Not bashing thread, but concerned about belittling behaviour of some GG Leaders

[espresso14]

I'm a GG Unit Leader (I won't say which section), the unit is doing well, very active, energetic, we've had a lot of new joiners from word of mouth recently, so must be doing something right.

Took the girls away to a GG Central organised trip and my jaw was on the floor! Volunteers who are far more experienced than me belittled the girls, the whole time there was a strict expectation to confirm to often rigid, sedentary activities that were pretty dry. No invitations or opportunity to the girls to speak up and influence the weekend to be more active, or dare I say it, fun! When they tried, they were told "no, that's not what we're going to do."

By the end I felt like Wednesday Addams at Camp America. I am shocked, I thought this organisation was about encouraging confidence, self belief and girl led. I saw a lot of controlling and "sit down, shut up" culture.

Is my experience common? I believe there are lots of great people at grass roots, I think we'll just do our own thing from now on. I'm fairly sure the organisers thought I was a PITA too, my "Wednesday Addams" attitude was all over my face by the end.

What a shame, I remember doing all sorts as a brownie including a nighttime walk through a wood with torches as a pack. Nowadays I'd have been putting together my own fashion show (yes indeed a local girl guides did this 🙄)

GG has changed out of all recognition imo.
I grew up in London and even we used to go camping and do outdoor activities. I remember being chosen to participate in some activities to help a Guide from our group achieve some of her Ranger badges, she had to do things like take us camping on a bus, pitch a tent, cook a simple meal which included lighting a fire, do some first aid and make some crafts. It gave us all a sense of responsibility.

When my Dc was in guides they had to stick sparklers into carrots and hold the carrots in case they burnt their hands. They took a shopping list to a local supermarket and bought a hypothetical basket of food to learn to budget for a meal (fine but it was about the only time they left the church hall). When in Brownies DD went on a camp where they barely went outside. Meanwhile DC in cubs went sailing on their second meeting. I wasn’t sad when DD gave up Guides.

That is a pity. We did rainbows, which was mostly about sweeties and friendship. Havering over Brownies.

My youngest has swapped to beavers and now loves it. Our rainbow troop was very nice but almost entirely colouring, sticking and eating sweets- she wanted a bit more active stuff.

I think the ridiculous policy of allowing boys in, but only if they say they are girls, suggests that the leadership have lost all connection with the original purpose.

In the old old days, I wouldn't say GGs were girl led: they were leader led. The leaders ensured there were a variety of activities, active type games, crafts, singing etc. There were also times when girls were expected to be still, quiet and serious such as during ceremonies.

OP, can you be more specific about what the sedentary activities were?

The unit my DD goes to Guides now Rangers I cannot fault. It's everything you would hope that a guide unit could be. But, the units do vary, I haven't personal come across any that were awful, but DD did come away from a selection weekend for a county wide trip not wanting to go because the Leaders were strict and rather joyless.
Guides is a bit more of a stickler for rules etc than Scouts perhaps! But it should be girl led and the new programme has a very wide range of activities and there's lots of wider opportunities when running normally.

My DD is doing Rainbows. Two weeks in and she’s loving it, but it does indeed seem to be mainly colouring in and eating sweets …

My DD’s guide unit encourages the girls to have a say on what activities they want - and they really listen to the girls
However my DD has said Scouts is more fun, they do more adventurous things there, but seems to me more to do with their leaders than the organisation - the scouts take them camping and the leaders also pitch a tent to sleep in, the guides, they take them glamping - since the leaders have confessed not being fans of proper camping

I don’t know what the event you attended was, but wonder if the organisers are still in covid-fear risk-assessment mode? So many of the more adventurous activities were discouraged when I was doing my RA last term. This term I’ve branched out more and while we are limited by the venue and lack of adult volunteers I think it’s been a fun term. I do find that large scale events are always a bit more restricted tbh. And the paperwork element compared to Scouting is insane. As a result I don’t tend to do anything other than unit meetings, I just cannot find the time or inclination when it generally ends up being a bit rubbish.
If your girls are having fun at meetings and numbers are high, like mine are, then keep doing what you’re doing. All units will be influenced by the volunteers who run them and where their interests lie. I won’t ever take mine away overnight, it’s not something I can do, so yes maybe that is a shame but it’s weekly meetings or not at all.
I sometimes think people forget that Guiding and Scouting leaders are volunteers.

