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.

[SlubberdegullionMaNaMaNa]

Can I teach my rainbows Little Bunny Foo Foo? I loved that song when I was a Brownie, but have concerns considering what some mners choose to call their genitalia.......

[SlubberdegullionMaNaMaNa]

nymph there is a Rainbow day being planned at Chester Zoo at some point afaik.

[skramble]

SlubberdegullionMaNaMaNa i was going to do that one at camp as my party piece, never even thought of MN use of Foo Foo, now I will be giggling like a 7yrold when I try to sing it .

[SlubberdegullionMaNaMaNa]

Little bunny foo foo bouncing through the forest, scooping up the field mice an bonking them on the head.

Yeah, mn has ruined it fo me too

[skramble]

LOL , i will still have to sing it, as it is my planned party piece for camp fire, will have to think angelic thoughts.

[hatwoman]

hello all. can you answer a question for me as I'm in a bit of a quandary. is it ok to get into the whole Brownies thing if you don't believe in God/aren't Christian and you're not particularly fond of the Queen? I'm starting to help out at our brownies - and I have an awful lot of time for the underlying ideas of being a constructive part of the community and learning about the rest of the world, in fact more than an awful lot - it's something I feel very strongly about. but, I just don't believe in God, nor do I agree with the principle of a royal family. am I a complete hypocrite? I really really don;t want to drop out but I do feel vaguely uncomfortable - and have no idea if any of the guiders in our area are similar, or if they're all wholly committed to all aspects of it (doesn;t quite seem appropriate to ask).

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

I'm a card-carrying atheist and fervent republican if that's any help. I just kind of skim over the supernatural bits.

[skramble]

I am not into organised religion and definatly not the Queen, it isn't really a big part of guiding.

The God bit of the promise is taken more as "my god" which can mean many things to many people, could be mother nature or whatever. The Queen bit I take as being more to do with your country and the bigger picture.

Brown Owl has it in her head we have to do Grace at camp, but the rest of the leaders have pretty much dismised the idea as outdated. But we do sing Oh Lord our God each night, but hey its a Christian country so its part of our culture.

Same as at home I have a bible in the house but to me it is a collection of good stories, my kids can take it as they want at their level.

[hatwoman]

thanks - I feel better now. I was happily thinking to myself oh I'll just skim over all that stuff, but then I saw the stuff about singing oh lord our God, and the pledge etc and it made me feel more awkward than I had anticipated. but if it's not a case of me being a lone rotten apple in a barrel of godly royalists then I don't mind so much.

[frasersmummy]

My take on serving the queen is taken from a very old brownie handbook

The queen is head of the govt and therefore ultimately makes the laws so therefore serving the queen means not breaking the law of the land

As for the god bit as skramble says the promise was changed a good few years ago to read "my god" so that basically means anything you personally believe in

That all sounds a bit deep .. as a guider of too many years I would say if you are committed to passing new skills on to the girls and teaching them right from wrong then you will be a great addition to any unit

welcome aboard!!

[skramble]

I find most of my time is spent trying to figure out how to shut them up and make them listen, God doesn't always help much with that .

[skramble]

Oh and can I have a big ARGH!!!!!! camp tomorrow. what will I forget???

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

Yay skramble! Hope it goes well!

[skramble]

I feel like I have planned the whole thing and I am only a parent helper .

How does this happen you go along one week to help with a craft activity and the next thing you are palnning a whole camp programme and probably the whole term up to summer . Don't you just love volunteering, this is why I always avoided the PTA.

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

Good luck Skramble. Ours isn't until the end of May. I'm trying to blot it out.

[skramble]

Well camp was fine, only bad point was our invited license holder (our Brown Owl doesn't have hers yet), she was shocking, everything was "you HAVE to do this" she preached how to do things, which mostly seemed to be how she chose to do things, but as she dictated everything it was hard to tell what things were actually compulsory in relation to the accomodations rules, getting your license rules and her own bloody way of doing things, so frustrating.

I could hardly contain myself when she decided to try and tell three grown woman how to mop a floor, with the words "You have to pick two lines and mop between them" FFS one of the ladies being preached to is a school cleaner. I decided to burst out laughing rather than having a go at her, but I really wish I had bloody told her where to go!

I also could have done with some more technical crafts which would have lasted longer, I mostly had colouring and cut out and stick stuff, which they got through rather fast.

But hey we all survivied .

[frannikin]

Ooooh guidey thread!

