UM11 - Carol Singing

So, our last week of term was a trip to the local care home to sing some carols for the residents.  Our attached Brownie unit also joined us, along with our young leaders, so we had around 45 girls, plus half a dozen adults and leaders. Our District President also joined us, which was lovely.

The care home made us feel very welcome, and we set up in the lounge near the entrance way. Chairs had been placed out for the 'audience', and lots of residents came in to listen.  One of our fantastic young leaders and her UH mum had organised a backing track which we played through a bluetooth speaker, and this really worked well. They had also printed out word sheets for all the brownies and guides.

As the music started up, it was quite moving to see the energy the brownies and guides put into their singing, and the evident enjoyment of the residents and staff.  One gentleman shed tears as he listened (surely our singing wasn't *that* bad?!).  After half an hour of singing, the guides handed a home made christmas card to each resident, and we spent time chatting to our audience.   There were may tales of their own experiences in brownies, guides, or scouts, and one lady told us that her mother, born in 1903, had met Lady Agnes Baden Powell!  It was an evening that I think all the leaders and adult helpers were very proud of our young brownies, guides and young leaders. They did a wonderful job.

At the end, the girls were treated to home-made decorated gingerbread biscuits, made by the staff at the home. It really was a magical start to christmas, and I hope the residents and staff of the home enjoyed it as much as we did.

UM9 Crafts, carols, YLs, new patrols and noise

So, this week was a bit of an odd one.  I was really looking forward to this meeting; to having an evening with girls that i've got to know just that little bit better (on camp) since last week.  However, that's not really how it turned out, so i'm going to have a bit of a moan.

We had several items that we needed to get through, plus some 'fun' bits to do as well.

Our first 5 minutes was to introduce our newest patrol and present them with their Patrol Badges. Our very youngest girls had decided they wanted to break away from their (larger) existing patrols and form their own patrol together, and had chosen to be Parrots, so there were new patrol emblem badges and PL/PS badges to give out.  Unfortunately, despite this only taking  a few minutes at horseshoe time at the start of the evening, there were number of guides who didn't seem to want to listen and talked through it all; we ignored them and carried on, but (for me at least, and i suspect for the new Parrot patrol) it took a bit of the special-ness away from the occasion.

Nonetheless, we were thrilled that our new guides had decided on a new patrol, and even more so that between them, they have chosen a patrol leader and patrol second that they are all happy with.

For the main part of the evening we were doing two things.  The Young Leaders were leading some carol singing practice for when we go out carol singing to a local care home in a couple of weeks.  And while doing that, the girls were doing a simple craft with plastic baubles, ferrero rocher, and acrylic colouring pens.

Unfortunately again, this turned out to be challenging - the same few older girls continued to talk, screech and shout while the young leaders were trying to organise carols and give them instructions, and during the singing.  It ended up with the now-impatient-and-grumpy leader (me) putting my foot down and giving them a lecture on respect and behaviour.  Things settled down after that a bit, but I didn't enjoy the evening and I came home questioning why I bother - and certainly not wanting to take them all out for a pizza and panto next week.

We had an extra craft (making purses) lined up, and offered to play games too chosen by the older ones, if we had enough time - they all seemed keen on this. But when it came to tidying up, two patrols did nothing - our youngest girls tidied and put away three tables (without being asked), and we ran out of time to do anything while the older ones messed around.  And quite honestly, i was glad to see the back of them at the end of the meeting. It's the first time i've felt like that.

So, now, a few days later, and a bit of time, space and reflection, and these are my thoughts.   There were lots of good things that made me happy that evening, and I should focus on these

1. I was so impressed with how the new patrol had formed themselves.  It was lovely to see them come to their own decisions, on their own with no guidance from us  - they only had the suggestion from us that 'if you enjoy working together and decide in the future you'd like to have your own patrol, then come and ask us about it.  
2. The Young Leaders did an amazing job organising the carols. One YL did all the planning and prep, and the other two helped her implement the plans on the evening.  They realised that trying to get the 'whole group' engaged wasn't happening, with teh disruptive elements playing a large part in this.  So, they changed their tack, and got the girls singing table-by-table, with a competitive element for 'the *best/nicest* singing'.  It worked well, even the disruptive ones didn't want to be embarrassed here.
3. The crafts worked well and the girls had some lovely results to take home with them.
4. Four of our guides  had a GFI clause to finish, having missed an earlier session -in  two different patrols. They got on and did this independently (one pair with a fairly complex cooking activity) - they were organised and self-sufficient, and successfully completed their activities and were still able to also do the craft and singing.
5. We Introduced the guides to the GG North West England 'Get Away From Home' Scheme.  I was keen for the girls to record and manage their records themselves. Each guide has been given a record book to fill in and keep, and it is their responsibility to come back and see me when they think they are ready for another badge.   I don't intend to keep these records for them, so it's up to them!

