Being Prepared!

A really good Risk Assessment resource updated in 2013 after 10 years.It's a lot lighter but is a downloadable resource rather than a purchased one. The case studies have been updated, but the art work is identical so well worth retrieving before recycling the one on the left. The old one had a rather extensive table of things that could go wrong which is missing from the new version but not a great loss. There are now some separate flow charts (not included in the resource) on risk management & "Can I do an activity with my unit?" and a Risk Assessment Template which are useful training tools.

A way to display the Brownie Promise

This was given to me by a very resourceful Leader I met at a training in Newent last month. A split pin has been used so the flower can be turned and the lines of the Promise have been numbered to help the Brownie learn her promise - a lovely idea.

Thank you.

A Prayer for an AGM

Extract from "A little Book of Prayers" by Lilian Woodward 1996. Mrs Woodward died recently and had been very active in Mid Glos guiding for many years. This is a super little book with many prayers for different guiding occasions including last night at camp and around the camp fire. We used this one at our recent AGM:

O Lord God we come before you at the beginning of our Annual General Meeting to praise you for all the good things that have taken place in our Division/District since we met last year.

For the friendships that have been made and the good that has been done in caring for those who needed help.

We thank you for those who have served the Division/District so faithfully during the year, giving of their time and energy and not sparing themselves in any way. Help us not to take it all for granted.

So often we take what Guiders have to offer without acknowledging their dedication to the Movement, and often forget that the service offered is voluntary, not seeking any reward.

May all that is said and done here tonight be for the furtherance of our Movement and prove to be a blessing in the days to come.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord

 

Amen

Reflection on adapting a training

1st Promise Training in April

This is the first Brownie Adventure training in April 2014 when the new resource was freshly published. The turn out was low only 4 leaders representing just 2 units, because it was the night before the Brownie Birthday PGL weekend. The resource wasn't widely available at this point so I took the approach of colour photocopying & laminating the pages so everyone could get to look at the pages. It proved to be quite a challenging training simply because the leaders present weren't the ones who needed the training. They had a fantastic amount of experience with a huge amount to share, maybe just a little too much to share and I was having trouble getting word in edge way! I also bought rather cheap paper tablecloths so when I got the leaders to write their evaluation on the table cloth it seeped through to the table! So please be aware if you try that with the girls.
 

Unofficial Moving Up resource

A Kindle e-book first published in March 2014 by a young leader called Rebecca Craven, its only 57 pages long and costs £3.08 but the young author has a lot of energy. Rebecca has included a section asking other Leaders what has girl guiding done for you that you wouldn't already have done? It certainly got me thinking about my trip to Our Chalet, my stay at Pax Lodge with my sister, meeting all the wonderful people in BGIFC, my weekend at the USA Girl Scout conference talking about British Guiding and how old my first Brownies will be now (at least 35 years old now)!  

"If it wasn't for guiding, I would never have......"

 

Rebecca has done a lot of research into the movement's history, and surprised me with a couple of things I didn't know, but the real strength of this resource is to show it to your Guides contemplating the Senior Section. I think this e book could play a role in getting your girls to move up.

More Brownie Adventure resources

This is a selection of some of the most useful ideas from Girl Guiding UK publications to help you get your brownies participating and contributing to the decision making processes:

 

Email me and I will send you an MS word version (I've lost some of the clarity with the pdf to jpeg conversion!)

Resources for Brownie Adventure training

This is a "treasure hunt" using the new Brownie Adventure book:

The answers are:
  1.       Adventure, Adventure On, More Adventures
2.       3
3.       P62
4.       P66
5.       Clean-up time
6.       Diwali (p93)
7.       See p34, p70, p104
8.       BROWNIE (p110)
9.       P123
10.   World Association of GG & Girl Scouts
11.   P132
12.   The Pandas
13.   www.girlguiding.org.uk/brownies p15
14.   P37

This is a twist on the Feelings wheel on page 78 (I tried getting the girls to draw the faces but they all ended up looking the same!) brownies need to add a pointer with a split pin to use the wheel. There are 2 wheels on 1 piece of A4 card to get the most from the printer.