I was a Rainbow and Brownie Guider but then selfishly moved abroad and BGFIC don't seem to want to know me. I'm still Division Guiding Development Advisor for Adult Leader Support though, as I can do that from a distance. I've never quite figured out why I need such a long title for being our division's chief mentor honcho but there you go. And it looks nice on the appointment card.

skramble at your license holder - she sounds awful!

[skramble]

There will be further action taken re License Holder, we had a stand in on the Sat as said LH had another engagment. A lot was said to her and she will be further updated on more things I am just hearing about now as I missed some of the antics when I went home to my lovely peaceful bed .

Apparantly she is the area camp advisor, I can't honestly believe that anyone would allow her to get this position, she has only had her license about 1 year and done 1 camp with her lot on that license, I think. Regardless she is totally unsuitable for that role and did more to put off our leaders from getting their license than anything else.

She also contradicted herself and did things wrong, like telling us to prop open fire doors at night, the key holder told us it was ok while loading our gear in but they should be shut once girls arive. Also did not put down an alleged tomato allergy on her form, and told the cook she had to have an alternative for her dinner. Told BrownO not to sweep incase anyone had asthma but swept under the tables in tha hall all weekend when the girls were in the room. Never again!

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

Skramble -

Can I pick all your brains on some of my current dilemmas: what to do with late payers and late bookers?

Our subs are payable termly. I am happy to accept instalments but our policy is that late payments (ie more than a month into term) attract a supplement. Perhaps that sounds harsh but I don't want to have to spend weeks and weeks chasing parents for subs and not being able to budget because I don't know what our income's going to be. Even so, we have parents who pay extremely late. We also have parents who ignore booking deadlines for events and send forms back weeks after they're due.

I think maybe I've created this problem by being too laidback - hence the late payment supplement to try and get things back on track. Is that too harsh? And should I refuse to take bookings after deadlines? Again, I think I probably should, but I've always taken the line that I shouldn't penalise the Brownie just because her parents are not good at paperwork, although it does create a lot of extra hassle for the leaders.

What do others do? Any tips to share?

[skramble]

I suppose I am one of those parents who is crap at paperwork and I have real memory problems, but being on the other side too I know how much of a pain it is for leaders.

With booking forms etc I would maybe give a week extra, explaining that if it is not in that week child can not go as it has to be paid to the centre by that date. Then cut it off.

For subs that is difficult, we were weekly then went monthly as girls that were off one week simply didn't pay the next week so missed out on money. Again I would give them a week or maybe two if it is per term and then let them know the child can't continue to attend as they are not covered by insurance or something like that as they have not paid so can not be classed as members.

But to help the parents give out reminder notes when things are due and give all information straight to the parent, my DS's scouts are bad for just telling the boys the information and with most of them as daft as my boy they forget by the time they leave the hall.

[skramble]

oh didn't see these and aw they are so cute.

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

Thanks, skramble.

Well, it's all come to a head today. I've just heard that we will not be going to our region's big centenary event because it was massively over-subscribed and we're getting nothing. We applied well within the deadline but we would have applied three weeks earlier if it had not been for the late applications/payments. So, maybe it would not have made any difference, but maybe that three week wait for the chronically disorganised cost us the chance of going to the event.

So now I'm going to be ruthless about deadlines!

[skramble]

The whistle never works after the first blow .

Oh well, who has there programme planned up to the summer yet? We are meeting after Easter to plan our programme, its always a bit vague, so I am going to push for a more defined programme. As the craft and activity person I need to know whats needed and it helps the leaders to actualy know whats coming up.

How far ahead do you all plan? Do you have it all set in stone or is it a case of seeing what happens?

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

We tend not to plan very far in advance. When we're doing an interest badge or Right Now, that is the basis for several weeks' meetings but I'm reluctant to plan a whole term at a time because (a) it means more time spent on admin and planning meetings and (b) more importantly, it makes it more difficult to pick up things from Guiding magazine or elsewhere. I quite like the flexibility of having gaps which can be filled at short notice.

[skramble]

i see what you mean, but we seem to have a lot of unplanned nights though, we turn up and nothing is planned.

Luckly the other week I took a few stand bys with me as BrownO was meeting with the parents, but the other leaders hadn't been asked to plan anything. So I used all my ideas and we had quite e good night.

This week I was off, feedback fromother parent helper was nothing was really planned a bit of a post camp chat, a few games and handing out badges, they seemed surprised that the girls were wild, I thought the week after camp and lst week of term they need something quite interesting to keep them busy.