To wonder what the future of Girlguiding is.

[Skippythebeercan]

I have run a Brownie unit for many years, and have seen the decline of Girlguding, we have lost so many units and leaders to the point locally our organisation is probably less than half the size it was 10 years ago and is going to shrink again with the loss of more leaders and therefore units imminently. There is a huge disconnect between national Girlguiding leadership and grass roots guiding.

I now wonder what the future holds for the organisation, I personally value the girl only space and think it is important for girls to have this. But, I can see that being lost. A friend suggests she thinks we may start to admit boys and loose our single sex status, I personally think that we may end up merging with the Scouts - both organisations have their differences but do share a founder and many fundamentals, plus I do think each organisation could learn something from the other.

I would be interested in other views on how the organisation may evolve - it may well disappear altogether - possibly sooner rather than later.

I am hoping this thread doesn't become about the trans issue, I appreciate it is divisive but there are other threads. Law suits and this very issue have certainly contributed to Girlguiding's significant image problem on both side of the argument, but there are plenty of other threads about this issue.

What does overseas members being thrown out means? What happened?

GGUK decided to close down all the British Guiding Overseas units a couple if years ago. These were found i places where you had a lot British citizens with families... so overseas Military bases in places like Kenya Cyprus and Germany, NATO, embassies and other similar places.

British Girlguiding Overseas was a region in Girlguiding since 1911. Run mainly in British territories such as Gibraltar, Falklands, British Military bases and International schools around the world. US Girl Scouts do the same.
In 2023, Girlguiding took Annual subscription from them and threw them all out the following month, citing Corporate risk (but would not engage with any further discussion or share any risk analysis). The territories had enough political clout to be saved and they are now under North west regions, but all the military units and international school units are gone. Thousands of members. The BGO exec fought really hard and were lied to and bullied horrendously by HQ staff.

They were told to join scouts instead.

I'm on my way to lead my group of 11-13yo. And every week they are suprised that I have a dayjob. One did think I was a busdriver for some reason. So aparently I'm a fulltime acout leader and bus driver on the side🤷🏼‍♀️. And few times a year I have to explain to the parents that we are volunteering and we do have to occasionally let the teenagers lead meetings as part of their leadership training. Majority of parents are really nice and understanding. We are not out of leaders (we don't have a surplus either) but we are running out of children so in less than 10 years we have to merge with another local gorup.

@HagCymraeg @TheNightingalesStarling thank you for explaining. It sounds like it was very poorly managed and knew it was going to happen and decided to do a final money grab.

I actually agree with this. When i first started volunteering with cubs it was easy to be a parent volunteer. There was a rota of parents and all did once a month or so. But the safeguarding and training requirements became far too onerous for people to dip in and out of volunteering in that way. It led to the end of scouting in our area once the main leader retired. I think most parents would be willing to pay proper fees to keep the clubs going with paid staff. Instead I've noticed there's more forest club type private charities or priavte individuals growing up locally.

I think the trans issue isn't the individual everyday typical trans children attending a group (esp at the younger ages). It's the highly political and excessively pushy parents and trans leaders that have made it far more of an issue than it should have been. I wouldnt have an issue with a trans girl attending brownies. But if the parent made a massive song and dance about changing the ethos of the group to accommodate it that's a different issue. Some of the trans rights stuff is exceptionally aggressive and bizarre.

When I was growing up all the leaders were mums of kids in my school. As far as I know none of them had day jobs so they had a lot more time to volunteer than working parents have these days.

Lifestyles have changed so much since then. Very few people have the time & energy to volunteer. But it wouldn’t be practical to make them paid roles because subs would have to skyrocket to cover the cost, pricing out more potential members.

I don’t know what the answer is. I fear both Guides and Scouts may be on borrowed time thanks to the economy.

I wonder if government support would help but in my area scouting and girl guiding is predominantly middle class and community funding is geared towards other demographics?

If guiding isn't single sex it has no raison d'etre and might as well fold. It is that simple to me.

Girlguiding has declared itself single sex (reluctantly!) and says it is no longer open to Trans identifying males (but those still in can stay)

The main problem now is the infighting between GC leaders and Ally leaders and a totally out of touch HQ.
Girlguiding is destroying itself from the inside. The vast majority of leaders keep their heads down and get on with providing valuable experiences for girls and young women in their communities but I feel they are fighting a losing battle

I know there's a wait list at Brownies because some of DDs friends have only got in recently. She is also a Cub and they are two very different beasts in our neck of the woods.

Under Scouting she has started a fire, done camps, helped at a food bank, activity days, wall climbing, and always working towards badges. Brownies is usually colouring and the odd cinema or bowling trip. There doesn't seem to be working towards badges at all, in Rainbows there was, so not sure if this is down to leadership and/or resources.

However, I do have to say it - she likes it due to it being female only, and that would be removed the instant any boy, no matter how distressed he was about his sex, or how nice and kind he was, being introduced to that environment. It would instantly be a mixed sex space, and the girls are no longer free to be just themselves with no expectations or reservations. They would now be there to provide a service, to be a prop, a way for him to feel validation whether they're aware of that or not. And of course there'd be loads of sessions indoctrination about it all.

