Guiders Staff Room Part 3

[Groovee]

Reconvening over here ladies.

A lesson in inequality (fits nicely into the WAGGGS GATT badges/UN development goals and Brownies are right on the best age to get this).
Each six lines up beside a 'river'. The aim is to cross the river.
Each girl can get across the river standing on one piece of paper. If they aren't on the paper, they drown.
If they are have one each they can each float across if you toss a coin and they guess correctly, but the best way is to step onto an additional piece of paper.
Don't tell them how to get across except the rules.
Give one six a piece of paper per person plus 5. They can link together (hold hands), pass a spare sheet forward, all step forward etc
Give one six just one extra (they can use the same method above)
Give one six just one sheet each (they can do it if they split the group and two people come back for whoever was left behind).
Give one six less than the number of people. It will be impossible. Make them try. How many people will they lose into the river? How will they feel about the teams with enough paper? How will they feel about the team with lots more than they need.
It's fun because there's a logic problem element to it but also always invokes a fantastic discussion. Love this game!

Well, they're quite easily the biggest cheques I've ever written.

Pissed off to the max though - 3 Guides appear to have left, only one parent has let me know and of course that was after role management was locked so I've paid out £67.50 I didn't need to pay . It could be worse, I know some of you pay £30+ per girl but I worked hard to keep to budget so we didn't need the loan offered by Division & could have used that money towards costs for a trip to the York Chocolate Story we're planning

I would have had a picture of my census cheque going in the post this evening, only DS2 (age 3) was a bit keen and put it through before I took it! I have a lovely picture of a random postbox a la slightly blurred hand, though :o

I'm gutted though, my AL has resigned with effect from next week, so looks like we'll be back to a parent rota next term

Got my "payment being processed" email this morning. Always worry about it getting lost.

Hi everyone. I've just started as a unit helper at my daughter's brownies. The guides meet at the same time so I mostly help them so my daughter has some freedom from her mother! Enjoying it so far. Shocked at the census fees, what does that cover?

YY I got my payment being processed email too, hurrah!

Welcome Liz :) census (it's not really called that any more...) is our annual membership fees. Mine is £28.50 per head girls and volunteers but it varies across the country depending on where you're based and how much it has to pay for. Near me (London):
£10 ish goes to HQ, this is the same for everyone and pays for salaried staff, central databases/websites, the HQ building, branding, resources sent out to all units (new programme stuff will be coming out this summer)...
£10 ish goes to my region (LaSER/London & South East) and pays for the same at a regional level
£7 ish goes to county and pays for the county office, county campsite The rest goes to my division and helps pay for our local Guide Hut.
District doesn't take any money but we write a cheque for £10 per unit to cover sundries that they need, we don't have our own premises so costs are low!

Lucysmam I would charge the parents if the Guides who've left for the census you've had to pay.

Got my email this morning too.

Had a really good night last night, all about rights and responsibilities. They all participated, even my new one that struggles with joining in/anything she doesn't want to do. Took a couple of short chats- "this is boring", "I understand you prefer some of the activities, but sometimes we have to do the less exciting badge work, if you don't join in then I can't give you the badge" and the "I want to do it on my own", "well in brownies we work in groups a lot, so come and join your six, lets see if we can help them decide whether a TV is a want or a need". Love her, I actually think she might have enjoyed herself at points last night. Especially with the spoon on a broom handle activity!

Thanks for the paper games 😊

My census was £31.75. This years cheque was a big increase in last year.

We were £33 a head as we pay for county, Scottish and HQ. As we have double the amount of girls too... it was a large cheque.

We have a circus skills work shop tonight. Sadly my fibromyalgia has flared up.

I still haven't paid, it is going to have to be April. I do have a box full of cash so if I bank that it might be enough.
Problem is that I wrote a cheque for camp but not all payments have come in.

Circus skills sounds fun.

Fybro- ouch. Would extra spoons help?

Thanks Rue. You don't think of all these overheads which need covering. Tonight we're working on the clever clogs badge, it's a special one for international women's day last week, about women in engineering & science. There's going to be spaghetti & marshmallow towers amongst other things.

I'm thinking of doing Clever Cogs next term too! Is it NW Region?

Big sigh moment re DS/Beavers. I'm looking round at groups to put him on a waiting list. One of the local leaders advertised on FB for leather for a Cowboys and Indians camp for crafts and "things to make an Indian Chief outfit".

I subtly asked which group without saying why... it's the one I was already not going to put him down for... my goodness why not have a Nazis and Jews theme instead??! Genocide is not an appropriate pretend theme for 6 year olds!

Yes we're in the north west. I don't understand the cowboys & Indians things. My knowledge is obviously lacking

As I say, it would be celebrating a genocide (and that's leaving aside the whole stereotyped "this is what Indians were like" issue that was a huge other thread that we were discussing a while back).

DH has given me a brief history lesson. Was something I knew nothing about sadly.

Well now you do... but you are not proposing to run a camp for 6 and 7 year olds based on it so you didn't need to know about it!

Even if it was a war in which both sides were equal and one of them "won fairly", then it's not exactly an appropriate theme! You wouldn't theme a camp round a modern war (WW1 trenches themed camp anyone?) or a modern non-war conflict even if it is a common playground game (they don't play cops and robbers in Reception my DS assures me but you wouldn't have that, nor would you have Zombies which is what they are playing!)

Don't want to be inflammatory, but all you Leaders moaning about the cost of census, and not sure how you are going to pay - don't you collect it from parents? Either as a one off once a year, or term by term as part of subs?

I don't see anyone moaning Herat: it's just one of those things: it's a big bill and the only person who has said they re struggling also specified that some parents are overdue with camp payments.

We collect it through subs but we don't have the whole amount in the bank account as surplus for the entire year. Also, a subs rise is overdue, and we are in the unusual position of all parents paying monthly which means we don't have one full term's subs in January going in followed by the census going out in March - we have 1/2 a term's subs in the account already by the time the bill comes through (possibly 3/4 if they all pay on time and the bill is later in March like this year). But we still have 25% of this term's subs to come in on 1st (ish... for some parents!) April.

(And it was a bit annoying about the camp fees. Camp is in June - joint camp - but there was an early bird price if you booked by Feb. But my girls' parents really won't/can't pay the whole cost of camp in Feb for a June camp so I had to take deposits in Jan and the rest has partly come in already and partly due in May).

Hi. I am a parent helper at Brownies rather than a proper Leader, so I hope it's OK for me to post. Just wondering about all the badges I've read about in this thread - chocolate badge etc. (Sounds great!) Are these new badges for all, or unit/area specific ones?

They're semi-official challenge badges Land0r (you have to ask to join the fb group). They're made by units as fundraisers and there are some great activities.