Harvest Service, new neckers and smart uniforms

This week we were invited to attend the Harvest Family Service of the church where we meet each week.  We are not a sponsored/affiliated unit, and of course, Girlguiding is not a church-related organisation, but we very much appreciate the fact that our church very generously lets us use the church hall every week of the year for a nominal fee, and supports us in whatever we are doing.  So, once in a while, when we are invited to join in church community events, we try to do so.

We were invited to attend both the service and the harvest lunch afterwards.  Five of our guides came along, and we were welcomed very warmly by everyone there - they made a big fuss of the girls, and ensured we were all involved in the service.  It was a lovely celebratory service.

Many of the Church members were very interested in the Guides' uniforms and our unit's new chosen neckers.  Everyone commented how smart and distinctive the new uniforms looked, and how our little row of Guides brightened up the front of the church.  The girls were able to explain how they had chosen the colours for the neckers themselves, and how the necker trims matched the zips and detailing on the new Guide uniform jackets.

As well as being a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours for all of us, it also felt worthwhile as an opportunity for the girls to 'show off' and share a little about their guiding experiences and their uniforms with a very appreciative audience.

Happy Guiding, happy guides, happy leader.

Games ideas - Games in 2s and 3s

Games taken from: http://www.ggsw.org.uk/girlguiding/guides/30-second-games-active-running-games/

Caterpillar

Divide the girls into teams 3-5 girls each. At the start line have the girls sit down with their legs wrapped around the waist of the girl in front of them. This forms the caterpillar. With the girls attached as a team, the Guider yells go. The girls move together as a unit by using their arms by their sides and lifting and moving their bottoms. The teams race to a designated line or spot. At the line, the girls let go of their link to reform their caterpillar with the girls in the opposite order. The teams continue racing back to the start line.

	Body parts
Duration: five minutes Sections: all

1. Get the girls into pairs or groups. The larger the group, the more complicated the game gets. 
2. The Leader calls out a number, and the name of a body part. For example, 'two' and 'hands' mean there should only be two hands touching the floor. 
3. Groups or pairs can use chairs or other props to help them out - it's up to them to work out how to achieve it. Members of the team must be touching each other in some way. 

Make it harder
Add in a variety of different body parts to your instructions! 

UM4 GFI Activities and BP

Unit Meeting 4

This evening the Guides spent time on their Go For It!  Last week, each patrol chose their GFI, did a 'getting started' activity and then planned 4 'sessions' worth of activities to complete over the next few weeks.  Tonight we allocated time for them to do 2 of their 4 planned session (each session being 30-ish minutes each).

• Pandas - GFI Peace (unit printed copy only)
• Friendship Bracelets
• Greetings
• Pelicans - GFI Grrreeen (unit printed copy only)
• Recycled Bubblewrap purses
• Recycled Magazine holders
• Puffins - GFI Blast from the Past (PDF Download here)
• Candle Smores
• Design a space menu
• Penguins - GFI With A Splash (unit printed copy only)
• Waterways, lakes and rivers scrapbook
• News Item on a water rescue

Bringing their own Resources and learning lessons about responsibilty

Each patrol had given me a list of what they were going to bring for their activities, and a list of what they needed me to bring, or the unit to provide.   In theory, I should only provide what they have asked me to provide. In practice, it's a bit different.

I always have  a dilemma here: I think we should encourage the girls to remember their resources, take responsibility, and deal with the consequence of forgetting them.  BUT  if one girl forgets to bring a key resource or doesn't turn up, this prevents her whole patrol from doing the activity, this is (a) unfair on the rest of of the patrol and (b) means I have to find something for them to do for half an hour, or magic up a replacement task - neither of which I want to happen.  So, for key resources, I do bring some extras (kept hidden in a bag!).

For example, Marshmallow Smores, I had a spare bag of mini marshmallows and chocolate buttons, so if these were forgotten or the girl was absent, the rest of the patrol would still have something to work with (albeit on a smaller scale). As it happens, they all remembered.

