Girl Guides to sell off 5 activity centres.

[Thelnebriati]

''18 May 2023
Girlguiding’s board of trustees...has made an important decision about the activity centres Girlguiding owns. This is because of the investment needed, and the reduced number of members using them in the past decade.
They’ve made the recommendation to sell the 5 activity centres - Blackland Farm, Foxlease, Glenbrook, Waddow Hall and Ynysgain.''

https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/information-for-volunteers/updates-for-our-members/activity-centre-announcement/

Petition thread here;
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4813803-girlguiding-uks-going-to-close-activity-centres

Would this be because parents have discouraged their girls from staying at activity centres where they may be expected to share a room with boys who identify as girls, do you think? Or have people walked away from guiding because of its wokeness? Is it another case of go woke, go broke?

I suspect so. No tears to shed for these treacherous idiots.

Sadly, guiding is over. Because - 100 years on from the Suffragettes - girls are no longer allowed to have anything of their own. So progressive.

Agree with this

Jesus, they just shut down girl guiding over seas.... Wtf is going on???

Maybe they were done for false advertising - using the term "girls"...

Scouts had to sell a chunk of real estate after Covid as well... it looks like its financial trouble.

Its a shame. More than a shame. Guides are still important to so many girls. At grassroots level most girls ate still getting the single sex experience.

I do think Guiding has lost its way... not just the Transgender issue, but with programming etc. Plus the Volunteer model is struggling everywhere not just guides.

And who is going to end up with the money?

As much as I agree the guides have fucked up over their trans inclusive policies I was recently told they've been loosing money for a long time. And more when girls could join scouting. That was the view of a long term guide leader.

She said scouting has always had loads of money compared to them.

I must say there are cub and scout troops all over the place locally but very few brownies and guides.

Or is it because of a lack of adult volunteers willing to give up their own time with little thanks from parents who treat them as unpaid childcare?

This has been on the cards for years, nowt to do with their "inclusive" policies as such. GG owns assets potentially worth millions to land developers. Who is getting the money indeed....

It’s financial mismanagement, not enough in the pension fund apparently

Their programme is pants. Whereas the Scout section programmes aim to challenge and to coax children out of their comfort zones, the Guide programme panders to and reinforces horrible gender stereotypes. The hard Camper badge and Camp Permit that I worked hard for in the 80s, have gone. But there was a Chocolate badge offered to DD. She left, and went to Scouts. Where the leaders stick to tradition, and quietly ignore the edicts from on high, units still flourish. But in our city Guiding is dying on its arse because it is just so damn wet. The ludicrous trans policy is part and parcel of their embrace of stereotypes.

Foxlease and the other centres are held in trust by the current trustees for Guiding, both nationally and internationally. What they are doing to the singie-sex, girl and women-focused movement of which I was once proud to be a member, is a disgrace.

Guides locally are brilliant. Not fancy, not high flying, just good, well supported, inclusive, fun activities for girls. Embedded in the local community. Good people.

I also don't think many girls are as interested any more. There are so many after school and holiday clubs devoted to dancing and performance now, particularly aimed at girls. Or all the girls go so their friends do too.

My local cub unit is now half girls. But I also wonder if that's also as there's a lack of brownies.

@Pluvia

I doubt it, or rather I went to blacklands farm and scouts used it too, we snuck out and went and drank cider

I suspect from the pictures, they are being honest about the upgrade work needed, nobody would accept what we put up with, chemical loos and no showers - from the pictures the buildings look the same too

I think if Brownies/Guides had always had the same activities/badges as Cubs/Scouts there wouldn't be such a problem. I don't know much about the current situation but when I was a B/GG 30-40 years ago we had badges like Homemaker etc, while the Scouts seemed to have stuff involving knives and fires (not just for cooking).

Girls couldn't join Cubs/BS in those days but I'd have loved to join Scouts as I was really outdoorsy and hated all the twee stuff we had to do in Guides (Our Guider was a Home Ec teacher).

Allowing Transgirls to join was the nail in the coffin.

@Pluvia has guiding gone woke? Scouts etc? My dc don't go to either.
I wouldn't let my dd go if there was a chance she would be sharing overnight accommodation & facilities with a boy. She would not feel remotely comfortable in that position.

Well at least any boys identifying as girls can go back to the boy scouts if the girl scouts closes down!

I will never forgive them.

the charlatan who instigated this went on to the Samaritans

I expect they’ll go broke too

absolute fuckers

Relatives of mine who were leaders stopped because males could join so it was no different to scouts and the red tape increased. Once single sex organisations stop being single sex they lose a main reason to join them. I've never been that bothered about single sex organisations but if I do join one then I join a single sex org ( which tend to be 2nd gen feminist groups). Feminine males/ non binary males or males identifying as women make it mixed sex which is fine but be honest about it being mixed sex and let all males in.

I felt the same at the time but, looking back, our Guider was running the meetings in a deprived urban area, with no easy access to countryside, and with most parents unable to contribute more than the basic subs (and I bet she was quietly turning a blind eye to those who couldn't pay). Although I was sometimes frustrated because it wasn't outdoorsy enough, I look back on it as a really positive experience.

I was at a mixed-sex school, which I did like, but it was still really nice to have a girls-only activity. I'm sad that girls of today won't have that opportunity

DD left guides because Brownies is so over subscribed they move a bunch up early to make
space. What DD liked was a space full of teenage girls alone, it’s quite a rare thing. She wasn’t interested in the badges or anything, just socialising in a safe space (suddenly full of 10 year olds so she left).

I don’t understand how economically organisations decide to bend to literally a handful of users over thousands of others. It’s literal insanity. When I was her age 40
years ago they struggled to attract Guides, Brownies was always full. It’s like they don’t know their audience at all.