A few years ago my daughter was excited to be picked to go to a regional brownie camp. It was at a site my son had been to with cubs. We knew it had climbing towers, assault courses, ropes course, streams to build rope bridges over, lots of varied space for wide games, large communal camp fire area etc. So we both had high expectations of a weekend of outdoor adventure. The weather was nice so nothing to stop them... They spent the whole time in a large marquee doing crafts. She came back so disappointed and switched to cubs.

my DD has said Scouts is more fun, they do more adventurous things there, but seems to me more to do with their leaders than the organisation

Scouts put a lot of effort into supporting and training leaders and there is a lot of organisation at a regional level. My (complete outsider) impression is that GG don't have that to the same extent.

I wonder if, now that girls can join cubs and scouts, the girl guides top brass think that all the outdoor sporty tomboy girls will have gone there instead, so they are tailoring guide activities to sedentary, gender stereotyped cooking/crafts/girly stuff?

I love the fact that my boys have always been pushed out of their comfort zones with scouting: taking risks, doing long hikes, cooking outside on fire from young, etc. No wonder young women have such trouble with mental health and hang ups about being perfect when they never risked anything when young and didn't do stuff wrong, made mistakes and learned from them. I feel so sad for girls who decide to stick to guiding, I must say.

I don't think that's the case. But the types of activity a unit will do will depend on the Leader. There's been a lot of Leaders lost during Covid, but I suspect Scouts may have a similar issue.

My reply was to Babdoc

SOME Guide units were always like this, it does depend massively on the leaders IMO. The one I was in eventually folded due to a lack of leaders/helpers, but even before that had been limping along doing relatively unexciting activities and mostly confined to the hall (apart from a couple of camps that were good) - not sure how much was due to the personality of the leaders, and how much just down to not having enough help. Brownies before that was fairly twee too, lots of crafts and "games" that mostly involved very rigid songs and dances rather than running around. Meanwhile my brother was an Air Scout and got to go up in a plane, as well as doing more exciting routine activities, but they wouldn't let me in!

The Scout movement seems to have a lot of emphasis at the moment on getting members (kids) to help determine their direction, propose activities etc., but it sounds as though that maybe hasn't happened in Guiding?

I can't tell you how disappointed I am about the car crash that is GG as an organisation now. Changed beyond recognition from what it was when we were children. Seems now to just be a money making exercise.

This is completely not the case regarding local grassroots volunteers who are often doing so much in trying circumstances. But Girlguiding as an organisation is awful. They don't seem to care at all about the girls in their care.

I believe their membership numbers have dropped from 535k in 2013 to 240k now (young members, not including adults/ volunteers). At that rate they don't have long left.

MrsJamin and the unit my DD goes to has done all of the adventurous stuff and continues to do so. But I'm not sure about the wider experience girls will be having across the country. I am well aware of some of the criticism GG has attracted and whilst some is warranted, most units are run by dedicated and thoughtful volunteers who do get training and support.

@Beamur

MrsJamin and the unit my DD goes to has done all of the adventurous stuff and continues to do so. But I'm not sure about the wider experience girls will be having across the country. I am well aware of some of the criticism GG has attracted and whilst some is warranted, most units are run by dedicated and thoughtful volunteers who do get training and support.

I think you’d be shocked at the quality of that “training and support”

Thanks for the comments on this, very hard to get views of others via official routes. It's very down to local level, and I think I need to be more proactive and hook up with some of the great regional Scout infrastructure (they have regional activity teams you can hire, if you don't have anyone with qualifications in unit) instead of considering GG events in the future. Lots of PowerPoints to sit through this weekend and huge missed potential. Social Media full of positive stuff, but like a lot of stuff on SM, doesn't reflect the reality of what happened.

Eggybrains in what way?

My DD used to go to Brownies. Then she had to come with me to Cubs one evening as I was on the Parent Rota for DS. She loved it and ditched Brownies. Cubs was much more running round and doing exciting things (this evening she did Air Rifle shooting). Brownies were all about crafts - how many bird feeders do you need?

OTOH my friend is a Guide leader and her daughter is a Guide and they seem to do really fun, active, outdoor stuff. So a lot does depend on the leaders.

Training and Support focusses on risk assessment, first aid and safeguarding.

Worryingly non-existant on effective leadership (hence bossy belittling).

My boys have had a similar experience at cubs. It's all about community spirit, which I can't exactly complain about, but it's really dull! Lots of weeding the planters on the high Street, and cleaning the church steps. No fires, or knots, or shelters, or anything that I was expecting really.