Guiders Staff Room Part 3

[Groovee]

Reconvening over here ladies.

@MillicentMargaretAmanda

If the daughter is a Brownie she counts in section ratios and doesn't need a separate leader.

Thanks so much guys!

I'm not active in Girlguiding at the moment, but just wanted to say to ILookedInTheWater that those were exactly the things that drove me out. It seems so hard to build a good leadership team; over the years I had some great assistant leaders and unit helpers but they tended to move on pretty quickly as they had to relocate for jobs and the like. At one point I had a few parents who would commit to help from time to time and, crucially, would turn up, but when their daughters moved up, the next generation of parents were far less amenable - less willing to help, more likely to cancel at the very last minute. What made it worse for me was that my district commissioner was no help - when I contacted her for advice on some very specific issues, she didn't even reply to my emails.

I think it's ok to quit. I felt a bit conflicted about it - for more than a decade, I'd been trying to teach the girls resilience and thought I should show some myself - but my experience was that Girlguiding does not treat its volunteers well. More and more demands were being placed on us, without the structure of support above and around the unit (management committee, treasurer type roles) that Scouts seems to have. In the end, I concluded that another thing we try to teach the girls is don't be afraid to stand up for yourself, don't accept being treated badly, and (ironically and sadly) for me to do that as a leader I had to quit.

How do you decide PL's with your Guides? I'm hoping we can do this on Tuesday but a bit unsure how to go about it even though we've done a lot of team based activities this half term so they can try to work out who should be 'in charge' for themselves.

In my daughter's unit, they used to do it by taking turns for a term at a time. The leaders made the choices. They did it in the name of fairness but, ironically, the girls didn't really like it because the constant chopping and changing was unsettling and girls would be just getting into the role when they had to hand it over. I think an election within the patrol would be better - with a real election coming up, you could turn it into a democracy event and have hustings!

Took a team of 5 brownies on the county competition hike yesterday, they came joint 2nd with a time of 1h24, I'm really proud of them. Had to grin at the one who turned round and said to me afterwards "can we do this next year?" She's not 8 until the end of the month!

Regarding PL we ask the girls to choose, which I believe is what's supposed to happen, then the PL chooses the PS. The girls have used various methods to choose, and the PL usually chooses a girl who wanted to be PL to be PS. Unfortunately at my Guides we don't actually give much responsibility to the PL, as Go For It's are very hit and miss, and we don't involve the girls in planning as much as we probably should. We're also a small unit (biggest we've been in the last few years was 15 girls) and at times we've not had enough girls to have separate patrols.

At Brownies, we just have the oldest four girls as sixers and the next four oldest as seconders. We move the girls around when needed to promote girls as others move up to Guides. Again we're not really as "Girl led" as we should be, but we do try to give the sixers a bit of responsibility (they take the salute at the start, looking after new girls, sometimes we'll give the sixers instructions for an activity then they tell their six)

inflagrante that's impressive! Well done!

There are only 7 girls in our unit harder, and none of them are hot on planning for themselves. Although they are getting better with practise!

I like the idea of an election! Wonder how well that'll work with one patrol of 3, and one of 4 though . Suppose we can see...

I don't like the idea of chopping and changing much. I'm hopeful we'll have more girls, and a 3rd (probably small again) patrol by Christmas ish so one of the P.S's could then be promoted giving someone else a turn at an 'important' job iyswim?

Urgh. Way to much goes into this sometimes...I tie myself in proper knots hoping not to upset anyone

Knots are so easy to get into! Ask them how they want to organise it?

I would be very grateful for the input and advice from the experienced Guiders & Brown Owls on this thread.

DD (12) is a Guide who has been planning a themed activity evening for Brownies. She is trying to plan an appropriate amount of material, but she has never done anything like this before, and she is having difficulty estimating how long each activity will take.

I would be very grateful if you could let me know about how long you think this would take to do with 30ish Brownies:

Short talk to the unit about a camp she is going on in a different country.
Three activities done in sixes:
Activity 1: making plaited friendship bracelets in the colour of the country's flag (one bracelet per brownie).
Activity 2: short quiz (10 questions) about the country (group work done as a six).
Activity 3: icing biscuits with designs associated with the country (two biscuits per brownie) then clear-up.

She has prepared the resources for the above, but would this take up the whole meeting? If there's too much time at the end, she could maybe do a game?

Thank you so much.

It really depends on the Brownies TheSecond. That might well take all meeting, but I'd definitely have a few 'no prep' games/songs planned too (things like stick-in-the-mud and ladders, or whatever the unit usually does). Good luck to your dd!

I suspect, with that number of girls, the activities would comfortably fill the meeting (allowingbfir all the usual stuff at each end of the meeting). Has she thought about logistics, such as how to ensure everyone gets a go at everything, whether to split into groups or have everyone doing the same activity at the same time, etc?

I agree, that sounds a meeting full. How does she plan to run the three activities? A lot of that could depend on the ages of the girls. I'd have something up my sleeve, an indoor campfire or something.

How many adults does she have to spread round? Again, that can affect speed of activities, plus having a couple of adults to tidy up while she focuses on running a game (our MO, works a treat!) is a massive help.

