Reflection on BGIG Training weekend

Now I have submitted my triennial renewal form for my Training Qualification complete with observation I decided it was time to start filling in the new paperwork for my 2011 training diary and start as I mean to go on with good pure reflection! However "The Trainer's reflective training diary" wasn't quite as user friendly as I had hoped; therefore I have given up for the time being and emailed a few questions on how to tame it, off to London.

In the meantime I thought I would capture some of the reflection here (before I forget). I'm pleased I put together the games booklet and activity packs - never anticipated there would be anyone present with a latex allergy! I finally found a use for the SW Region folding frisbee in an ice-breaker. Nor had I appreciated just how new the Brownie guiders would be to guiding and I spent a lot longer on the 5 Essentials than I had expected. I'm glad I did the 5 E's book-marks; they looked a bit like frightened rabbits when I asked if anyone knew what the 5 E's were? After I had initially being sceptical of the new Guiding Handbook it actually came in quite useful. I need to use a different brownie quiz to the one in Anglia's Pic 'n' mix as the guiders found it quite difficult to answer, (and I originally gave out the answers instead of the quiz). It was lovely to see the light bulbs going on in the middle session. It seemed to work well getting them to develop the unit team collage as the training progressed. I would have liked more time to go into the Brownie programme but I think in retrospect we had covered a lot of ground in the 3 hours. The craft bag with make a brownie craft seemed to go down well.

Saturday night entertainment of Guiding Trivial Persuits was well received (thank you Lesley) and a select group of guiders still ended up singing in the bar. Sunday sessions were in the main too short and the evaluation highlighted that the 45 min sessions were not well received. There was a great deal of contribution on the Sunday sessions - thank you to the training team.

Rainbows in Stuttgart

I went to do a unit visit yesterday to the only British Rainbow unit in Stuttgart.A lovely happy bunch of girls who seemed to really enjoy their unit meeting. The 5 essentials were very evident; and I remembered why I've never worked with Rainbows! Although whilst completing the observation form on the train on the way home it did cause me to reflect how much my own children have grown up. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this beautiful flower returned by a Rainbow, what a lovely idea.
I also had a reflection or 2 on the German trains which are truly "wunderbar" and very comfortable.

Someone Else

On Sunday I attended the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) Annual Scouters Conference for the Transatlantic Council (basically for Scouters outside of USA). I was there because of the lack of scouters when we moved to Germany in 2009 meant the only way our boys could keep scouting was to join as leader and committee members. So last year I was the Tiger Den mom (Grade 1's) and this year I have been the Wolf Den mom (Grade 2's).

The first session I attended was all about motivating parents! The Scouter produced this as a guilt trip we could use on parents who weren't playing a role in the unit; whilst quite American I'm not sure how it would go down in a British unit; but it's interesting nevertheless so here it is.

"Our Pack was saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our most valued members. Someone Else. Someone's passing creates a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work.

Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone's list, "Let someone Else do it". Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results; "Someone Else can work with that group". It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the most liberal giver in our Pack. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference.

Someone Else was a wonderful person; sometimes appearing superhuman. Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do.

Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did? When you are asked to help this year, remember - we can't depend on Someone Else anymore."

I also liked the other suggestion of calling a parents meeting and asking one parent to barr the door as you ask all parents to stand up & those who are already doing a role can sit down - those left standing can only sit when they agree to take on a role! Maybe not too surprising when you appreciate that the BSA parent help spread sheet has nearly a 100 roles on it - how do we ever manage to do anything in Girl Guiding?

The "motivating parents" trainer dashed through a PowerPoint show on a lap top which wouldn't connect to the white board. The second trainer did a good job of generating discussion & ideas sharing around the new cub programme, but then left too little time to discuss the criteria for a quality unit and over ran so much we missed our next session! The final trainer, on Q & A, was the best of the day and had done his homework by emailing attendees in advance to find out what questions would be asked; he used the white board to best effect by grouping the questions into those with answers and those without - unfortunately we overran again but he had lots of ideas to share!

We did have a lovely lunch sat outside in the weak Spring sunshine looking up at the dusting of snow on top of the mountains at Garmisch Patenkirchen. I do like the idea of giving a special conference patch to all the attendees, and being able to sign up via paypal is a wonderful idea.

How to make a Brownie.

I'm going to get each guider to make their own Brownie this weekend so they will have someone to focus on throughout the training. Besides there is so much to cover in the 3 sessions for Brownie Guiders on the programme, that there is little time for craft. Therefore I wanted an activity they could take to coffee, or after the session to complete and chat with each other as they do it. (For some reason Guiders always seem to feel like they've got so much more if there is something they can take away with them). Here is my completed Brownie with red hair like me and a face drawn by my 8 year old son!

