Guiders' staff room - tea, wine, chat and optional dancing around the toadstool

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

Thought it might be nice to have a place to swap ideas and experiences. Shall we do introductions first?

My name's MadBad and I've been a Brownie guider for about 5 years.

hi everyone :)

had my first LQ training this weekend, safe space and introduction to guiding. was nice to meet people and i came back with LOADS of ideas !! so i am going to be leading on doing the festival roundabout. plannig on doing it over this term and spring term with 1 meeting a month dedicated to a festival. i was thinking

October - Ashura (muslim) which celebrates Noah's Ark and has a cool pudding thing that we can make with the girls

november - Divali (hindu and sikh) and make salt dough tealights

december - hannukah - most of the girls are at a c of e school so i thought it would be good to something different to christmas

january - chinese new year

february - valentines day

march - holi as they will have plenty of input about easter at school

april - japanese hanami (cherry blossom festival)

may - Beltane (pagan) as this ties in with our massive Jack in the Green festival here

what do you think ?

Do I tackle her head on or leave it and tell her to nicely bog off after a couple of weeks?

deffo put her to work lol

That sounds amazing truffle, may borrow some of your spring term ideas nd do the brownie discovering faith badge.

Lucysmam, it is expected. It is in the letter I send to all new parents, happy to pm you a copy if you like?

truffle, that sounds really interesting & your activities sound great!

I was looking at the roundabouts earlier on today - we only have Roundabout The World atm & I was wondering about getting a couple more over the coming months to help me with planning.

Albus, that would be really helpful, thank you!

Until this term I've run for four years with a parent rota and me as the sole leader. I put out a parent rota for the term, with spaces for people to fill in the weeks they could cover.

Other than once or twice having to have stern words to say that the meeting would be cancelled if people didn't sign up, it worked pretty well. I am, however, VERY relieved that I finally have a LiT coming along every week - she already helps at another local unit but was struggling to complete her ALQ due to an overabundance of leaders - they have 7!

Rue, I can see me having to rely on parents to fill the gap of a second leader for a while. The blummin Brownies next door have FOUR leaders at the mo & a young leader too!

Can I ask a few questions? I'm still trying to organise myself & the jumbled mess I've been handed...

What do I need every week? I have a folder with register, contact info forms (new ones so I have up to date info), accident forms, activity. I have plasters and anti-bac wipes in my bag just in case it'll be mine that falls if anyone.

Do you plan termly/half termly/weekly at a time?

Do you all (Rainbow leaders) use the roundabouts for planning?

& following on from that, is badge work a big part of your planning/sessions?

Do you send newsletters? And; do you think something from me, since I'm taking over, would be useful for the parents?

Wtf have I not got a membership number anywhere in this jumbley mess to register on Go?! (Ok, I know you can't answer that one but it's a bit of a pita - will sort that tonight).

There will be more I'm sure. Thank you all for your help so far, I really appreciate it

Another one...do I sign using my name or my Rainbows name?

I am back again! I think I may have solved my leader problem.

The current leader has separated the bits asking about willingness to help from the contact details bit of the Essential Info form & it appears never done anything about the fact that a fair few of them are willing to help out!

I'll be having words later on, see if anyone is able to do every week...

When I didn't have an AL I planned a term at a time (sometimes online via the FB group), and tended to do at least one badge a term - purely because following the syllabus automatically filled quite a few weeks in for me without much brain effort!

We tend to open with a games night on the first night of term, 2nd week is promise week, then into badge stuff, enrolments around half term ish, POG as last week of term

Also I try to make sure each term includes some sort of cooking (decorating biscuits or cakes, making butter, making those horrible sunrise drinks from one of the roundabouts etc), some singing, something outdoors, some craft, a trip or visitor - it soon fills things up

I send out a newsletter at the start of each term, doesn't include detailed plans though as things can change! I also have a secret Facebook group for parents that most are on, so updates/forms etc can go on there as and when. And I do a little note to hang out the week before the girls need to bring stuff in (eg this week we're collecting contributions to the church harvest festival).

Do you have contact with your dc? She should know your membership number as long as your PVG/dbs check and your references are through.

Thanks Rue, that's really helpful. What sort of info do you include in the newsletter?

Groovee, I'm waiting for a reply to an email from her & didn't think to ask in that! I will mail again to ask.

I'm back with one more...how do you all organise your storage space? That is also a jumbled up mess & I have the key to go down and start sorting through it all but not sure where to start!