I also realised that something else adding to the stress was the constant shouting out to me asking questions that didn't need asking, or asking for help that they didn't really need.  Again, shouting out to me, while the YLs were talking to them.   With the larger unit now, I think we need the girls to be more self-sufficient at at least try to resolve the simple questions or problems themselves before asking a leader.  I asked a few of the more sensible girls about this, and they said they have something similar in craft lessons at school.

1. First, ask your neighbour
2. Second, as your table
3. Third, ask your table leader
4. Fourth, ask your mentor
5. Fifth, ask the teacher

This fits nicely with trying to give the PL's and PS's a bit more responsibility, so I think i'll introduce this for any 'at the table' activities they do.

If you've got a question or are having problems doing something

1. Ask your neighbour, then ask your other neighbour
2. Ask the other guides in your patrol
3. Ask your Patrol Leader and Patrol Second
4. If you still can't do it, then ask a PL to ask a Leader to come over.

PLs and PSs will have responsibility for answering questions and ensuring that girls on their table have enough help.  Hopefully it will also encourage the guides not to just switch off their brains at the door!

I'll have a think about the rudeness, screeching and talking over people - I hope that was just a one-off and things will be better next time, but I think I will also have laminated copies of the unit rules to put on each table, and maybe some sweet rewards for the best behaved patrol each week.  

I will admin that still dreading taking them out next week, but fingers crossed I will be pleasantly surprised and behaviour won't be a problem.

Any suggestions welcome...

UM8 Christmas Card Crafts

This week was run by our other leader, who is fabulous at crafts.   We decided to try and use up a lot of the paper and card stock from the cupboards, and make Christmas Cards.  We had plenty of black adn white card, metallic pens, shiny / metallic coloured card and paper, and ribbons.

The girls could make a card for themselves, plus a card each to take and give to the residents at the care home we are visiting in a few weeks for Carol Singing.

The cards made by the girls were amazing. H gave them some example designs for ideas, keeping it very simple - and the results were really effective for everyone, even the non-arty girls came out with a fantastic looking christmas card.

** Addendum: When we went carol singing, each of the girls gave a card to a resident - the residents seemed genuinely touched to receive a card and chat to a youngster.  It was well worth doing.

UM7 - BP Games Evening

This week, our little group of four BP girls organised an evening of Cooperative Games, as part of one of their BP challenge clauses.

I was impressed with how they got on - despite all being at different schools and not living close to each other, they managed to communicate and even arranged a meet-up over the holidays to organise themselves.  They each came to the table with several suggestions, discussed how to run each of those games, then made their final selection, and nominated a 'leader' and 'assistant' for each game.

The games they chose were great fun, and they were well prepared and we were all impressed with how they managed the evening.   They've all gone away to write up about their experience to put in their BP files, but this was the feedback we got, and some of our observations.

1. They were surprised (and a little frustrated) by how difficult it was to get the rest of the unit to listen to them for instructions, and to follow the instructions.
2. As observers, we were able to see how their 'leadership team' worked - one very definite 'manager', one 'communicator' and a couple of 'workers' . They worked really well together, and we certainly have some potential Young Leaders amongst them.
3. They realised that with nearly 30 girls, the large-group games need to be very simple, otherwise explaining the rules becomes difficult, especially with a very mixed ability group.

I'll update soon with the games that they chose...

UM6 Another GFI activities week

End of Term, GFI sessions and big patrols

The guides had another GFI evening tonight, where they had were supposed to have chosen activities to last most of the evening.

It was the last week of term - many of them in new high schools - and we found an interesting mix of over-tired, hyper, exhausted, stroppy and slightly-off-colour girls. So, probably not the easiest of nights, and also perhaps not the best for a GFI night when they are required to listen to each other, follow instructions for activities they have chosen, think for themselves, and work together.  

Note to self: Don't do GFI sessions at the end of a half term!

Our Young Leaders were tired and off-colour this evening too, and not up to their normal level of help, so spent much of their time just chatting. They were both tired and had come straight from school, so we didn't push them too much.  

By and large, the girls seemed to enjoy their activities, but these were some of the things that, as a leader, I thought didn't work quite so well.

