An Assessor for Guiding I thought I'd be .....

Following the arrival of the Level 4 Safe Space materials this week I decided to have a sort out of my trainers box and came across this neatly produced on a Guide Association Unit Overview form by J Walker and assessed by A Record on 14.6.02!

An Assessor for Guiding I thought I'd be,
Achieve a D32 and a D33,
My candidates train Guides, Brownies too,
They plan, make resources help train the new,
A portfolio they must make,
Containing witness statements, evaluations, observations, a piece of cake,
For Guider such as those assessed
The competence level must be the best,
Kate, June & Ann excel in training,
To complete the Qualification they are obtaining,
I question, observe, advise, report,
And am always there for support,
OCR the standards set
As an Assessor I ensure they are met,
Throw nothing away that's what they are told,
E-mail, letters, session plan worth there weight in gold,
The portfolio is complete and they have done their best,
To the Internal Verifier for the first test,
The date approaches, the EV attends
The certificate of achievement CHQ sends,
A unit complete hooray, hooray,
Congratulations to all, its made my day.

Hooray for GDPR resources

If you don't already subscribe to the Discover & grow newsletter - you should. Below is an extract from this weeks newsletter published this evening: 

We're developing resources to help you get ready for GDPR

ChecklistOur checklist includes all the actions you need to take to get ready for GDPR

GDPR information
Find all the information you need so far

Keeping information safe
Our leaflet tells you what you need to know about data protection and handy dos and dont's

Handling personal data
Follow these procedures to make sure you're handling personal data appropriately. 

Managing information policyOur policy setting out how we collect and use information appropriately and store it safely.

Reporting a data breach procedure
What to do if personal data has been lost, stolen or shared inappropriately.

Personal data requests procedure
What to do if you receive a request about a person’s personal data we are using.

Check out the FAQ's too, highlights include:

• If a parent refuses to have their details stored in GO they would have to withdraw their daughters membership.
• No more yearly consent forms but termly ones are ok as long as activities and dates are kept up to date.
• Data breaches should be reported within 48 hours
• Starting section forms changing to allow you to keep part of the form with parents signature
• A home contact must be a member of GG now.
• Starting section forms are being amended to include new photo consents from May 2018 and remember photo consent finishes when the girl leaves the unit, you can still keep photos for archives but not to use publicly.
• There are guidelines being developed on using Slack, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Survey monkey etc
•  Commissioners are responsible for ensuring volunteers know about data protection guidance we all must comply with the Code of Conduct.
• Health Care Plans can not be left in meeting place cupboards, if they can be accessed by anyone outside of GG.

Getting ready for the new programme.

A Guiding conversation is now available and can be found here: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/globalassets/docs-and-resources/managing-volunteers/new-programme---guiding-conversation.pdf

The first page has a really good diagram illustrating how the new programme is put together, and page two re-enforces the Five Essentials and how it figures in the new programme. Its a good discussion generator.

Picture worth a thousand words

I recently needed a badge machine for a guiding event after trying to borrow 3 different ones and being thwarted for a number of reasons I took to the internet to see what I could find and got a real bargain from a site in the Netherlands, www.vidaxl.co.uk.

This is the 58mm version and I have discovered there is a huge variation in badges so they really do need to be ordered from the same manufacturer as the badge machine. The machine arrived really quickly and was easy to assemble. This one cost £85.99 without badges but the circle cutting tool is quite weak so looking out for a better one on ebay. Planning to use for our June fund raiser event so the brownies can make personalised duck racing badges for sale, with supervision. Already re-couped some of the costs from another group.  

Protecting our members personal data

Very  topical information at the moment as the UK prepares for the GDPR going live later in the month. This post card is issued by the Information Commissioners Office and is the basis for the data protection leaflet we received this year with our membership cards