Guiders Staff Room Part 3

[Groovee]

Reconvening over here ladies.

Starting off as I mean to go on. Three guiding meetings this week.

I'm really, really behind on paperwork (especially accounts) so I'm trying to make myself do one Guiding admin thing every day. Today I've made up the blank termly planner (meeting tomorrow) and then I also need to pay for some badges that I forgot last term. Of course we are about a year out of date in our signatories because we can't track down one of the ex-signatories and one of the new people wasn't accepted by the bank last time we tried (about 6 months ago) so I have to find the cheque book, and post the cheque to be countersigned and then the signatory has to post it. Aaaargh.

I need to finish off last year's accounts, thanks for the reminder!

I did email all my waiting list people who I can offer a space to on Monday, and have heard back from two of them - their deadline to respond is tomorrow, so fingers crossed the other three get back to me.

Question: how hard/different is it to go from running Rainbows to running Brownies? The Brownie leader and I are considering swapping units for a while, as Brownies clashes with her LO's bedtime, and babysitters are hard to get consistently (and expensive for Brownies to pay for).

What are the main differences and what would I need to consider? My own DD is currently one of the Brownies, though she's nearly 10, and a few of my ex-Rainbows are also in the unit so at least I'd know some of them.

Brownies want loads of badges, and take hardly any time to do activities, so they are always asking what comes next.

Agree, brownies are badge fiends, rush crafts, but find one that gets them and you'll run out of time. Expect explaining anything to take forever because they first have to do talking and listen, them ask daft questions, then come in with a dozen anecdotes that are only vaguely related. Good points... They're fun, can really get involved with my crazy ideas, and it's great watching the older ones develop and begin to lead the younger members.

New term begins next week. First one back is always games, pow wow, and chaos. Plus one of us tied up taking subs.

We're back on the 18th.

Planning meeting this week. And I need to get the sleepover packs sorted too.

I would say the main difference between running Rainbows & Brownies is that our Rainbows only need one activity planned each week but the Brownies often need several, generally related to badgework. But they are much more independent at carrying out tasks.

We had our first meeting back at Guides last night, I got myself majorly organised over the Xmas holidays as me & the other leader are both expecting babies in the the next 3 months! Last year's accounts are nearly balanced & we've got a general plan taking us to the end of the summer term!

Last night we did a review of last term's activities, I wrote all the activities on pieces of paper & gave each of them 10 counters that they could vote with. The most popular things were when we made Yule Logs & when we went to the local pottery place to paint mugs.

We're back tonight. 6 newbies so we'll be back up to 30 girls. Just me and a parent volunteer tonight so keeping it simple with term planning (they always want a night walk, to cook pancakes on tins and an outing in the spring term so I'm going to try and shake something new out of them!), a few games, and some promise work as the newcomers from last term haven't taken their promise yet and it will give this terms' new girls a taste.

First meeting back tonight, went well despite us being down to me and two YLs (eek). It sounds trite but after being knackered at the end of last term and spending the holidays getting fed up of planning, having an hour where everything goes (more or less) smoothly and everyone has fun was a wonderful reminder of why I love it.

Back this week and shattered. There's a nice long guiding thread on aibu www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2825938-To-be-told-if-a-boy-is-sleeping-with-the-girls-at-girl-guides-camp

Morning,'I'm hopeless at remembering you guys are here as I spend a lot of time in the fb groups.

First night back at rainbows last night, we're down to 9 girls. We've had a steady decline over the last 18 months from 25 girls so I'm quite happy with that. We had a new enquiry who decided to join another club instead and one who has left due to a clash of activities. It seems we're being hit hard by sporting activities at the moment. New sports clubs for young ones are popping up all over here, and typically clashing with our meeting night. Another unit opened in September too, but it was very much needed so I'm not worried there. The thinking day focus of growing guiding is going to be an interesting topic to cover.

So I'm planning a fun and activity filled term to kick start 2017. Starting with flat Olivia as that worked really well last time, and I'm hoping to drop a line to some of the groups we had last time too as a catch up.

Maybe a trip or two if I can find somewhere local enough. There's some fab places about an hour's travel away, but it's sometimes a lot to ask getting the girls' parents to travel on a meeting night. Work commitments and so on, or funding the bus. Although with numbers a mini bus is a possibility. We've done public transport on a day trip which was thoroughly enjoyed.

So posted too soon. Any suggestions for easy to arrange trips when town has limited facilities and we'd have to travel most places would be greatly accepted.

Do you have a pottery painting place nearby? All of our girls from Rainbows to Guides love that. Also a lot of stores like Pets at Home, Tesco, etc, will let you come for visits & run activities.

We do have a similar issue in that we meet in a village on a Monday night and obviously a lot of out-of-meeting place trips seem a bit much to ask of parents on a weekday.