Brownie Adventure: introductory game

A running game to introduce the “Brownie Adventure”

Brownies sit in their sixes and numbered 1-6 (just to keep them in the correct order) and given the following things to remember – when their word is read out in the story they have to stand up and run to the end of the room and back. When “Brownie Adventure” is called all Brownies run together.

1.      Adventure

2.      Adventure on

3.      More Adventures

4.      Fun

5.      Challenges

6.      Excited

Sarah & Shelly are excited about starting their last year at Brownies. Brown Owl used the new brownie book whilst on their unit holiday over the Summer when they had great fun completing the Adventure, Adventure On & More Adventures Fun & games pages; and then wiping them clean for their Brownie friend’s to try. Brown Owl explained they would still work on “You”, “Community”, & the “World” but the new book is much more fun & exciting for them.

Brown Owl said “the new brownies would start their Adventure with ways to keep their Promise, get help to choose an interest badge, take part in loads of fun and challenges about being safe and secure, join in a pow wow and go on a special Adventure”

The older Brownies can help plan their Adventures On badge, have their own challenges like making a special light for Diwali & finding out about global grub.” Adventure On means we can help make decisions and will be our own record keepers, so we can show our parents what we do at Brownies” said Sarah.

The oldest brownies will have fun doing the More Adventures badge, when we do an interest badge we will be challenged to learn something new and when we go on an Adventure we will help other brownies. “We will do “Brownies Go For It!” to learn all about what Guides do and we will plan our own celebration to remember our exciting time at Brownies” said Shelly.

Sarah & Shelly are very excited as they can even choose challenges to do at home so they can have even more fun at Brownies, whilst achieving the Adventure, Adventure On & More Adventures pretty badges. ”The Brownie Adventure is all about how we can use our ideas at Brownies to make sure we discover, we grow” said Sarah.

Girl Scout Cookies

Fabulous Packaging from Girl Scouts Cookie Boxes

Promotional Messages - cool marketing

I came across this packaging I saved from last year whilst adapting my next training plan for next week. Apart from missing the cookies themselves - they used to sell them literally like hot cakes in Feb/March of each year in the boys international school cafeteria. They are a huge fund raiser for the Girl Scouts, despite the key ingredient of Palm Oil. Check out girlscouts.org for a history of cookie sales going back to the 1920's and some amazing program resources. Could we learn something in the UK about the motivational text on the cookie packaging? 

"Good Guiding is ......."

My "Good Guiding is ....." Flower

I really like the idea of "Good Guiding is ...." its just a way to communicate the 10 effective methods to get a balanced and varied programme. Now I have done an entire training on just the methodology itself I will aim to incorporate it into as many of my trainings as possible. It's not new (I have trained on it before back in 2010) but the revised version is improved with more examples & space provided to fill in.


However what is missing is a way for leaders to capture their intent on one page, the official resource has blobs on several pages but to use that in a training just gives too many ideas away in one go, and its a lot of photocopying for a big group. Hence my flower opposite - each leader is given a blank version to complete as we progress through the training. It's a lovely way to add in other GG UK resources as a way to support some of the 10 steps e.g fun in the programme. It's also a good topic to use with a mixed bunch of new and experienced leaders in the same training.


The real success of the training was the blind date game I used as a review activity - getting the leaders to share what they will take back to their unit to demonstrate "Good Guiding is .....". The activity created a huge buzz and I could have kept it going for a lot longer. It's recommended in the trainers notes for "Good Guiding is ...." on the website.

