Trainers Conference 2019

I have deliberately left it a whole week before recording my feelings on last weeks national Trainers Conference so that I could reflect on what I saw, heard and felt. It was a very different message that was being put out from the Trainers conference 2 years ago. I have been keeping an eye on Padlet to see comments being made by trainers after the event, but there has been much less than I thought there would be.

They event was run this year as an Unconference, there were several non Girl Guiding "experts" who were facilitating; one of whom actually quoted from the original Open Space book! There were 4 zones to the conference and a very strong digital feel. I have several things I want to follow through on, but the really striking difference from 2 years ago was that then the message had been about everyone training to a consistent quality, all leaders receiving the same material, from standardised training plans, and pre prepared powerpoints that could be amended to suit the audience.

Now it feels like we are being encouraged to look at much more blended learning, that will provide for a new leader to acquire the skills she needs to be an effective leader in a much faster and more effective manner than happens currently, but will suit her lifestyle. We have all known for a long term that the nature of volunteering has changed dramatically, alongside the use of technologies for learning and development. Personally I have felt that Girl Guiding was moving away from needing face to face trainers who require a Training Qualification, as the material to deliver was being handed to them on a platter. I am pleased about the changes that seem to be afoot, but can't help but think when we ditched the NVQ, that I did, and developed our own Training qualification we dropped a great deal of the very theory we talked about this weekend. I am interested to see how that is going to be re-introduced to the revised TQ.

The irony was not lost on me that the changes are being introduced to train leaders at the opposite end of the age demographic than the vast majority of the Trainers at the Conference!

I will never be able to call CHQ "Head Office" that's just not how I think of it. These pictures were "drawn" over the course of the unconference, and hats off to the graphic artist, this isn't an easy thing to do. I know as I've done the training. There is so much to see in them I could look at them all day. I will start to blog tomorrow on some of the specifics I noted to follow up on.