They might really like him, and want to be kind, but that doesn't excuse the fact that for him, their presence serves a purpose (after all what's a female space without any actual females in it?) and that I cannot get on board with. DD is her own person, not a support human service to dole out to boys. And that's before you get into grown men shilling for unfettered access to these spaces as well!

So, not as exciting as scouting in terms of activities available, very much down to local level if much gets done at all, and a leadership who instead of holding firm for girls while pissing off a tantruming minority, has come out swinging for said minority, trotted out the line to girls that their single sex space is a very bad thing and they should be really upset at getting it, and pissed off everyone.

There's waiting lists where I live. My DD only got into Rainbows because they started another group.

the trans topic is a big hitter on MN, but a handful of kids across the country who, in all areas of their life, are living as girls

have you got the checklist girls follow to ensure they're complying with "living as girls" properly? I'd hate to think there were girls out there failing to girl properly

or do you mean that teenage boys who perform female stereotypes are the same as girls?

I was a GG and I volunteered at our local group until covid. It was very well attended, huge waiting lists (across the district) but so poorly ran (probably due lack of volunteers) I always thought a natural solution would be for the older girls to assist with the younger groups

Our 6 year old has just finished Rainbows and decided she wants to join Beavers rather then progressing to Brownies.

Frankly, Beavers does more. More physical activities, camping, active outdoors things which she would prefer. Rainbows just gave her crafting... No sense that she was doing enough to justify staying. A shame as she only just took her promise badge.

My girls go to guides and are big fans. They do quite a lot of camping so I’d be very unimpressed if there were boys.

What kind of things to GGs do these days? I remember moving to Guides from Brownies (which I enjoyed) in the late 90s and suddenly all we did was sew and do crafts and cooking. I was bored out of my mind and switched to Scouts cos of the opportunities to do outdoor activities & go on camping trips etc. I’m sure it’s very different these days of course but for a millennial like me with young DDs I’d automatically be more drawn to scouts for them because my (I’m sure outdated and no longer correct) view of GGs is heavily influenced by my own experience & the idea that GGs is all about outdated “feminine” activities like sewing & baking and not being as associated with fun outdoor activities like Scouts is. I think that stereotype still persists..or maybe it’s just me 🤷‍♀️

Exactly, such a sexist way of looking at the world. Trying to upend reality because it doesn't fit with their strict internalised world view of how a girl or boy should behave is ridiculously regressive.

Maybe GG should just admit they are mixed sex now so parents can make informed decisions about whether they want theit daughters camping overnight with boys. It would force GG to put safeguarding measures in place to accommodate the boys. It would have the added bonus of making GG less attractive to the boys who think they are girls as it will no longer won't validate their or their parents' fantasy.

We’ve done geocaching, axe throwing, archery, PGL activity weekends, camping, orienteering, STEM sessions, learning to make fires, natural survival skills. Loads of stuff! I’ve never done sewing with my units (I’m bad at it for a start) but they do enjoy cooking sometimes as they get to use knives to chop stuff and quite a few of them don’t get the chance at home!

I agree with every word of this.

The unit admin, especially the new badge program was just too much to cope with. Accounts and banking were also a complete disaster.

My main reason for leaving though was not being able to exclude any child, even though parents were not giving me the full picture of issues.

You can imagine what happened next.

Despite us having a programme to deliver I think it is still very dependent on unit and facilities. We have a campfire most terms, so girls learn to light a fire and safely toast marshmallows. We do short hikes in the summer, nightime walks in the winter, trips, overnighters (sadly no camping as we are limited by my time to organise a camp) but we have plenty of trips out. We have a lot of focus on life skills first aid, wellbeing, lots and lots of STEM activities. Lots of running around and games. My unit attempts to get every girl to gold so lots of badges, this term even without any badges she might choose to do herself each girl will receive a skills builder, interest badge and challenge badge, most will get more.

To be honest my son love Cubs but I am amazed how often they do crafts! I would say more often than my Brownies, we don't have time typically.

In the last year, we have been camping, paddleboarding, night hikes been to a STEM event run by GG Cymru.
It really does depend on the leadership. Some groups are very adventurous and outdoorsy, some are not.
My Guides ask from crafts, mainly because they say they don't get the chance at home or school and they enjoy them.
Also love cooking, so we all cook a meal together once a term, usually around a festival eg chinese for the lunar new year.

We have three Rainbows units locally and DD was on the waiting list for over a year, so the membership is definitely there. Termly subs are £35, in an area where other clubs are £20+ for a single session, so I can’t imagine the cost puts anyone off, but I’m concerned about the lack of leaders, I can’t see people queuing up to do a pretty demanding volunteer role most weeks.

Volunteering takes a massive amount of time outside of the meetings to make it fun, do activities, ensure all of the paperwork is in place, have enough cash in place for the massive amount of census, fundraise for anything else, pay for the hall lets…

Schools in my area no longer have free hall lets and mos churches and spaces charge for use of the space.

Between GG census costs and our hall fees, we started having to ask for at least £150 per year per girl. This was then just a starting cost and any activity or trip still had to be paid for.