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.

[quote espresso14]@WarriorN to a certain extent the lack of Brownies etc on parade is partly down to the parents of the girls. All are told about it, and here, very few come, and obviously they can't get there themselves.[/quote]

Yes I it must be the same here, obviously there were some reps from the army and there were air cadets etc.

I find it odd though as remembrance is now a v big thing in schools. Far bigger than it was 10 years ago, through the history curriculum and also since the large scale poppy art installations. They all recreate them.

When I was young, guiding and scouting were normally both connected to local churches and would often meet in church halls. They had connections to the Remembrance Day services because they normally had a connection to a specific church (not necessarily Anglican; mine was Methodist).

GG made a big thing in the 2000s about going secular - eg removing “do my duty to God” etc from the promises. Without the quasi-militarist thing of Scouts and the loss of the Christian bits of the whole Baden-Powell shebang, I think the connection between churches and Guiding must be quite fragile if nonexistent now as a result. Our current district does occasionally do the local Remembrance Day service, but I don’t think there is a strong link between them and the local church any more.

I just want to speak up in defence of Guides!

The paperwork is overwhelming, it's insane. Every little thing has to be formally risk assessed and approved by the district commissioner, it's so time consuming. Hours and hours every week. Every activity, every time we leave the hall, needs a separate consent form completed by every Guide, either a paper form over 2 sides of A4 or a clunky PDF email. Every camp or holiday needs a approval form in stages done over months in advance. There's no convenient online system unlike Scouts where the parents just log in and give consent once and done. That's before I start on the accounts, the fundraising, grant application letters, training sessions, updating the database with girls badge work, uniform orders, writing letters to parents, chasing outstanding subs.
The new programme is dire. Way too much like school, too sedentary, too 'be kind', too many post its and very little excitement or outdoor fun.

Great defence :-)

Seriously, I think we all get that leaders are volunteers and largely do a terrific job.

What seems sad is that (from the outside) it looks like the top of the organisation is awful and this is actively hurting the grass roots.

When I was young, guiding and scouting were normally both connected to local churches and would often meet in church halls.

I'm glad the connection to religion has been reduced or hopefully severed. I wasn't allowed to join the Brownies because the religious local leader knew my parents were atheists and not married. All my friends belonged. It was hugely tied to a local church too.

Can I ask (as there seem to be a few leaders on this thread) how you include less able guiders in your unit? DD's unit has some members who aren't able to physically and/or mentally do some of the activities. I don't want to out myself with details, but there doesn't seem to be any support financial or otherwise from GG HQ. The leaders muddle on best they can, but it does limit activities for all the girls as they have to be inclusive.

As regards the change to the Promise, the results of that consultation were never published. Almost certainly taking out God was - yet another - top-down decision pushed by the then-CEO. Totally ignoring who the [vast majority of the] actual volunteers are & the fact that lots of Units in deprived areas could afford to run thanks to churches charging a peppercorn rent/not charging at all. Girlguiding - like the Scout Association - has never been a Christian organisation, but rather a theist one. At an early Jamboree there was a Scouter who was wanting to do Christian prayers at Scouts’ Own; Baden-Powell asked him how he’d fancy doing Hindu or Muslim ones & when your one had stopped flailing about making spluttery horrified noises enough that words could be heard over his indignation and perturbation once more, B-P asked what he thought he was about asking the equivalent of other Scouts at the camp then…

It was such a fundamental change to the founding principles of Guiding that a not-insignificant number of Volunteers left. And no, atheists haven’t flooded in; in the same way that Volunteers are leaving over the policy on trans members & while they get a certain amount of social media applause it’s not translating to new volunteers.

The “new” Promise is horrendously clunky & rather than do what the Scouts did & make the line about God optional; they came up with the utterly nonsensical be true to myself and develop my beliefs. There are still no resources to explain what they actually meant by this. 7 year olds, however, almost invariably have plenty of ideas about it - mostly how ridiculous it is. “Why did they get rid of God and then have this bit about beliefs… or does it mean I should do RESEARCH into the things I believe in? Like using the Santa tracker? And did you know he used to be a saint? Or maybe he still is, in his spare time…” Absolute derision for “be true to yourself” though, with lots of lurid suggestions as to why - eg being an axe murderer - that might not be desirable.

@NotThatHomer

In theory there’s a Fund For Members With Disabilities, which can be used to help fund certain things - sorry, can’t remember what rules are - for any Girlguiding member.

In practice, adults with disabilities probably don’t want HQ to know because their take is that people making up wild lies because they’re “concerned” is reasonable & that rather than tackle a culture of ableism & bullying they’ll force out dedicated volunteers.

GG have recently appointed several inclusion advisers.. presumably they would be the people to ask?