Self Evaluation - Supporting the Revised Promise

The Promise Washing Line ice breaker

Gloucestershire County Day 2014 and I am a last minute fill in to cover the morning Guide Leader training on supporting the Revised Promise. Its a lower than usual turn out (it's the furthest division to get to in the County) and the opening speeches & awards over run. So we are 25 minutes late starting - I've never been so late starting so have to take some on the spot decisions about what to cut. I keep in the ice breaker though as everyone has been sat down quietly listening so need to be energised! The Promise washing line goes down really well and with the class room window open it looks lovely gently blowing in the breeze. It's a lovely activity to demonstrate adaptability - you can make it easier for Rainbows by having pre-cut uniform they just hang up, Brownies have pre-drawn shapes they cut out and Guides do the drawing & cutting. In this example the innovative Guide Leaders just cut out neckers! It was lovely to see the 2 teams exhibiting such differing learning styles - one just got on and did it the other planned to the nth degree.

In order to make up the lost time I cut the doing of the activities down to the bear minimum which was the key thing on the evaluation forms that Leaders missed! I had 3 bases focussing on the 3 key aspects of the Promise with activities on each. On this base Leaders are asked to complete a Glos notelet with a self addressed envelop talking about how they will keep their Promise. I will post the letters back to them in a few weeks. Other bases asked for leaves to be added to a Promise Tree &  

One of the 3 Promise Activity bases

contributing to Promise bunting I'm planning to use in a cake sale at work. The small group were all experience Leaders so had a great deal of experience to share - one of the Leaders was the County BP co-ordinator and conversation flowed beautifully to allow her to promote her role. I was ok with this as the Leaders were genuinely interested and it was a lovely environment to cascade that sort of information.



I wasn't able to input to the title of the training in advance due to the last minuteness  and in addition the Leaders were the ones that didn't need the training and in fact had a lot to offer on


The Promise Tree

the topic. Next time I won't cut the hands on
tasks. There was a lot of interest in some of the region based resources and the conversation flowed really well. I finished by handing out the 5 Essential flowers.

5 Essential flowers & scary guide!

E-Learning on being a Leader

Don't make the mistake of thinking the GG UK E-learning modules are just for those undergoing the Leadership Qualification. There are some really useful gems of information embedded, the Guide Leader one includes 2 additional pages of ideas to get your girls participating which are not included in "Participation on a plate" as well as a template to illustrate programme planning (the sort of thing we have all created to use in trainings ourselves).


Remember to check that the E-learning has been added to your Go! record, which can take a few weeks to process, and print off the certificate to use as evidence for your qualification. There is no certificate with the "branding" module as it doesn't link to a GG UK qualification. One of mine wasn't registered, I sent an email to the leadership address given, which was followed up within the week and the module was added to my Go! record.  


Well worth promoting during Programme trainings.

"Why Train?"

There is a lovely posting on the Canadian Girl Guides blog http://girlguidescanblog.ca/ from Stephanie Nash of 2nd Mount Hope Guiders & Pathfinders on 16/10/13. Stephanie explains why, despite her hectic life, she takes the time to attend trainings and the benefits she gets from her time well spent. It's very inspirational thank you Stephanie it's lovely to see it written down.

E-Learning: Mentoring Module recommended

Finally got around to taking the very first of the e-learning modules and it is probably worth a look for even experienced mentors. It only took 40 mins and there is a good mix of reading, you tube videos and exercises (the most challenging of which was translating the examples of text messages). I failed dismally on matching the obscure facts to the celebs but I always do on that sort of thing. There are some serious messages effectively communicated. I preferred it greatly to the Boy Scouts of America safety module for which I had to use an Anglo American dictionary to translate (but the advantage is that the USA one is mandatory annually). You also have to submit your certificate in order to renew with Boy Scouts of America. The GG instructions at the start tell you that your Go! record will be updated automatically. I gather there hasn't been a huge take-up; going on the you-tube counter, I was no. 680 to view the you tube clips. I think that is a great shame and it won't be time wasted for Trainers, Advisors & Mentors generally - give it a go.