• One patrol finished much earlier than any of the others. They then spent time wandering round the room distracting other girls.  They had other activities to do, but raced through them, and needed constant 'entertainment' to stop them  interrupting other patrol's activities.  
• One of the patrol chosen activities was to play Captain's Coming with the whole unit - but that required all the tables to be put away, and the whole unit available to play with them, when others were doing their own activities.  
• Our 'big' patrol of 8 were doing cooking, making cheese puffs. While this worked well as an activity and they were all very pleased with their results, it was hard work with 8 very lively girls in the kitchen.  In future, I'd try and ensure this patrol has at least 2 activities, then split the patrol in half, and swap over activities half way through.
• The 'cooking' group had failed to tell us that they needed flour, rolling pins.  We only got half the information on their planning sheet. They just assumed it would all be there.
• Without an extra parent helper, I struggled to keep track of what activities the girls were doing and whether they'd actually done what they had chosen (or whether they were just sitting nattering).
• We definitely had a problem with girls not listening to simple instructions, walking off/talking when leaders were speaking to them, not paying attention, and leaving other people to do the hard work (our newest guide ended up doing all of the washing up for her big-8 patrol when they did cooking. Despite us asking them, the other girls all just disappeared or messed around.  There was a lot of cleaning and tidying to do by the leaders afterwards.
• One patrol had to make a play up, which apparently consisted of them using the side room to screech at each other and roll around the floor...

That said, the Guides' view afterwards was that they had enjoyed the evening, and I do think they appreciated having a less structured evening where they could just chatter, lark around, and be kids.  It just felt harder work than normal for the leaders.

So, what to do to improve this?  I think there are some fairly simple solutions

1. Our Big-8 patrol - split in two for activities - this would make it easier to focus instructions to the individuals, hopefully reduce them shirking out of tidying up, and reduce the messing around....and give them all more access to the equipment/activities they are using. Win-Win.
2. Kitchen work - no more than 6 in the kitchen at once (see first point!)
3. At GFI Planning session:
1. check the chosen activities should last long enough to fill the time allocated
2. stress that the equipment and resources that they need leaders to provide MUST be written on the form - otherwise it won't be there!

Baden Powell Activities

Also tonight, our BP girls took themselves off to try and plan a collaborative games evening together. We talked briefly about what 'collaborative games' are and they bounced some ideas around.  Not quite sure what they are going to end up with, but i'm not absolutely convinced they really understood 'collaborative games' as i think they had football and netball on the list (30 girls in small church hall....ahem).  We will see!

That said, I am really impressed with their enthusiasm to organise the evening (and for the BP challenge clauses in general), and that they really got on and had a brainstorm about what kind of things they thought the other Guides would enjoy doing.

UM5 Decoupage Notebooks

This week was a crafty week at Guides, with a little bit of admin thrown in.

We made these Decoupage Notebooks, and it worked brilliantly!  The really great thing about decopatch, according to two of our Guides, is that even those with a bit less dexterity, or a bit less creative, or not quite so handy with craft, can come out with something that looks just as brilliant as the arty girls.  And even the ones who don't enjoy craft so much liked these as they had something usable at the end of it.  Several of the girls made them as gifts for friends.

Supplies for 30 (ish) girls

• 30 x A5 notebooks from Home Bargains @ £0.89 each
• 2 pots of 186ml Decopatch Glue @ £5.99 per pot from Baker Ross - but about 1/3 of each pot left over
• 10 x Decopatch Paper packs (3 sheets per pack) @ £1.99 per pack from Baker Ross (a few sheets left over, but not many)
• 5 x Gold Alphabet Letter packs from Home Bargains @ £0.70 per pack (loads left over)

From the cupboard

• Glue spreaders or paintbrushes
• assorted bits of glitter, stickers, ribbon, other left-over craft/collage type items that the girls just used for decoration

Instructions

1. Decopatch - We allowed 40-ish minutes for this.
1. Open the book out flat (covers upwards) on the table.
2. Tear up the decopatch paper into squares around 1" x 1" (any smaller and it'll take too long!)
3. apply a very thin layer of glue to a small area of the book cover, and stick on the paper square. Repeat, overlapping the squares slightly so there is no gap.  
4. As you go along, paint a very thin layer of decopatch glue over the top of the papers you ahve stuck on, to make it shiny and 'seal' the layer.  
5. It is REALLY IMPORTANT that you ONLY USE A TINY AMOUNT OF GLUE otherwise it won't dry in the time of the meeting
2. Drying Time - 10-15 minutes - clear up all the decopatch paper & glue, tidy up, go and play some silly games, or have drinks, or whatever, for 15 minutes. We did a Fire Drill!
3. Decorations - 15-20 minutes
1. decorate the notebooks with lettering stickers, ribbons or pipecleaners tied around the ringlets, stickers, ribbons, or whatever else the girls want to personalise their books.
2. You could also stick an envelope inside the front and/or rear cover.

The notebooks were all touch-dry by the time we added the decorations, and properly dry by the time they took them home (after taps/announcements for 5 minutes at the end of the meeting). The girls seemed really proud of their creations.  

The whole craft cost less than £2.50 per girl.

Games Ideas - Patrols

Can you do this?

