Guiders Staff Room Part 4

[Groovee]

Moving on from Part 3

The badges for the old programme are still live on the GG website, as it is still running until the end of the summer term. There is a lot more variety than what is avaliable at present on the new programme.

Our DC is being annoying again. We're 10 days away from a big camp so half our leaders were spending the night busy in the store room preparing. With two hours notice she tells us by SM that she will be dropping in (which was to present two leaders awards) so some of our leaders missed the moment. It was replied that it was a bad night and why and it was ignored. She's frustrating as she doesn't do dialogue. She just does things her way, when she wants and frequently comes over as very patronising. She has caused upsets over the way she has dealt with more serious issues, but the frequent petty stuff like this gets wearing too.

Is it a full moon? The little brown & yellow ones were a flippin nightmare this evening. It was like they were all premenstrual with caffeine withdrawl after a crap night's sleep. Arguing, sulking, crying, being rude to each other and the leaders... then an arsey parent had a go at our YL.
Thank goodness for 1/2 term next week to give them all a break to reset.

We call it nearly halftermitis
Not sure what possessed us to do slime this week. Ugh. Still, the parents' faces as they came out with their bags of it was a picture!

Help with leadership mentoring please....

Some boring but important background ....

I'm a trainee rainbows leaders, our unit has a qualified but relatively inexperienced leader and another trainee like me (both of us are parents of current rainbows).

Myself and the other trainee need a proper mentor to do our leadership work with.

More background, the whole handover from the previous leaders has been chaos and we've effectively been running the unit for about 8 months with very little support and we only got our trainee folders last week!

I found out tonight that our allocated mentor is a previous leader who I have myself reported safeguarding concerns about to my commissioner (and the commissioner did not keep anonymous, as I now know they are friends).

My question is .. Do we have any control who our mentor is? What are the rules about who can/can't be mentor to a trainee?

I have to admit that, despite absolutely loving leading the rainbows, I may have to quit if I am forced to deal with this individual.

Your County should have someone with overall responsibility for people working on the LQ Gonzales; but given the situation with your safeguarding report not being kept confidential (& it worries me it was potentially not actioned if your Commissioner did that) I think you need to go straight to your County Commissioner & explain what’s gone on. They need to know about the safeguarding situation; & they should help sort out a new Mentor for you as well.

My County is very short on Rainbow Leaders & Mentors, but I know that in circs like these they’d find someone else for you SOMEHOW. And they’d have your local Commissioner on toast over safeguarding shenanigans...

I found out tonight that our allocated mentor is a previous leader who I have myself reported safeguarding concerns about to my commissioner (and the commissioner did not keep anonymous, as I now know they are friends)

Do you know for a fact that your safeguarding concerns were not investigated?

Or might they have been investigated and no evidence found?

Either way it's not an ideal situation but would explain why the woman is still volunteering.

I don't know what investigations have been done, I only know that my report wasn't kept anonymous as the individual themselves turned up at my meeting to apologise/confront me about my report in front of the girls! That same night another parent approached me to say

" I've just noticed that x has popped in tonight, please don't let her near my daughter as she's really inappropriate with her, but don't report it as I know her and commissioner are good friends!"

Im probably going to have to report it higher, I don't want her popping in to my meetings ever again now but also need to try and search for another mentor.

Does anyone know how a leader becomes a mentor, what qualifications they need to have?

To become a mentor you need to start by doing the online mentor training. Takes about 20 mins. Then there should be a f2f mentor training session.

Then get in touch with D.C. or local mentor co-ordinator who matches mentors with mentees.

That's how it works in our County anyway.

Does anyone run fortnightly meetings? I'm thinking about cutting down meetings for my Rainbow unit next term, as I'm the only leader and I'm getting burnt out. I'm worried about fitting everything in though.

We have a Sunday Rainbow unit that meets once a month. The meetings are longer, though I can't remember quite how long.
It seems popular.

One of our feeder Rainbow units meets fortnightly on a Saturday morning. They either meet for 90 mins or 2 hours so they can fit in the whole programme. It's very popular (we get kids from all over our large market town) who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend a Rainbow unit.

So... we had a trip and the one thing I missed off the risk assessment...

When a brownie gets locked in the toilet, you need 3 members of staff and 2 owls to get her out... owls get a lesson in how to lock door... Fluffy owl tries to tell a 7 year old brownie how to lock said door with the snooty reply of "I know how to lock a door!" Only for her to get stuck. Cue 3 staff members and 3 owls back at the door 🙈

That's us until Schools return in August.

