Guiders Staff Room Part 3

[Groovee]

Reconvening over here ladies.

All sounds good. Planning to feature both food and fresh air early on in the term to win them over...

Rainbows are too similar to my own dc at the moment (6, 3 but thinks she's 5 and a nutter ) to enjoy it. Feeling more enthusiastic about Brownies than I have about gg generally for a long time.

Yay for the new YLs inflagranto. We are 'inheriting' a fab YL. Meeting on Monday to hand over paperwork.

Got my pack from girlguiding for the activity cards. How long before I lose it?🙈

Got mine too. Liked the thread on fb drawing the similarity with Pokemon cards! Not sure how they'll fit in with our leadership /planning style. What are everyone's thoughts?

I need to look through them better but was thinking some of them would be good 5 minute fillers. After the bowling ball incident, letting my lot lose with hammers on apples 🙊😂

My lot would enjoy the hammers, but would find them tame after the 11th- they were told they'd get to do stuff their parents wouldn't! We had them using an axe, a bow saw, knives to scrape their marshmallow sticks it was a great night

Hammers are great! We did golf tees in butternut squash and nails in polystyrene (both from the DY badge). There is ABSOLUTELY nothing to be afraid of.

DY badge?
I was a bit disappointed by the cards: love the layout and that more info is provided, but they aren't as challenging as i'd like: nails into apples seems a bit tame and I think making a small something using the techniques would be more of an instant reward for brownies. Also I will not be doing boxing: I have no expertise in joint ligament protection and I can see some of the girls hurting themselves.

DIY challenge

One of my Guides favourite things we did in the last year was build some crates from ikea

I've been at a Jamboree this week, a scout leader was telling me how he got a load of free furniture from ikea (stuff that was damaged) and got the scouts to build it. Then (of course) they had a fire with it all once they'd made it.

Jamboree was fun! I was there as staff so worked very hard on not much sleep but I was with a great team of people and I enjoyed chatting to the young people about what they'd got up to.

I like the look of that, DrSpouse! And the ikea idea. Will try contacting them. Think Wise Owl might have kittens though

Inflagrante how did you organise your campfire skills evening? I would love to do some wood whittling with my brownies. The axe sounds intriguing.

Dp ran it, it's a session he'd previously run with his beavers. 4 stations, adult on each, plus an adult keeping a fire.

1- long handled matches. Light, 40 degrees to box so strikes first time. Play with it, what happens as you move the match from head pointing up, head pointing down..., light a tea light

1. Make kindling. We used a stump from our garden as a Base. Use the axe to split the wood, it's not a swinging action, more lift by about 8", bring down into the wood, then lift again, the axe now embedded a little. Bring down, it'll split further. Repeat to produce several pieces of kindling, child then adds to fire themselves

1. Dp made a little saw horse. Bow saw used to take off 6" lengths, add to fire.

1. Elder sticks. Use knives to scrape bark of end 3" or so. Recommend Stanley knives. Stay sharp (so less likely to have an accident), easy to replace with a sharp blade, no faffing with blunt knives or sharpening (his personal pocket knife takes Stanley refills, it's really useful). They had 10" squares of ply to go protect the table. Once clean, seal stick in fire.

Then once everyone's been round - toasted marshmallows!

It's as much about being them used to using the tools, becoming confident around fire, but understanding the risks. Any questions, ask.

Thanks Inflagrante. That seems very doable. All i need now is an axe, a bow saw and 3 more adults! All of which shouldn't actually be a problem. Cant wait to have a go- they will love it

Adults need strong nerves . Was a great night. It was introduced as doing stuff your parents would never let you do

We go back to brownies next week. Took an extra week off as I had surgery 5 weeks ago.

How are you now Grover? Back week after next. Not a clue what we're doing yet, can't get hold of the other leader to start planning anything anything!

I'm still tired. But we'll get there. Doing some games tonight.

Ooh I've dropped off this.
Had a meeting with our new DC last night (District has changed rather than DC!) and we discussed lack of girls in Guides. She has made some helpful (and new) suggestions (not "do an assembly" which we have done x1000).

Also discussed one of our other unit issues (staffing) and I think we may have a solution though it wouldn't have been my initial suggestion it does mean I can step back from some of the admin side a bit (this is not really the full story which is v outing, but it's something like, me doing admin for the other sections and feeling it was all out of control despite finding the other leaders very lovely so therefore not wanting to complain - she is going to try and move the admin away though not necessarily to the existing leaders - I am worried I will still get the parent complaints as they think I do all the admin!)

I'm not really used to having a DC as previously it was a team with a v hands off DC.

PS please have a look at my other new thread in Extracurricular about activities that expect/don't want parents there. Struggling with this at the moment TBH.

Sounds interesting DrSpouse, do you feel it's a positive move? Will pop over and have a lookey

Well despite my natural inclination not to be "coordinated" I think it might be helpful to actually have someone to ask questions!

Issues are that I'm the longest standing leader (and I used to do Rainbows and also Brownies, though not at the same time), so parents ask me all the questions, and I tend to coordinate e.g. all the units going to a County event.
Brownie leader is the only parent at the main school our girls go to so parents also tend to ask her questions/assume she knows everything.
But if I had less admin then it might not stop the questions from parents in other sections - but it might leave me with more time for my section.

(by which I mean, having someone else coordinating me - not lack of organisation!)

Full house this week! We started the Elftastic challenge. Made up our Elf Names. Made badges, elf biscuits and applications to be elves.

GO. My mother taught me that if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing.

I found transferring from waiting list to the actual list so much easier than before.

I played about last night.