Guiders Staff Room Part 2

[Groovee]

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/extracurricularr_activities/715087-Guiders-39-staff-room-tea-wine-chat-and-optional-dancing

Part one above, new thread for when required x

Fingers crossed here too, DrSpouse.

Waiting for this roomful of girls to settle. At least my homesick one is too busy telling the others to go to sleep to be sobbing!

Hello, can I join? Guide leader here, just back from first Rainbow Residential. ( I survived little ones!) Now sewing badges on blanket while I'm feeling Guidey!

The girl in question is coming this week, her mum says she has mild SN so will try and be extra clear for her.

Greetings, Squirrel. I'm a Rainbow leader preparing for my 2nd Brownie holiday :o might have to be 1st aider for it, which I haven't done before - fingers crossed nobody has anything serious wrong!

Hi Squirrel

How did you enjoy the little red ones? I have brownies and not sure if I would cope with the younger age group.

Becles they were much better than expected! Far more resilient and independent than I had thought they would be. It's the first time I've done anything at all with Rainbows and I would do more, I think.

Hi Squirrel did your red ones sleep? Our Brownies didn't on either night! First aider wasn't too scary either, I was prepared for lots of heads bumped on bunk beds, but didn't get as many as expected

Inflagrante they slept more than we expected! went to bed around 8.20pm, all asleep by 9.30. Couple of them woke up at 4am and someone had to go in to get them quiet - they stayed put until 6.45 after that though.

Has anyone ever applied for a council or lottery grant? Looking for any helpful wording, I'm staring at a blank page and nothing comes to mind.

Feeling a bit more organised as I've booked the venues for Brownie holiday, summer camp and Autumn adventure residential for next year.
...now all I need to do is submit last years overdue accounts (when I've done them) before they overlap with this years.

Showme you made me feel better about my overdue accounts! And the expenses I need to sort out.....and the emails I need to write....

Hi I'm starting to help out as of Thursday at a local rainbows. I'm wondering what sort of things will i be responsible for doing? Will I plan things to do with the girls or will that be the leaders job? I'm going to be there every week apart from illness or planned holidays.

Welcome Soon. You'll most likely join the team and help planning and delivering the plans as part of a team. We all pitch in at my unit. Are you starting as a unit helper or as a leader in training?

Not sure the lady running the group said we would talk more after the 1st group I attend. I'm dead excited and want to get stuck in with all the planning and everything. The lady only took over the group in September so should be lots of fun.

Soon, you'll have loads of fun. Just go with the flow, and never expect anything to go to plan

I'm rather jealous squirrel I've decided to go for my licence, so now need to get plotting. Although its slightly daunting at the mo!

Planning the next few weeks, speaker badge, need to fit in some promise activities, week! I have a copy of mission promise, which looks good

InflagranteResidential qualification is really not too bad to do, it's all modular so can always do it in bits! Plus you know, you get a badge !

I am slightly biased as I'm a residential advisor so permanently convincing people that it's really not going to be loads to do

Now that's letting yourself in for lots of questions! I'm going to go for it, my biggest handicaps are lack of adult helpers in my unit, ones with dbs', and Wise Owl's plans to relocate....

Had just two girls at our meeting this week. It was very chilled (I think we accidentally coincided with an Inset day so everyone took a longer half term - ours is this coming week) but normally we only get about 5-6 out of 10 so I'm feeling a bit down.
Having lost a few girls over this complaint issue now means that some of the older Brownies are not planning to come up because their Guide age older friends have left.

Had just two girls at our meeting this week. It was very chilled (I think we accidentally coincided with an Inset day so everyone took a longer half term - ours is this coming week) but normally we only get about 5-6 out of 10 so I'm feeling a bit down.
Having lost a few girls over this complaint issue now means that some of the older Brownies are not planning to come up because their Guide age older friends have left.

Bother. Duplicate.
Does anyone else think it's, well, rather annoying that another local unit has about 40+ Guides and keeps saying "just one more"?
I genuinely think our programme is as good as theirs, though my girls do struggle a bit with self organising so may seem a bit cliquey and giggly to new girls.
We go to pretty much every joint event (other small units don't) and do joint residentials when we don't have the numbers for our own.

Do you know the leaders of the other unit at all? I'm astonished they aren't throwing new recruits your way.

I do know them, quite well (though not pals). There are also two small units near her that meet the same night and struggle for numbers. I feel that the other two units don't go to as many joint events as she does, though.

Being totally unfair, I think she would maybe quietly think her unit was so much better she shouldn't limit access because it's not fair on the girls not to let them in.

All the Rainbow units in our area are quite full and our Rainbow leader regularly says no more and passes them on to others. I tend to feel that having several popular units increases the profile of the section in the area but just one means parents and girls think that one is the only one that is worth going to.

If you're in the same area, drspook, can you ask your DC to step in and say the popular unit is full and Brownies coming up must be referred to one of the less full units?

It is the same area, of the four units we are furthest (but a different night so may suit some better).
We're not currently in the same District but a change may mean we move into it. Our Division Comm is pretty good but I have the feeling she may feel it's not worth rocking the boat/if it's not broke etc.

Sonething we did a couple of years ago to boost Guide numbers was run a taster night that we invited any brownies in the district who were 9 or 10 to. We did tie dying with them and had about 10 of them turn up to see what Guides was like.

Looking back it was the turning point when we really started to get a better transition from Brownies to Guides, we always used to have around 12 girls in Guides, over the past 2 years we've increased to 22 regulars, 26 if they all come.