Digital Guiding Magazine Survey

Please, please, please, take the survey and tell Girlguiding what you really think. My survey link arrived today, 2nd December, at 1729 hrs, from newsletter@girlguidingnews.org.uk. It only took a few minutes to complete, but it is really important we all take the time to feedback our views.
 

UK Parliament Week 2019

We had a lovely Brownie meeting last night focussing on UK Parliament Week and using the SW England Region  resource. Brownies started making their own jigsaws from Women of influence, p16, the brownies worked in pairs swopping their jigsaws once they had made the picture and read the information on the back. Second we moved into our House of Commons complete with Speakers chair and held a debate on which was best cats or dogs, the Brownies were very quite hecklers and had to be helped on the way - think the leaders really enjoyed the role play!. Third was the Plan a UK Parliament week for the Region, p18, amazing how some of the girls struggled with the math adding up to £500! Fourth was the Quiz, p23-24, which the brownies did really well at it was played as a fitting game for the chamber by standing up for the right answer. Fifth was the ballot paper with a few ruined immediately, with multiple x's! The winner was Chocolate Fountain, and a tie for face painting and cake decorating! Finally the Pocket Book, P22, was assembled but taken home to be filled in as we had ran out of time.
The Fortune teller, p25, was also sent home to do as the brownies liked the example one, but didn't know how to make them - hope the parents enjoyed the experience!
We spent so long time showing the badge work done over half term so we ran out of time. Lovely to have a break from UMS's & Skills Builders and the brownies really got into the experience of democracy.
Lots of ideas in the resource that can be adapted, and the bunting, if you don't want to use it again would be a good background for hosting some micro learning in your trainings?

Why interaction styles are important in training

There has always been a lot of discussion around Learning styles in training but more recently the suggestion that learning styles are irrelevant as a good trainer has to deliver content to allow everyone to learn regardless of their learning styles. Recently there has been more discussion around interaction styles and why it is important to understand your own interaction style to help you, as a Trainer, understand why you might not be getting your message across to everyone in the Training.

From the descriptions above can you guess what your interaction style is and what does that style mean for your training delivery? What can you do to ensure you interact effectively with the other styles in a Training? 

Training Record Books

I first blogged about Wiltshire North's Training record book in July when we heard all about it at The Trainers Support Group; at a recent training where I was observing, a leader had her brand new copy. It's interesting how many points are given for a Trainers Qualification and it's renewal. It's proving a really popular way to get leaders interested in attending trainings all for the cost of 3 different badges - a few hundred of each. When you consider how we have had to coerce & persuade leaders to attend a training over the years (thinking back to the 80's when we all had a record book and had to do so many hours training a year) all it really needed was a points system and some badges.

Silver & Bronze Awards announced !!!!

See Trainers really do know what's best...…. At the last National Trainers conference (not this years), I remember there was a lot of strong feelings about have a staged award not just GOLD and silver & bronze were actually referred to in a number of feedback methods both in the entire conference & in various break out sessions.

So I was really excited to read this week that the Silver & Bronze awards are being launched in January 2020. The full information, as it stands, is here:
https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/how-were-being-our-best/updates-for-our-members/new-top-section-awards-coming-this-january/

In essence:

"For girls to achieve their section Bronze and section Silver awards they must complete the following criteria:

• Section Bronze award: a girl needs to complete any two Theme awards from her current section.
• Section Silver award: a girl needs to complete any four Theme awards from her current section.

There is no final challenge for the section Bronze or section Silver award."

Well done Girlguiding it makes sense on so many levels, and will allow so many more girls to achieve.

Promoting Region Awards

Lovely flyer that arrived today with my badge order from Region, it's good to see that saying thank you in a simple way is being so proactively promoted!

Do check out the lovely new international nights away, who hasn't been to Pax Lodge and going away with your section badges.

LaSER London Challenge

This is a lovely challenge from London and South East England Region, I've used it in a few trainings over the years but never seen the badge before so wonder if it is a new edition. The challenge has been around for ages and with half tern fast approaching it's interesting for Leaders as well as girls. You need to collect 100 points to claim the badge - the crystal palace maze is 15 points and CHQ is 10 points, it doesn't all have to be done in London e.g. using cockney rhyming slang in a meeting gets you 10 more points.

Who can claim their badge straight away? Its not easy to find on the LaSER website you need to search London Challenge.