Why do you send your daughters to Brownies?

[AlbusPercival]

I was hoping to understand.

TO be very upfront I am a brown owl. I am planning this terms activities, and while I am bearing in mind all of the guiding principles I have to, what the girls find fun, I wondered why parents send their daughters and what they expect them to learn?

I was reading an old thread about a brownie unit having a Diva Night. The OP was upset at choice of songs for karaoke (understandably in my opinion) but other posters were questioning Diva Night at all. For me if the girls requested it, as one night out of the 40 I have them in a year, I would find a way to make it happen. Some times children like to dress up, and sing and dance, just as they also like to abseil, cook etc.

So what do you expect your daughters to get from Brownies?

And conversely, if you wouldn't send them, why not?

The only "Church" parade we do is Remembrance Day which is not in a Church and is run by a multi-denominational group. It's Christian but (as an atheist) I don't consider it hard sell on the religion and there's tons to talk to the girls about without getting to God. It's optional but we have a good turn out without much correlation between normal Church attendance. Most parents are very supportive of that.

I wouldn't send my dd to brownies unless it was something she requested. But again, I wouldn't send Ds to cubs. I don't understand the point/see the aim. Between school, swimming, athletics, dancing and other sports I think they do enough and socialise with people outside of school in their clubs. They want ice skating lessons and horse riding lessons now too. Home time is family time. I don't want to be doing badge work at home (I was a brownie and have memories of my parents pushing me to do badge work when I just wanted to be out playing with friends). My best memories of brownies were the ones where brown owl lost control of us (quite regularly) and we went crazy running around and giggling for an hour. It didn't help that the shared brown owl role was with an elderly lady who liked us going crazy and running around. She used to sit in a corner with a cup of tea and tend to any injuries in a lovely, calm soothing manner. She'd get us under control just before our parents arrived and congratulate us on being children, not little adults. She was put in a home just as I turned nine and I left brownies when stricter brown owls started to run brownies. I just saw it as a club to hang out with my friends.

Our Brownies run a stall at the church fete and take part in parades on Remembrance Sunday, Easter and other occasional events. They attended church for Harvest Festival and donated items for a local food bank.

It's not compulsary though and faith is not discussed in meetings unless it is discussing all faiths in general. This is a very rural area though, so faith mainly split between Church/Methodist/Athiests.

skye any tips for selling more cakes than they eat?

well they usually do a soft toy tombola, so not a cake in sight luckily .

Oh I'm hallucinating cake! I read your post completely wrong! I think I might have a problem.

Soft toy tombola much safer.

I don't send my dd to Brownies. I was under a bit of pressure to do so because my MIL has been involved in Brownies all her adult life, was District Commissioner et etc. Dd went for a while, but wasn't that bothered about it and decided not to join a new pack when we moved.

Things that put me off:

I don't like its religious origins.
I hated it when I went as a kid (it felt bossy, goody-goody and hierarchical).
Dd doesn't like the all-girl nature of it.
The one dd went to mostly seems edo involve racketing around in a village hall, shrieking, occasionally doing craft stuff and eating a lot of sweets.
Working towards badges feels like being at school.
There seems to be no joined-up thinking or consistency from pack to pack - a few packs seem to do really cool stuff, but it depends on who's running it.
The website is really rubbish. It's actually quite hard to find your local Brownie pack - I don't understand why they don't simply list the packs on the website.

Essentially I'd much rather my dc went to a club that's based around a specific activity that they can get good at and see some point to. Brownies just feels a bit... purposeless.

Apologies if this all sounds a bit vitriolic . I still resent the fact that my mother refused to let me quit Brownies!

We sent DD to Brownies for friendship and in the hope that it was the outdoorsy place I remembered Brownies/guides to be.

Sadly, she didn't make any friends as the pack was almost entirely made up of girls from a local school that DD didn't attend. The girls sort of stuck to their school friends and whilst DD had an OK time she often felt left out and definitely didn't make any friends.

It wasn't remotely outdoorsy either so after a year we switched to Cubs. I think that she has found the boys much more accepting of someone who isn't part of their school 'gang' but can find them a bit too rough at times.

Have to say that she has made lots of friends at something she goes to where all the kids are very keen on their activity and we start skiing at the dry slopes again in a week or two, she has made 'friends' at the ski club - feels a part of it which is important.

Hats off to Brownie leaders though - not an easy thing to do - you will never please everyone all of the time.

I wasn't allowed to join brownies because it was so churchy - consequently, I'm quite pro!

I like the fact that beavers is about nothing and everything in particular. I especially like that we don't have to do any work towards badges - that would be bad. I even give the badges to my m.i.l to sew on.

Former Brown Owl here [now do Guides and Rangers].
Can I put people right about religion in Guiding - Guiding is open to girls of all faiths or none. It is not a specifically Christian organization either.
Yes, you will find Easter egg hunts and Christmas parties, but also Diwalli nights and Chinese new year celebrations.
A lot of groups meet in Church halls, we do too. This does not mean we are run by the Church or that the Church have any say in what we do. We don't really "do" church parade either [other than Remembrance Day].

We have had Guiders in our group who are devout Christians, others committed atheists - there is room for all.

I also know a number of gay leaders, as I said there is space for all. Guiding as an organization is very much against discrimination in all its forms.

