New Programme Training

Just wanted to say a belated well done to Bristol & South Glos who put on a fabulous day on the new programme for their commissioners and advisors. Although there wasn't that much more information than we have received already. Putting it all together and envisioning how it is going to work; and more importantly providing the opportunity to discuss what can be done to make the change for leaders in units, created so much positivism. There were some wonderful ideas coming out - well done for approaching the change head on. It was a real honour to be invited to do the Brownie section training. 

Ideas for fund raising

Our Brownies took a stall at our local duck race this weekend partly for fund raising and also as part of our community activities and to recruit (there weren't that many girls of brownie age). As usual Splat the Rat was a winner with boys and dads (3 of whom sent our rat travelling over a long distance). The pick a straw was a fab idea - the winning ones had a sparkly gem attached and hidden in the sand. The good old tradition of name the bear more than covered its cost of £7.50.  Duck folding in the wind was not a good idea! The Brownies who turned up worked really hard and enjoyed it. Well done £63.40 raised with only minimal costs to come out of that.

Training Licence Renewed - I hope!

The 3 year renewal comes round so quickly-keeping the PDP up to date is easy; and the training observation - once  you find a training where you created the training plan is simple. The unit observation was easy this time as the DC came to do it - I think she found the brownies of today a bit high maintenance compared to the brownies who would sit and concentrate from a few years ago. The pace of the meeting amazed her - they were quite taken with a game, we are trying to see if it would work on our stall at the Summer fete at the end of the month. In pow wow the brownies suggested some really good adaptations so young Rainbows can play the game on the day.

The renewal is all sent off now, hope I finally get some uniform this time, it will be the first time since 1986 that I've been provided with uniform.

Break down of my trainings, by requestor & module, since my last renewal in 2014

My Teenagers said "wow mum".....

Renewal Analysis

It's not often I can do something that makes my teenagers go "wow" but I've been pulling together the paperwork for my trainers renewal today.So I thought I would count up the number of trainings and participants since my last renewal in 2014. I got a bit of a shock - I've done 38 trainings in the last 3 years - you can see the break down for Glos (blue), outside of Glos but within SW Region (red) and finally outside of SW Region (grey). When I counted up the number of Leaders who had participated it came to an amazing  677. So even if only a tenth have gone back to their units, and implemented just 1 item they learnt on my training, that's still 67 leaders who have made a positive change.

I've met some amazing leaders on the way but that's why I keep on training.

National Trainers Conference 2017

Sure was a packed weekend but there was an amazing amount to cover:

Safe Space or Safeguarding I did the upskilling to be able to train on Module 3 of the new course. It is a considerable improvement on the current Safe Space in content and delivery. Much more movement and flow to get the messages across - it was stated as 90% facilitation & 10% training required for the delivery. There is going to be an ideas library were trainers can share ideas for delivery so a lot more flexible than the current training.

Membership system looks good and so much more intuitive to use than the current Go! (remember no ! going forward) I think there will still be some who do need training as they will be a bit frightened of the technology. However it looks much more like a normal web based system.

New Programme there wasn't that much more information than we have had already but we did get to see some mock ups of the resources. They are on track and it looks like we will all receive the Rainbows taster pack in July. We were asked to vote on preferred size & cost of badges and there is ongoing discussion on the cost of the new resources. We all got a timeline of the changes and it was evident there are still decisions being made but everything is on course.

Quality Pilot is now up to 400 units testing the syllabus including some trainers the point was made it is still in testing stage and no decision has been made about the pilot yet. People seem positive though.

There was loads of time to ask questions in both Saturday and Sunday sessions. In our Region session we agreed that we wanted a Trainers Region conference in April to look at standardising the delivery of all the new changes. I've got several things to add to my PDP and came away very tired but with a lot of questions. It was good to have a single room and I caught up on some sleep but I don't think the food was as good as 2 years ago.

Module 6 approved!

Yeah I'm so pleased and relieved the Reviewer approved it and signed off the submission sheet at the back which I have now scanned to be entered to my Go! record. I believe the reviewer had read it all - and she gave me some really excellent feedback on training plans and I agree completely. I should have challenged my follow trainers on some of the content on their training plans. I always thought I went to town on the amount of detail I went into on my training plans but the reviewer wants to see even more, so that if I didn't show for the training somebody could literally pick it up and deliver. Whilst I recorded in my reflective diary that I had made changes to my trainings to accommodate for the participants requirements, I hadn't recorded changes on my training plans, which I must do from now on. I had made some notes and I do keep my paper training plans as I have on occasion looked back at them to adapt and amend bits for new trainings, but I hadn't done that on these I submitted for review. I'm really glad I started a reflective diary during the weekend as it allowed me to capture things I might have forgotten afterwards.

Now that we don't do health forms for adult participants at residential events anymore, the reviewer gave me a tip that she does to find out if any of the participants have anything they need to share that is "special about them" I think its a really good idea and I'm going to try it next time.

I did point out that there is considerable duplication in the first 3 tasks but I now understand why that is there and why it has to stay moving forwards. I also like the suggestion of have a module 6 group to meet and discuss on a regular basis.

As I'm also renewing my Trainers qualification this year I intend to take the portfolio to the Trainers Support group at the end of June to discuss. We've recently had new guidance telling us we need to keep relevant aspects of modules 5 & 6 for 3 years to use in our renewal discussions.

Module 6 completed!!

It's been tight but I've turned the portfolio around in just 5 days - it's been useful having the google drive because it meant my tutor and reviewer could check out the items for the portfolio as I produced them. However it left me with a bit of a dilemma as to what to do with the paper word module 6; in the end I used that as an index for the paper version. Whilst you are supposed to submit electronically you have to discuss at tutor group and keep the portfolio for 3 years so it looks like you do need a paper copy of the portfolio. We kept best NVQ techniques up and signed & dated Part 4 both bits. It weighs quite a bit so I'm just keen to hand it over to the Reviewer at last.

Bus Stop for Module 6 weekend at Foxlease

Big shout out to Wiltshire North for being a wonderful county to train.