1. Split into patrols (at least 4 girls per group).
2. Let them know what equipment/timescale/space, etc is available and ask them to each write a challenge on a slip of paper. Point out that they may end up doing some of their own challenges.
3. Example Challenges - walk with a cup on your head, scream for 10 seconds, skip 50 times, juggle 3 beanbags, scare someone, do the chicken dance, act like a clown - so much noise and laughter and we've still got at least half the challenges left for another night...
4. All the challenges are folded up and go in a box. (Probably best if leaders check and veto anything unsuitable or not practical, but it doesn't matter if a challenge appears twice).
5. The girls number themselves within their group, e.g 1-6 (if there are unequal groups then the smaller groups need someone to have two numbers or they may take it in turns to be the extra number).
6. Number slips of paper, enough for the number of challenges, and put in in another box (so if there are 24 challenges and four groups of six girls, you need 4 slips with number 1, 4 with number 2 and so on - i.e. 24 slips in total).
7. To play, simply pull out a number and a challenge - everyone with that number (i..e on per patrol) attempts the challenge. You can have a scoring system of best/fastest/etc, but ours were having so much fun and asking if they could try the challenges when it wasn't their turn that we didn't bother!

Five Minute Fillers

The following games were downloaded from the Girlguidng Website, in their Five-Minute-fillers PDF

	Origami races – who’s the quickest?
Duration: five minutes Sections: Brownies, Guides, The Senior Section What you need: squares of paper of any colour, a few per person – can be cut out of an A4 sheet

1. Print out or watch these origami tutorials - everything from flowers to sea creatures.
   
2. Make sure everyone has practised making the shape decided on, then start racing! You could throw paper aeroplanes/birds and see whose can fly the longest distance or you could make paper boats and float them in a paddling pool/pond.
   
3. Once everyone is practised at making the shape, you can run these races with very little preparation whenever there are five minutes to fill. Why not start a leader board with the quickest times?
   

Encourage the girls to think of ways to use the origami once they've made it, perhaps as decorations. Always recycle the paper you've used when you've finished it. 

• 
  

Game Ideas - Patrol Challenges

A4 paper challenge

You have been given 20 sheets of A4 paper, 2 pairs of scissors and a roll of sellotape. There is nothing else. 

Your challenge is to create the following. You are free to choose how to use your time and your paper. Remember this is about TEAMWORK.

Every team must complete tasks 1-4

1. Create the longest paper chain

2. Stretch 1 whole sheet of paper as far as you can - you may need to tear or cut the paper but it must stay in 1 piece. No joins, no glue, no sellotape.

3. Fly the furthest paper aeroplane

4. Make the tallest structure that can stand on its own and will hold an egg

For each challenge

- 1st place - 100 points

- 2nd place - 50 points

- 3rd place - 20 points

- 4th place - 10 points

Bonus challenges (if you choose to do them) 20 points each

- Make a paper hat and wear it

- Make a fortune teller

- Make a Chinese paper lantern

- Make a patterned snowflake

Anyone caught cheating will have 20 points deducted!

Repeat offenders may have an unlimited number of points deducted!

20 Tasks in 20 minutes

Each patrol is given 20 tasks to do.  At least 3 members must complete every activity (you can change this bit). They have to complete as many of the 20 tasks as possible in the time.  Leader selects the tasks from this list:

	Task	Resources
	Draw the Guide badge
	make structures / models / sculptures from cocktail sticks and grapes	Grapes, cocktail sticks
	transport marbles from one end of the hall to the other using just toilet roll
	Throw and catch a bean bag 10 times at least 4m apart	Beanbags
	Make a cup of tea for a leader or young leader	Tea-making stuff
	Make a table decoration	Napkins
	Set a formal dinner table for 2	Table settings
	Draw a portrait of one of the leaders
	Get half your patrol upside down
	Find out the sum of the current ages of everyone in the patrol
	Make a pyramid at least 1 1/2 times the height of a piece of spaghetti	Spaghetti & Sticky tape
	Get a Young Leader a glass of water
	Write out the Guide promise	Paper, Pens
	Get out a table & chairs for your patrol
	Do 10 star jumps
	Plait the hair of someone in your patrol	Hair bobble
	Make up a limerick	Paper, pens
	Think of an animal for each letter of the alphabet	Paper, pens
	Give someone a hug
	Pay 3 people from a different patrol a compliment
	Draw a map of the building	Paper, pens
	Tie 3 bows	Ribbons
	Find out who can do the best evil witch laugh in your patrol, then go and demonstrate to a leader
	Make an origami animal	Origami paper
	2 people Hulahoop for 1 minute
	Walk round the room twice with a plastic cup on your head
	Group skip with 2 holding rope and 2 skipping at the same time  -  do at least 10 jumps with 2
	Group skip – how many people can you get jumping together?

20 Tasks in 20 minutes

Each patrol is given 20 tasks to do.  At least 3 members must complete every activity (you