As for Guides and Brownies only doing girly stuff - well we do everything the boys do and more!
Guiding is girl led, so leaders listen to what the girls say, with Brownies I used to have a "pow-wow" , now with the Rangers [my group are 15 -17 although they could be between 14 and 25] I will make suggestions but mostly I help them to do what they choose, be that an evening at the gym, night hike, film night, international visit or pan cake tennis [don't ask!].
All groups are different - sometimes you will have a group who love drama, or craft or sport, so you do more of that while still offering a good mix of activities.

And yes, the "Join Us" web site is annoying! I have been catching up with it today.....

My ds joined Scouts before there was a non God promise. He said "Well, I said God but I was thinking Darwin"

- DD here equates believing in god to believing in fairies Bertrand, "some do, some don't Mum, neither has been proven" - Cecily May Barker has a lot to answer for.

My dd hasn't long started brownies.

She is loving it.

I wanted her to have an opportunity to make friends outside of school.

I also like the all girl environment as she is in a male dominated class and finds boys her age annoying.

I signed her up before I realised how cheap it is compared to other extra-c activities. In cash strapped times that's great.

I like that she runs out happy. They do a lot of running around games so I'm glad she's getting more exercise.

The leaders put a lot more effort into activities than I'd expected. I thought it'd be more unstructured so I really appreciate that they use their imaginations and get in guest speakers and organise multi pack activity days etc.

I was a bit wary of the religious/pro monarchy ideology but the benefits out weigh that by far.

It's a while since dd was at Brownies, but it was a positive experience (she is now doing young leaders training with another uniformed organisation).
The reasons for dd going to Brownies were:

1. chance to widen her friends outside of school.
2. activities aimed at girls (at the time her class at school was dominated by boys who outnumbered girls).
3. chance to participate in a wide variety of activities without having to sign up to long term classes.
4. weekends away and residential activities were good too (the school didn't allow her to go due to medical condition) but Brownies were able to cater for her needs.

The only thing that I found slightly disappointing was the lack of outdoor activities (which was different to my experience of brownies) but attribute this to the difference between inner-city and more rural packs. When dd went to secondary school she already knew some of the girls in her year (and others) through Brownies (and Guides) so that was another advantage. Unfortunately there is no Senior Section in our area, so she moved to another uniformed organisation that caters for 14+ age group.

weekends away and residential activities were good too (the school didn't allow her to go due to medical condition) but Brownies were able to cater for her needs we get told this a lot, even with a couple of girls who have full time TAs at school. I think the lower ratios help and we can adapt trips around medical and SN issues. Inclusivity is really the biggest thing in all the training.

I'm a newly appointed Brown Owl, having not worked with Brownies since I was a young leader. This thread has been really interesting to read, thanks OP for starting it.

Looking at my program for the term, I don't have any outdoor activities currently, so might have to shift some things around! But with 2 badges, a visit from the zoo, plus science night and engineering night, I'm not sure when we'll have time!

the schedule for the autumn term came home last night and includes

fire safety badge (around 4 sessions)
trip to Tesco's for "Farm to Fork" visit
Christmas party
scrapbooking
bonfire party including sparklers
"getting to know you" session

there is also mention of a sleepover and a weekend away.

DD is very excited about all of these things.

Outdoor activities are difficult to schedule in the one hour/one hour and a half, aren't they?!

Although I do thoroughly encourage them, at the same time, I find them a bit of a faff, because you often have to drive a long way to some other place, (hard for ones without cars) stick around, etc, etc, and there's my other kids to consider.

So don't worry too much about them in autumn/winter, I reckon!

Our session is 1.5 hours but for off-site evenings 15 mins is often added on. Usually at the beginning. Ours mainly stay local but perhaps once or twice a term there will be somewhere they have to be driven to.

What sort of things do you do outside the hall?

We have been on a scavenger hunt in local park, but that is about it.

I am in LaSER and looking at paw prints, but not really sure what you have to do to get them

Road safety, nature walks, visits to local country park to do map reading, nature reserve, sing carols in care home at Christmas, donutting at dry ski slope, geocaching.

This term we're doing

• walk to local woods (aka a bit of green space and a few trees) where we will do some nature based activities and hide and seek type games
• climbing
• campfire
• penny hike (with torches, but on lit footpaths!)

The laser web site is good- if you follow the links the syllabus for the paw prints will be there. We have done the laser walking challenge (pretty badge too) and that has loads of good ideas. Also if you do face book there are a number of leaders support groups you can join - lots of inspiration from other leaders. Our region does outdoor training too.
It is harder when the nights are dark but - wide games, campfires, sausage sizzle, geocaching, photo challenge, penny hike, camp in a day, mini Olympics, quidditch have all proved popular.
Is there a local scout or guide campsite you could use? School playing field? We are very rural so the outdoors is a bit easier!

I'm in Laser too (GLW) and have done half a dozen ish paw prints with my Rainbows, with the autumn one planned for this term. We will be catching leaves, and clearing leaves from my AL's garden to earn it.

My DD's brownie unit had a meeting in the woods locally to get that badge, had a beekeeper visit for the insects and mini beasts one, emergency services visit for the in an emergency one, we went to dirty hands and muddy boots at Blackland Farm to do in the mud, then did it again at Heyswood in the summer. They planted seeds for one of them, think it was in the spring but I'm not sure.

Criteria for earning the badge is at the leaders discretion, it's more encouraging girls to get outside and enjoy themselves.

I would have thought the only reason to send them was because they asked to go!
From my point of view it would be the social aspect, life skills and adventure.