census payments that's included in subs but the unit is set up to claim quite a lot of gift aid. With the projected rises in this cost, if you don't claim GA i would urge units to look into it. Doesn't cost parents any more aiis not that onerous to claim either once it's set up.

My daughter did a gazillion badges. We never had to pay extra for any of them.

@Dixiechickonhols

I’m a guide leader and census and hall fees are our biggest costs. There aren’t an abundance of halls, we use a church hall and they charge even when we are not there. There’s no flexibility eg we cancelled as most girls had covid a few weeks ago (local schools were rife) and still had to pay full. We try to include day to day stuff in subs but extras like trips are paid or part paid eg we went to a pottery place think it was £6 each so we paid half out of subs they paid £3 cash. We are very mc area I’m sure a lot of parents would just pay £x a term and not have to find cash and deal with emails but we have to mindful it might not suit everyone and we find it fairer to do this way. They are doing an activity day tomorrow £15 cash on day. I do hope a parent would say if child would like to go but can’t pay.

@Dixiechickonhols All the subs emails we get say "If you want to keep your childs place but can't pay please get in touch". We've had a couple of paid trips that are the same.

Its 50p. To the majority of people 50p is nothing. But 15x50p is £7.50 which can add up over time. I'm not sure how much the GG badges cost the unit, but in Scouts that doesn't cover the cost of the badge. (About 65p-£1 depending on badge.) I have submitted an £100+ badge order before (the post Covid one!)

Its great she wants to do more

£2.50 a week, 1.25 to insurance / cenus fees, 75p to rent, leaves 50p to that week's activities. 50p contribution to a £1 -£2 badges is peanuts but would really help your unit out.

I've been a Brownie Leader for ten years and our subs have always been higher to cover things like badges and include the census. Like other leaders have said, I would be thrilled if my Brownies wanted to do badges at home! The odd one or two girls might do one, but as a rule none of them really want to bother. We don't expect girls to pay for their badges though and having had 3 daughters go through Rainbows, Brownies and Guides I have never been asked to pay for any badges either.

To make it clear, your told on sign up that if you want to do extra interest badges after the 1 per theme then you have to pay the 50p. It seems fine and seems to work, I see girls with 2 interest badges for one theme fairly often.

I've been a brownie leader and subs should cover everything. Rent, materials, badges

That’s good OP. I’ll check it’s on our next email.
Yours sounds a very cheap subs £2 a week so parents won’t mind paying for extras whereas you friend may prefer charging £3/4 a week and including badges. Either way it’s a very reasonable cost activity.

Guide leader here - have never heard of this limit on badges or families having to pay for the badges. That said, not many of our girls do them.

We charge £2.50 a week and pretty much everything is covered - rent, fees to GirlGuiding (this year it was nearly £40 a head), badges, materials etc. We claim gift aid so that we don’t run in to financial problems.

On a different note, it is possible to adapt the badges so that they are a challenge for the individual girl, so there’s no reason why she can’t do agility if she wants to.

@Fallulah

Guide leader here - have never heard of this limit on badges or families having to pay for the badges. That said, not many of our girls do them.

We charge £2.50 a week and pretty much everything is covered - rent, fees to GirlGuiding (this year it was nearly £40 a head), badges, materials etc. We claim gift aid so that we don’t run in to financial problems.

On a different note, it is possible to adapt the badges so that they are a challenge for the individual girl, so there’s no reason why she can’t do agility if she wants to.

@Fallulah How would you adapt it? I'm sure her leaders would be happy to let her do it. She's doing Nature for that theme but she'd love to do all the interest badges.

I’m not familiar with the Rainbow badges but I know when we have had similar sports or craft type badges in Guides and the guide was disabled, we allowed a similar task that was comparably challenging for her or we changed the amount of repetitions\difficulty so that it was a challenge for her. Girlguiding is meant to be inclusive after all.

@Fallulah

I’m not familiar with the Rainbow badges but I know when we have had similar sports or craft type badges in Guides and the guide was disabled, we allowed a similar task that was comparably challenging for her or we changed the amount of repetitions\difficulty so that it was a challenge for her. Girlguiding is meant to be inclusive after all.

@Fallulah Thank you, I'm wondering if she might be able to build the obstacle course part for someone else/an animal and do the final part as a new skill or activity rather than sport, she can do the first part sat down.