At the moment I'm planning weekly (on the day itself usually), but it's stressing me out and I really want to take half a day this weekend to plan the term. Especially as I'm finishing up my LQ and doing queen's guide as well. And I need to plan a holiday for the licence.
So I really want to get my head together.
But the new job comes first and is taking up all my headspace at the moment.
That said I did come up with a good last minute plan today, which the guides seemed to enjoy, a patrol clue walk treasure hunt thing.

My newsletter includes: intro inc names of new starters, Rainbow promise, important dates - trips, church parades, enrolments etc, reminder to wear suitable shoes, my contact details, brief overview of plans for the term or "this term we will be completing our Rainbow Roundabout, and visiting Tesco for a Farm to Fork visit." Bit about subs being due, amount and how to pay them, then a bit about being a church sponsored unit and what it means (we don't pay rent but attend regular church parade instead).

Oh that sounds good Rue. I might have to do something like that, once I've organised myself to actually plan the term.

Thank you all so much ! I'm making notes for myself here

I have solved my second leader problem so that's a weight off! A little girl a few doors up from me has just started Brownies & her nana expressed an interest in leadership with the Rainbows rather than older girls.

I've ordered a couple of shiny new roundabouts - Festivals and the health one. Should be able to talk some friends into coming in to do talks with the girls that are relevant to those as well as some crafts.

Also, organising a trip with a Brownies unit for near Christmas.

Just need to sort the jumbley cupboard of doom now to see what's what - have put a fb status up asking for unloved files/folders/small storage boxes and empty ice cream tubs to sort it all into.

Feeling a bit more organised & less fish out of water now

That ^^ makes me sound really organised, but the newsletter is usually written during lunch on the day we start back for a new term :o

And I have a distressing tendency to write "Roundabout 1" in the plan for a week, then not go back to it and work out what we're actually doing until the day before...

Another question; sorry!

Do you all have a display wall at your venue?

We have a little section of wall with nothing on it at the moment which is a shame so was considering spending the next two weeks getting some bits together with my girls to go on it.

Re storage space - we have a big cupboard with two shelves. Bottom has got 2 plastic boxes full of our skipping ropes, stilts, those ELC egg and spoon things etc in which get dragged out every week for the girls when they arrive, behind that is our bag of 2nd hand uniform and other bits that I don't use often (poster paint, aprons etc).

Top shelf has got a medium plastic box with cups, squash and biscuits in, a large Baker Ross box with crafts in - both full sets that we haven't done yet, and left over bits that I'm saving up for a "pick a craft" night at some point, a small cardboard box with pipecleaners, googly eyes, feathers, beads etc in, a plastic folding crate with paper, card, and bigger stuff, then small takeaway plastic tubs with the dreaded glitter, pencils, felt tips, rulers, glue, scissors etc in. All labelled with a sharpie :o

I've just been given a load of ice cream tubs, so will segregate stuff a bit more when I get the chance, but it's working pretty well for now. I spent an afternoon clearing out and sorting the cupboard while the Brownie leaders were doing theirs, over Easter, and it's really helped.

Me again :o

Yes, I have a noticeboard - I bought some turquoise backing paper and a wavy Rainbow edge strip for it, which instantly made it look "full" iyswim. Then printed out and coloured two trefoils so they look like Rainbow promise badges, and wrote our unit name to pin between them.

On the board, I usually put my examples of the crafts we're making (promise caterpillar and a door hanger at the moment), any regional or other relevent posters (LaSER Growing Up Wild for now), any photos that I can share - usually of trips we've done.

We took part in Flat Olivia last year and displayed all the Olivias we received on our board, along with a map showing where they'd come from.

And anything else I fancy! I have some "Rainbows around the world" paper dolls in uniform that I need to print, cut out and display at some point.

Thanks again Rue, mine needs organising like that so everything is easily see-able/get to able.

Dp doesn't know it yet but Friday may well be "sort the cupboard day".

I know there are some things in there that need replacing - the majority of the pens are knackered, paints seem to have dried up inside their bottles, there were no brushes to be seen last night.

X-posted there!

Yes, that's the sort of thing I'm thinking! Will get on that over the next couple of weeks with the girls. It seems a shame to have the space, and them do so much crafty stuff, to not at least show some of it off.

Who (or what) is Flat Olivia?

Once you're in the FB group, have a search - a leader produced badges for it, basically units sign up and create paper doll flat Olivia's, post them on to Rainbow units around the country/world and receive others from those units in return. Ours arrived with letters, postcards, county badges, photos etc so we made a really nice display of them.

We're going to need a new thread soon...