Likewise for other patrols, I brought along some bubblewrap (girls forgot), some magazines (some girls remembered, others didn't).  Half of the girls in Pelicans forgot to bring a cereal box for their Magazine Holder craft - so they had to negotiate with the girls in their patrol who did bring boxes, to share and halve the boxes.  Hopefully a bit of peer pressure here will encourage them to think about responsibility next time.

How the GFI activities ran

The girls really have got the hang of this now (this is the second GFI they have run on their own). 

Here are some observations

1. All patrols worked well in their groups and (from what I could tell at least) girls were treating each other fairly and cooperating.   
2. Wanted to spend longer, and would probably have spent an hour on their first activity, (craft-based) despite all of the chosen activities being listed as 20-30 mins each in the GFIs
3. Lots of good co-operation, collaboration and communication going on in each patrol
4. Good to bring emergency just-in-case 'core' items for each task, so the rest of the patrol isn't prevented from completing their activity if a key person doesn't come.
5. 2 or 3 girls didn't realise they were doing TWO activities this week - they thought one activity per week. Need to make that clearer on their planning sheets.

Baden Powell Challenges - girls on a new journey.

We have one girl who is 3/4 through her Baden Powell challenge activities, and this week we started off four more girls on their journey. One had already looked through the clauses and chosen some she liked the look of, but all four new ones were given a folder to have a look through.  While one seemed perhaps a bit disinterested, the other three of them are already chattering about what clauses they might like to do: organise an international evening for the unit; first aid and fake wounds; cooperative games evenings, and suchlike - I think we may be able to have a term of BP-organised evenings at this rate!  We will see...

Young Leaders in a Guide Unit - how to support them?

What kind of support should we be giving to our Young Leaders at the guide unit?  They are not part of any other Senior Section/Rangers unit, so attending our Guide Unit as YLs is their only regular participation in the Girlguiding Senior Section, and in effect, we are their SS leaders.

These are the things that Girlguiding says should be part of the Senior Section Programme

• Follow the core Look Wider programme, including
• Understanding the octants, and phases of octants
• Ensuring the YLs have time to plan and do their Octant activities if requiredd
• Take on new responsibilities, e.g. become a Young Leader or even, work on the Young Leader Qualification
• Ensure the YLs are involved in unit planning sessions
• Ensure the YL's have time given and opportunities to complete their LQ clauses
• Ensure YLs are given dedicated leader time to help them through their LQ programme - appropriate mentoring.
• Participation in wider SS activities - ensure that SS opportunities from division, district, county, region and national level are offered to these members. This may mean Guide leaders attending these activities with the girls (if this is required at the event)

One thing that concerns me is that I am a Guide leader, not a SS leader.  I have completed my LQ with a module for the Guide Programme. I have not completed the module for SS Programme, yet we are encouraged to have a YL join us who isn't getting SS programme guidance anywhere else, other than with us.   This seems to be a bit of an anomoly in how this area works, and I worry that my SS YL girls may be missing out.  I regularly encourage them to join a local ranger unit, but with school and other commitments, they are understandably hesitant.

Also, as I am not a SS unit leader in Go!, I don't regularly get to hear about SS unit events going on and am not included on SS mailings. The girls (as SS members with email addresses on Go!) do get some of these emails, but if I don't get them as well, I can't encourage them to participate.  And everyone knows that teenagers aren't always particularly motivated to organise and plan things without a bit of a nudge in the right direction!

What to do?

The program over the year - how to fit it all in?

These are all the things we should try to cover in the guiding programme over the year.... I'm not sure how we manage to fit it all in, but i think we usually do!

The Guide Programme covers 5 different areas:

1. Healthy Lifestyles – develop your mind, body and soul. It’s all about keeping healthy and happy.
2. Celebrating diversity - meet new people and get involved in things going on in your area.
3. Global Awareness – make the world a better place.
4. Discovery – have new experiences and adventures.
5. Skills and Relationships – build on your personal and life skills.

