Wide Games: traditional way to deliver outdoors activities









 

No longer published but worth a look to see if it hides in your Guiding cupboard -
it was a fantastic resource for adventure (1998).
Still available 2nd hand ISBN 0852601484.

It feels like Wide Games are undergoing a bit of a revival since the
focus on adventure - see  if you can find GG UK
4 page document with  good ideas for urban
areas like shopping malls on the internet




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Virtual Classroom training

South West Region is starting a pilot of a virtual classroom technology called Electra following on from webinars but a much more sophisticated tool and feels like a real classroom environment - including asking questions and involving live polls. I've participated in 2 sessions now with my really old 2007 laptop and it is incredibly easy to use. This was my verdict on the last trial:

"It was wonderful to be able to spend my 3^rd guiding evening of the week sat on my own sofa with a coffee and “speak” with a commitment to a common standard from my own living room. (My husband would need not know how many nights I’m out training using this method)! This package will give us a fabulous opportunity to appeal to the younger members and just think how we could help support those on the Leadership qualification who have got “stuck”. I can’t wait to get going.

Ipad users seemed to be struggling a bit but not to the extent that benefits are outweighed by the disadvantages. My screen protector is set at quite a small time so when it kicked in I lost speech for a few seconds. We still have leaders in Glos who don’t own a computer or smart phone."

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day down in Salisbury having a go as a trainer and now have set 6 dates for Glos virtual class room tainings in the book, and produced a set of FAQ's - let's see how it goes! It's really exciting.

 

 

Post Safe Space Training for the 2nd time

The training took a very similar path to the last one - the Leaders really seem to enjoy the risk assessment part of the training. Not a single person was aware of the red emergency pack  - I sent them all away to ask the unit leader to see the copy for the unit. Looks like a mail out at Christmas really wasn't efficient!

I didn't bother to get the projector again but relied on a few of the power point slides laminated and I think that is actually better as the most important aspect is the facilitation for discussion and providing the opportunity  for the (very young) leaders to feel comfortable asking questions. This time folk wanted to know about guides becoming Pack Leaders at brownies - the suggested length of time is a year gap if they are returning to their old brownie unit. Can't remember how we got onto that topic.

Even starting at 6.30pm we overran and I didn't get home until after 10pm (I was only 15 miles away) but I was very impressed with the level of participation and genuine concern to d the right thing for our members. There were a few out of the 13 who only needed this training, in fact some had had their LQ book returned - yet I was surprised how little those present knew about established practices and processes of GG UK. I was left wondering do we need to put more efforts into getting the more experienced Leaders trained up? More importantly should we be spreading the message about using the unit team especially the enthusiastic ones?

Don't know when my next Safe Space training is as I haven't got one booked. Found a load of Safe from Harm resources this weekend for throwing away - it's actually not all that different, got to move with the times.

Tell me an organisation that can teach fab origami skills - why can't we line up the safe space leaflet for printing and folding so its readable?