Local library? Our Brownies had a sleepover at our library as part of their centenary year, they were allowed "behind the scenes" to see how it all worked, helped reshelve books etc and it was very well received. The librarian did a story time thing with them as well.

Tesco was brilliant, my brownies loved it. If you have one local that's an easy one for you as they do all the work

I had 5 guides this week, plus side is they all got on together despite being spread out in age and 4 different schools between the 5 of them. Downside is we really can't afford to run at this size for very long. All the guide units in the district seem to be having the same issue so at least it's not just us. My brownies on the other hand is full to bursting, 5 new starters and only 1 gone up to guides. (My brownies go to the guide unit that had the same meeting place as us, I do a different guide unit in the same district).

My Guide unit is the same, we have 7 (maybe 6) with a couple of Brownies coming up soon. We need 10 really to fund ourselves.

We're doing a recruitment push for Thinking Day of getting local businesses to give out packs of seeds to every customer to 'grow our unit' with an attached postcard from the girls explaining why girls should join our unit 'grow friendships', 'grow skills', etc.

Hopefully that will gain some interest but if not we may seriously be in trouble!

Ooh I like the idea of an extended library visit. Ours is near the park which opens up plenty of opportunities.

Sadly the pottery places within reasonable distance have both recently closed. I put a shout out on a local crafters group to see if anyone could come and show the girls something. Hopefully something will come
Of that as I think there are plenty of skills which are slowly slipping away. My own sewing is passable for repairs.

Losing the will to live with GG forms!

Does anyone have any Thinking Day activities for Rainbows? Last year we did paper doll chains with different countries' Rainbow uniforms, which went down well. The official stuff this year is all about recruitment, but that's not a problem for us at the moment. I thought possibly exchanging cards with another unit?

Sorry for slight hijack - I just spent ages writing something on the trans thread but it got closed. This was meant for there. Anyone got any further thoughts?

Guider here and have not read the whole thread but my thoughts are:

Very young boys living as girls - I know there's been a whole load of stuff on why a lot of these will be pressurised into believing that liking pink= being a girl. This is very sad and a problem of society as a whole but these boys won't be likely to be a threat to Rainbows. My DS went on residential with a mixed age group and is under the impression he'll be a Rainbow when older.

Older children: again they may be in a stereotyped box due to dim parents, or possibly (but not too likely) they may have decided this is fun/alternative/to their advantage. Guiders are used to dealing with clashes, domination of a group, bullying among groups of girls. I think we can cope with one boy doing this.
Teenagers: a bit more problematic. Senior Section groups tend to be very small and often have fragile members. I would welcome some general guidance on dealing with abuse by girls to other girls BUT again this won't be specific to trans individuals.
Volunteers: Boys aged 14 and men can already volunteer with GG. They can also go on residentials and currently have to have separate accommodation (and bathrooms - awkward for my 4yo who didn't want to go into the gents on his own).
Risks here are women who are aggressively pushing their right to share accommodation etc. In this instance it would be good to have guidance on volunteers' rights to feel safe and e.g. my rights as unit leader to say "X and Y will be in this tent and Z in that one, thank you". I've already done this with a slightly uncertain adult female interaction and would feel happy doing it again.

I would also hazard a guess that girls who've been living as girls for quite some time will be less likely to behave in inappropriate ways that are specific to boys (if you see what I mean) while parents and girls will be fully aware that girls who have newly started living as girls, were not girls until recently.

Formatting mess up AND duplicate post..

The trans thread gave me rage

I honestly don't believe that many boys think "ooh I can pretend to be a girl and go to brownies and go to sleepovers and share a room". I believe some boys believe they are girls. And possibly they're encouraged in this more now than in the past where they would have just been less macho boys. But I don't believe in the hordes of men pretending to be women so they can access female only spaces. They feel they are a girl, they want to be a girl, they want to act like a girl, why would they act like a boy and be inappropriate to the girls? I imagine these children are far more self conscious especially about their body than any other girl.

I don't have any trans girls in my groups. But if I did I would discuss with their parents what was appropriate, e.g. Them being in a tent on their own or sharing with particular friends who were understanding or them only attending the day part of camp if that's what they and their parents felt was best.

My brownies come from about three local primary schools. They would know if a boy in their class changed gender (having known them since age 4) and I hope would have been supported in dealing with it in school. So if that child then started brownies it wouldn't be a big deal to the ones from the same school at least.

A friend of mine has a 13 year old son. He quite calmly refers to a friend of his as trans. Young people are more aware of these things than most adults and seem more able to take it in their stride.

Interesting posts. That thread have me the rage by p2, so I watched off!

Ria my unit made cards to swap tonight, want to swap? anyone else?