The 5 Essential principles – During their time at Guides, the Guides will be encouraged to:

1. Work together in small groups
2. Govern themselves and make their own decisions
3. Have a balanced & varied programme
4. Care for the individual
5. Share a commitment to a common standard

In addition, we try to fit in the following over the a year, which help to cover the Guide Challenge Badge requirements each year

• 2 GFI's per year (takes a minimum of 3 full weeks to complete each GFI)
• 2 Interest Badges per year (usually 2 full weeks to complete each badge)
• 2 trips out per year
• 2 'Community' activities per year - thinking about others in our community
• 1 residential/night away per year
• Something from the wider guiding family - a division or regional event, a national challenge, etc- something to show the girls that we are part of a bigger guiding family.

To ensure variety and that every girl gets to do some things they want to do, we try and include these activities every term:

• Sports / active fun
• Craft activities
• Cooking / food
• New skills or experiences
• A party or 'let your hair down' activity
• A trip out, or a visitor in to the unit (to provide variety from the leaders)

And finally, we also need to make sure these things happen too

• Promise Ceremonies, Promise and Law activities - introducing new girls to the unit and to guiding.
• Fire drill
• Unit Rules
• Girls choose patrols, vote in Patrol leaders and patrol seconds (although perhaps the patrol leader should choose their own patrol second?)
• Girls update G-Files for challenge badges
• Assist BP girls in their challenges - ensure that sessions are available in the plan for them to run for their BP clauses
• Assist YLs in their YLQ  and ensure Young Leaders get appropriate 'senior section' opportunities - to work on their YLQ and/or to get SS Octants signed off, and to participate in wider SS activities.  Ensure that leaders have time to answer questions from YLs and support them, and give them appropriate guidance in their Leadership journey.
• Parent Rotas, development of Unit Helpers and leaders
• Girl-led guiding - time to get input from the girls on what they want to do in Guides, so that it can be incorporated into the programme for next term. So, feedback and suggestion sessions for :
• Promise ceremonies
• Activities
• Outings
• Badges
• GFIs
• Camp themes and activities
• Games

So, how do we fit all of this in to our programme each year?  

We have 5 or 6 meetings per half term, which means 30 to 36 meetings per year (typically around 33), plus the following out-of-meeting regular activities (and possibly other out-of-meeting activities)

• Winter indoor camp weekend
• Summer canvas camp weekend
• Remembrance parade
• Pizza and Panto night out on a Friday near christmas
• A divisional, county or regional event or day

I actually think we do manage to fit most of these things in, but only by being smart with our planning and ensuring we cover several aspects with each activity.  We do try not to make any activity too much like being in school, even when badge work suggests it.  I guess we can be reasonably confident we are doing a good job, by the fact that we are full to capacity and have a waiting list....but I still feel we have to keep on our toes!

The biggest 'conflict' is between 'girl-led-guiding' and fitting all of this stuff in that we are supposed to fit in.

Quite honestly, 90% of our 10-13 year olds would choose to do the chocolate badge, chocolate GFI, sit and natter all night, or race around the hall screaming and playing tag amd generally letting of steam.  They would would rarely, if ever choose to do any 'community' activities, or learn about celebrating diversity or global awareness. They mostly don't want to have to plan GFIs themselves (although they do like to be able to choose the activities), but they want the leaders to organise it for them - and take the 'thinking' and 'planning' out of the activity.

Mostly, if given a free choice, our girls want 'down time' when they come to Guides, a chance to switch off their brains after increasingly busy and tiring weeks at school.  As a mother of two guide-age girls, I can certainly see this in them, and I can see the value in that. But this does at times conflict with fitting in all of the recommended programme elements, PLUS all of the things they have to do to get challenge badges and suchlike.

I'd be interested to hear from other guiders (a) if I've missed anything here, (b) how you manage to fit it all in, and (c) how to deal with the conflict of 'covering a good and varied guiding programme' vs the girl-led desire to switch off their brains and just chill out when they come to guides.  What do you think?