A "Peachy" toy

I've had the opportunity to play with my new toy today - a "Peach Star binder 21" comb binding machine, check it out on www.3ppp3.com. I bought it in Lidl a couple of months ago for 20 euros and as soon as I saw it I thought it would be a brilliant way to preserve some of my children's' art works, be good for scrap booking, and oh yes might come in handy for guiding! When I opened the box it also comes complete with a starter pack of back covers, plastic front covers and comb bindings of different sizes. So I set to work and unfortunately choose the largest resource to begin with, there is a definite knack in putting the pages onto the open comb, but by the 3rd time I had it! It's easier on resources with smaller numbers of pages.
It is helpful that when Guiding Regions sell section resources they are without a binding, I suspect principally to allow for photocopying for use in the unit. However I discovered a while ago when I'm using resources in trainings it's much better to have them in a folder or even bound. Otherwise they end up all over the floor, occasionally I return with missing pages, & it looks more professional.

Trainers' Annual Record Form for 2010

Well, I finally got round to doing my annual training record for last year; to be honest there wasn't a great deal to put on it. I think partly due to the centennial events in 2010 that guiders have been so busy they couldn't find the time to spare for training; and partly because I spent nearly 6 months of the year on crutches!

I did include the giant mind map that I did for a talk to my son's grade 3 class on "The British Monarchy". I love mind mapping, many of my first draft's of training plans are done as mind maps as a reflector I feel I can go back and add new ideas and organise them at the same time. The technique lended itself so beautifully to the audience of 9 year olds combining the medium of pictures with text. I really enjoyed putting it together and the children including my own son were very receptive, I should have taken the photo before taking it to school.

Games with balloons, string, & chalk ....

I'm working on a games booklet as a resource for the training weekend in March, well it was a bribe really to get the numbers for the weekend up, but I don't know how well it worked. The idea is to compile a games activity pack around items found in a guiders bag, in this instance balloons, string and chalk. The aim is that just by using 3 common items, a great number of fun games can be organised as ice breakers or time fillers at short notice. So far I've got pages of balloon games but am short on the string ones and still need to make a start on chalk ones. Whilst searching on the internet it never ceases to amaze me how irresponsible some sites are with their games for example asking children to stand on chairs to bat balloons around! Maybe it's my risk assessment head kicking in.
Now all I need to do is work out how to photocopy it cost effectively and get the copies up to Lubbecke.

New resources for a Brownie Programme Training

I've had another day trapped at home, this time waiting for the heating engineer to arrive. I'm training the Brownie guiders at the British Guides in Germany (BGIG) weekend, March 2011, in lovely Lubbecke. I took the opportunity this weekend to get the 3 sessions planned bearing in mind that I know there will be some new guiders working on their Adult Leadership Qualification, as well as experienced Brownie Guiders. So today I have had a resources day and made a bunch of "5 Essentials" book marks complete with little Miss Curious. I find that even experienced guiders don't always remember the "5 E's", so it's good to have an aide memoir to hand-out.

I found a lovely site www.dltk-cards.com/bookmarks/bfinish.asp for producing customised book marks, it's just a shame you can't insert your own image as well as text - but Miss Curious is rather apt in this instance!

I usually use a set of 5 cards that I produce as the guiders call the out the "5 E's", today I have re-made them as black on white with pictures, how did we manage before google images? I remembered the last time I used my current set it was difficult for guiders to read them, I made a classic mistake of black lettering on guide blue card; and this time I'm training Brownie Guiders instead of Guide guiders. Did you spot how cleverly the "5 E's" make the word GUIDE?

Training 2nd graders on life in Medieval England

I was fortunate enough last month to be invited into my son's class to talk about life in medieval England. I really enjoyed taking the class of 8 year olds back in time, on a journey down a medieval street with the aid of a PowerPoint picture show, which included a picture of my other son in the stocks outside the gaol in Hexham in Northumberland! The children naturally wanted to focus on toilet and bathroom arrangements! However I was invited back to talk to the other grade 2 classes on the same subject and I did really enjoy it.
It gave me a good excuse to try out PowerPoint 2007 on my brand new laptop too, I love the way I can toggle between PowerPoint and google images - I couldn't do that before.

Why this blog?

Yes, as the title suggests I do train on behalf of Girl Guiding UK - just to clarify that's adults aka "Guiders" and not children although I do work as a Girl guide leader as well. I also have an interest in training,coaching & mentoring generally. My reason for starting this blog is to help me keep a record of my experiences and developement, to help me do things better the second time round and to aid reflection as I go along my own learning journey.