Gloucestershire Challenge Badges

Further information on both badges from https://www.girlguidingglos.org.uk/challenge-badges.html

Inset Week Trainings 2019

It's been a busy month for training, and I've just realised I haven't written my self evaluation of my 2 trainings for inset week at the very start of the month. I did the training plan this year, which was shared around the other trainers, and I planned the training along the lines of "open space." I was fairly sure most of the leaders attending would have experience of the programme already, rather than be attending from the starting point of having no experience at all. I was keen to make sure the trainings were planned so that everyone could get something from the training. I included the refresher quiz from last year but virtually everyone flew through that and we spent very little time reviewing the logistics of the programme itself.

I did a fair bit of research both on the internet and social media and also with the leaders that went on the trip to Switzerland - thank you to them for putting up with me. There were six common themes that kept recurring, they were:

1.  Recording Progress
2.  Group Work
3.  Girl missing an evening
4.  Programme Content
5.  Interest Badges
6.  Gold Award

I attempted to incorporate one of the activities from the Do Your Best trainers resource but on the first night that fell flat because it was obvious that the Checklists had passed a lot of leaders by, many didn't remember receiving the poster with their Guiding magazine. I actually felt like I was talking Greek, by the Tuesday I had modified the training and emailed the trainers delivering Tuesday's training. We acquired extra copies of the poster so that the training could provide an opportunity to look at the poster for the first time or at a bit more length.

Following the Open space principles, leaders had the opportunity to treat it as a café and get an extra drink if they wanted adding to the feeling of networking and we're all in this together feeling. Conversation was staying on track, leaders were able to share ideas and those that needed to vent got the opportunity to vent. Output has been recorded so that it can be feed into the forthcoming County Day and there was a request from a leader to have the feedback shared more widely. I managed to work in promoting the Region resource for UK Parliament Week, and two Glos badges- one on Growing Guiding and the Golden Years Challenge which have both been heavily promoted on FaceBook.

I think it worked well providing an opportunity for experienced and new leaders to come together. It illustrates how flexible we can be as a training team, that we were able to make modifications after the first night in order to accommodate a wide gap in knowledge that was echoed later in the week. It also showed the power of sharing experience around trainers when working on a shared goal.

The concept of Inset week does seem to be powerful, and is getting attendees but they are the same leaders year upon year. It also messes up my wedding anniversary which is also in the first week in September.  

Updated Volunteer Code of Conduct (September 2019)

Very telling, the 2 new sentences added to the revised volunteer code of conduct:

"All volunteers contribute to good programme delivery, whether you are in a unit role working with members or supporting other adults in guiding".

"If you have gaps in your understanding, talk to your local commissioner or adviser."

Wonder how this will impact on all the units that have been running on challenge packs?

Outbreak of Thank you badges!

This one is from WAGGGS £1 each or £10 for 10.

This one is from SW Region £1 each.

About time too - but who will be next?

Including All from South West Region

S W Region have launched a leaflet from the Inclusion Advisor-it raises questions to ask yourself around Joining Girlguiding, Risk Assessments, and adapting the Programme, so could be used as a resource on a whole host of training topics. The POC is via the Region Office for further support; it does point at the national website by searching for "inclusion".
The leaflet strapline states:
"This leaflet gives you a few things to consider and the contact details of your local Inclusion Adviser who is happy to support you further".

A Safe Space Level 4 self evaluation

Wow what a week of guiding - if I added up the prep to the delivery and writing up time this weekend, I have done another 37 hour week on top of the real job I get paid for!

The Level 4 was a Region catch-up day, made slightly more difficult because the national update on ASS arrived in my inbox the evening before the training so there was 3 pages of densely packed text to read and assimilate the night before the training, (and it didn't even include the changes to the Volunteer Code of Conduct), good job I had picked tht up already.

I had been told to prepare for 20 DC's but on the day there was only 9, which was ok, as that meant less scenarios allowing for more conversation, and ultimately more learning outcomes at the training. We couldn't use the laptops in the school, which was all networked - using the USB was easy but the drawback was that I couldn't plug in my clicker which meant I had to keep going back to the corner of the classroom.

As well as going through the relevant changes emailed the night before, I had amended the training to include:

• DYB Poster & checklists
• Girls Attitude survey (which were brand new to some of the DC's)
• the scenarios from the GDPR training in place of the slides, to re-enforce the learning (they took them over coffee to discuss) 
• the revised guidance notes for the programme
• the honest discussion template from the Girl Guiding website 

I can't fault the level of participation, they really enjoyed working through the scenarios. The only complaint appeared to be that they hadn't received the e-version of the commissioners book before the training. However, the local CC pulled out the stops and found the Trading order number by lunch time, which made everyone happy.

I really enjoyed the training, but as I had car shared I had to kill 90 mins waiting for the Level 3 training to end,

which added to an already long week.

Better move the safety pins!

I spent a very enjoyable morning updating my first aid certificate, by doing it 2 months early, before my current one expires, it only took half a day to renew instead of a full day if it had expired. Shame you can't add on the months lost, like you used to be able to do with a passport! I was surprised to discover that safety pins must now be removed from the 1st Aid kit - shame as that's where I always used to find them for bead crafts! Also expiry dates are back on bandages & dressings, after being removed, but as pointed out for a residential test the dates may be checked to see if they are still valid!