Ideas

Badge Ideas for next term

• Chocolate
• Active Response (or at camp)

Other activity ideas for next term

• Glow in the dark party (with another unit = BP girls)
• Fake Wounds evening (BP girls)
• International Evening (BP girls)
• Chocolate Thorntons Evening

Summer Term ideas

• Fire Safety Evening (spring/summer - with fire safety officer visit) + fire Safety badge

Badge Ideas for Winter Camp

• Active Response
• Agility

Getting Feedback/girl-led guiding

• whiteboard
• post-it notes
• Graffitti wall (old roll of wallpaper?)
• girls to suggest games (as well as programme ideas)

Game Ideas

• Pairs Game - give pair cards out to girls. they must find the other half of their pair by asking questions. Could limit it to only yes/no answers to make it more difficult.
• Patrol Body Parts Game (leader shouts out a body part and a number, patrol/pair/group have to have ONLY that number of bodyparts touching hte floor - e.g. "4 Hands" or "3 Feet". Can use chairs as a prop.
• Patrol Challenge Competition 
• girls in each patrol numbered 1 to 6 (some girls may get 2 numbers)
• each patrol writes 6 challenges (e.g. quack like a duck, dance like a giraffe, walk with a cup on your head, belly laugh for 20 seconds, etc)
• put all the challenges in a bag, and four lots of the numbers 1 to 6 - so 24 activities, 24 number slips in the bag
• pull out one number and one challenge - e.g. number 2, challenge 'walk like an ostrich' - the girl numbered 2 in each patrol must walk like an ostrich. Best gets a sweet.

Activity Box supplies for quiet corner on camp

• loom bands
• scratch art magnets
• paracord buddies

UM3 - Go For Its and Patrols

Unit Meeting 3

This week, the aim was for the guides (in patrols) to choose a Go For It to work on this term, and plan which activities they wanted to do from their chosen GFI, and ensure they were happy in their new chosen patrols.

We were lucky to have two parent helpers this week, plus two of our Young Leaders, so one 'leader' to sit with each Patrol.

Go For It!

In the past, the girls have sometimes had problems deciding as a group and learning how to compromise, and also, in actually getting their plans down on paper in any sensible time frame.  It really helped to have one dedicated adult/YL sitting at each table, to help and encourage them through the process.  

I also wanted to encourage the girls to try some different GFIs, and particularly to do some that covered some aspect of Global or Community Awareness. As such, I highlighted a number of GFI's in different colours and this week said they could choose from any of the GFIs highlighted in green.  These were:

• Be The Change
• Blast from the Past
• Breaking Barriers
• Grrreeeen
• Globalistic
• Peace
• Take Action
• With a Splash

Patrols

We also re-jigged the patrols again!  I already knew there was at least one who wanted to change) asked them to come to me after the horseshoe and let me know if they wished to change - but with the limitation that patrols must have a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 8 in each.  We had 8 wanting to move!  They juggled themselves around - two patrols of 8, one patrol of 5 and one of 6.  Looking now, I like they way it has worked out. One of the 8's now has all 3 BP girls in it, and while they are working on BP activities, the patrol will have five girls (and not all young ones).  They all seemed happy with their choices.

Games

After all the choosing and planning was done, we had drinks & biscuits, and half an hour of games.  We played these games:

• Yes/No - Move Left/Right game - sitting on chairs in a circle, facing outwards.  Leader shouts out statements with yes/no answers (e.g. I have brown hair, I'm wearing a blue top, I like football, I've got a brother).  If the girl's answer is 'yes' she moves one place to the right. If the girl's answer is 'no' she moves one place to the left. Can end up with several girls sitting on one chair.  This went OK, but they prefer games with more running and shrieking.
• Changing Chairs game - sitting on chairs in a circle facing inwards, one less chair than the number of girls, and one girl in the middle. One girl in the middle shouts out a statement that is true of themselves (I have long hair, I play a musical instrument, i ate sausages today).  Anyone who also says yes, must stand up and run to another chair, and the one in the middle must try and get a chair.  Girls cannot move to a chair immediately next to them.

Other Stuff

• Handed out uniform to our four new guides (just missing a polo shirt each for KF & SM)
• Took in money and consent forms for November camp. 15 places taken so far out of 22. I suspect some may be disappointed.
• Handed out letters about challenge badges

For next week/another time

• New patrols need to agree on their PLs and PS
• Need time to talk to the BP girls and really get them started on their tasks.
• Look at YL folders with the YLs
• Use whiteboard and post-it notes to get ideas for 
• Games to play
• Craft Activities
• Other Activities
• Visitors In
• Trips Out
• Badges
• GFIs