😂 😂 😂

Actually, my daughter got stuck in a toilet when visiting a scout camp site a few years ago. They had to break the door in to rescue her, but told me she recovered and was fine after a mars bar 😂

We did the caterpillar life cycle uma this week. On biscuits. Massive hit for some reason.

Oh my, glad it didn't come to that.

Must look at the caterpillar UMA

Am intrigued as to how you did the “Life Cycle Survival” UMA on biscuits Inflagrante. Mine really enjoyed playing the game this week (& it’s one of the glorious UMAs that doesn’t require any resources, too) & it was simple enough I could leave it with my YL & Brownie Helper to run. Or did you do the biscuits as well as the game?

One of my brownies got locked in a toilet on a trip last summer... the absolute worst girl for it to happen to as she’s easily upset and rarely capable of following instructions even when you’re not giving them through a door! Fortunately I was able to talk her through opening it, massive relief for all of us!

I really wish there were more UMAs that were pick up and go with no equipment or prep required! They would be great for evenings when plans have fallen through and you have an meeting to fill suddenly. I’m lucky that our leader in charge is brilliant at filling meetings on no notice with minimal equipment, but it would be nice if at least some of this stuff counted for the themes. And it would be easier for less experienced leaders who struggle to come up with spur of the moment stuff like me!

Marie I've kept the game for another night, I had the loudest ⅓ of the unit on a residential.

I told the story of the very hungry caterpillar from memory, but wrong, so they had to keep correcting me. Then we used various sweets to recreate it on biscuits - green icing for a leaf, a chocolate button for the egg, smarties for the caterpillar, ¼ ripple for the chrysalis and coated pretzels/a cola lance for the butterfly.
Then we played the ladybird game from another uma

Any ideas for a rainbow promise activity please ladies?
Recently taken over and struggling with the differences between rainbows and brownies!

Can you adapt a Brownie activity? 6
Belief tree
Promise bunting
Good Turn mouse

I’m taking 15 girls to Our Chalet this summer. Anyone else travelling?

We played the ladybird game too InflagranteDelicto: I had the littlies as the invasive species & they were VERY excited about winning. (We did then play twice more so everyone got to be an invading ladybird...) Love the sound of the biscuits.

Am currently thanking my lucky stars that my ridiculous body chose this week not last to have an epic malfunction: this time last week I was away on Brownie Holiday, having a campfire; right now I have a hefty bag of glucose running into a main line in my left arm & am stuck on bunker-like acute admissions ward because when a bed was found for me it was then lost because that ward “doesn’t do” patients who have cardiac monitors The nursing staff on this ward are awesome though (& indeed the medical team I’m under atm) so feeling like I’m in some bizarre extension to the Cabinet War Rooms is worth the trade-off. Now I just need to escape by last meeting of term. (I think next meeting = unrealistic hope, sadly.)

Oh & yes, of course I was responsible for almost all of this week’s meeting, so Plans Had To Change. Gah. But the girls had fun, which is key thing.

(Sorry, I’ve barely slept since Tuesday, Words Are Hard...)

Our LiT is leaving us next week to go off for a gap year volunteering for her church and then to university. We'd like to get her a little gift but I am lost for inspiration for once. I don't think a Girlguiding vase is really up her street, and she's not going to have a garden for a while to plant a rose in...Those are my usual default options!

Please give me your brilliant ideas for what to give a brilliant 18-year old to say good luck and goodbye.

My 18yo YL is leaving too and I haven't a clue what to give them .... and they're my own DC1!!!

Is she travelling at all? Travel & future Guiding adventure accessories?

Independent cooking for the first time? Utensils, garlic crusher, cork screw?

Or Amazon voucher for own treats or a Costa/etc voucher for when funds run low & she needs lunch?

I've found a cloth bag in the crafts tub and I've decided to fill it with things for emergencies - a Be Prepared kit. A little first aid kit, paracetamol, tin opener, corkscrew, chocolate and a £5 note. I might let my YL daughter loose in the pound shop to see if she can find some fun things to add to it.
Not necessarily an original idea, but I think she'll appreciate that it comes from us and is well intended.

Jenny - that sounds great! And gives me an idea... get the girls to sign/decorate the bag with fabric pens. We have yellow bags onto which I iron on our unit name & the girls decorate as part of Promise prep. I'll do a bag for YL/DC1