Hope she has fun, good luck to her 😊

Thank you for your replies. I was a bit concerned that she would end up with half an hour of extra time at the end, with nothing to fill it.

She will make the icing at home and bring it in three containers.

After the introductory talk, she wants to divide the brownies into tables, with a table for each six. They would then start the friendship bracelets. While they are making these, she will prepare a paper plate for each table with three colours of icing in cupcake cases, using the kitchen (there's a large hatch facing the brownies, so she'll still be able to see them).

Once nearly all the brownies have finished the bracelets, she will hand out the quizzes, one for each table and pencils. While they're doing the quiz, she will finish getting the icing ready. Once everyone has finished the quiz, she will get them to swap their answers with another team, read out the answers, find out which six won and congratulate them (do you think she should provide small prizes for the winning six or is this not necessary?)

She will then ask each sixer to collect the biscuits and icing materials for their table from the hatch. While they are icing the biscuits, she will get out an extra table for them to leave the iced biscuits on (on paper napkins). At the end of this activity she will ask each six to return their unused icing to the kitchen and wipe their table. She is hoping that the brownies will be able to fold away their own tables, but all the usual leaders (plus her Guide leader) will be there to help.

If there is time left, she is then going to show them a game which they will all play together.

At the end of the meeting, she will hand out copies of a traditional blessing, which they will all read out together.

I would suggest to her she gives a second leader instructions on how to prepare the icing etc so she can supervise the first two activities. Part of running a session is also about being able to delegate tasks to other members of the team. If she knows setting up the icing is in hand she can relax and run the other two activities with her full attention.

Think I'd also remind her to factor in an extra 10 minutes for all the hand washing (or is it just my unit who can take forever?!)

It's a really good plan, she's thought it through well. Good for her 😊

Thank you. Good point about the delegating.

Does she need to prompt them to wash their hands, or will they just use their common sense?

Brownies? I'd definitely prompt to wash their hands! (The girls are as bad as the boys in my Cubs - same ages).

If the bracelet making takes longer than expected, she should be prepared to drop 1 of the remaining 2 activities - I'd be inclined to drop the quiz as that is easy for another night but the cookies needs the set up which she has already done. Perhaps let her talk to (Head Owl?! Is that Brown Owl?) in advance and clear it with her, as part of her planning and showing contingency.

Or she could have the quiz after the cookies, so if time is running out, washing up and tidying up gets priority (and not leaders and herself having to do it after the meeting).

YYY to delegating some prep stuff.

And to having a couple of games or songs up her sleeve for the unlikely eventuality (in my experience anyway - maybe our Cubs are just too unruly to get things done!) that everything runs so smoothly that she has time to spare at the end. It might be nice for her to ask what games they play, and mention what games she used to play in Brownies if there is one not mentioned - she might like to teach that? Or just play a favourite. Or if there is a game from Guides that would work well for Brownies - teaching them some "big Guide stuff" to look forward too. (Same for songs).

Brownies- definitely!!! And send them in sixes, not all at once, or carnage/a flood of biblical proportions will ensue!

YY to contingency plans, ie switch quiz with cookies. Worst case quiz could be run in a similar way to North south east west, with an answer in each corner.

Thinking on, tables will probably need an adult wipe after the girls have cleaned them in my experience

Hello Second, Well done to your daughter for organising all this. I would say that with 30 Brownies she may actually have too many activities for the time, assuming this is the usual one and a half hour meeting, as everything takes longer with those sort of numbers. I agree with the comments above about delegating some of the preparation. Other things she may want to consider; who is going to teach the girls to make those friendship bracelets? Does she have instructions for the Sixers or will there be a leader with each Six? Be aware that some of the younger ones may not know how to plait so they will need more time. Maybe consider dropping the quiz if needs be (or using it as a filler at the end for the Sixes that finish early) and sending girls to wash their hands as they finish the bracelets to avoid having 30 girls trying to reach 3 wash-basins all at once. Again with the icing do you have instructions for the designs and perhaps someone to keep an eye on how they are doing. I love the idea of the traditional blessing for the end. Hope it all goes well.

The friendship bracelets are simple plaits, she was hoping that the older ones in each six would help the younger ones. She has made an example bracelet for each six to copy.

With the biscuits, she iced three example designs and took photos, she has printed enough photos for each table to have one as inspiration.

I will suggest to her that she keeps an eye on the time and possibly moves the quiz to the end. Thank you so much.

You are very welcome Second, as so often the devil is in the detail so just going back over the crafts, is she planning on supplying ready cut lengths of thread for the bracelets or three balls of wool, scissors and instructions to cut lengths that go three times round the wrist to each table? Because they will take up different lengths of time, pre-cut being quicker on the night, but another thing to do ahead of time. I would also suggest to her that she get the girls to work in pairs. One to hold the end of the yarn and the other to plait as having an anchor makes plaiting much easier. Also need to factor in getting out tables and chairs if needed and general clean up time often takes longer than you expect although that will depend on how used the Brownies are to doing those jobs.

She has pre-cut the threads and knotted them at one end for each brownie. She was planning to bring tape and scissors, so the brownies can tape the knotted end to the table, but taking turns could work too.

She sounds very organised, so I am sure it will go well and I hope she enjoys it as well.