Self Evaluation - Supporting the Revised Promise

The Promise Washing Line ice breaker

Gloucestershire County Day 2014 and I am a last minute fill in to cover the morning Guide Leader training on supporting the Revised Promise. Its a lower than usual turn out (it's the furthest division to get to in the County) and the opening speeches & awards over run. So we are 25 minutes late starting - I've never been so late starting so have to take some on the spot decisions about what to cut. I keep in the ice breaker though as everyone has been sat down quietly listening so need to be energised! The Promise washing line goes down really well and with the class room window open it looks lovely gently blowing in the breeze. It's a lovely activity to demonstrate adaptability - you can make it easier for Rainbows by having pre-cut uniform they just hang up, Brownies have pre-drawn shapes they cut out and Guides do the drawing & cutting. In this example the innovative Guide Leaders just cut out neckers! It was lovely to see the 2 teams exhibiting such differing learning styles - one just got on and did it the other planned to the nth degree.

In order to make up the lost time I cut the doing of the activities down to the bear minimum which was the key thing on the evaluation forms that Leaders missed! I had 3 bases focussing on the 3 key aspects of the Promise with activities on each. On this base Leaders are asked to complete a Glos notelet with a self addressed envelop talking about how they will keep their Promise. I will post the letters back to them in a few weeks. Other bases asked for leaves to be added to a Promise Tree &  

One of the 3 Promise Activity bases

contributing to Promise bunting I'm planning to use in a cake sale at work. The small group were all experience Leaders so had a great deal of experience to share - one of the Leaders was the County BP co-ordinator and conversation flowed beautifully to allow her to promote her role. I was ok with this as the Leaders were genuinely interested and it was a lovely environment to cascade that sort of information.



I wasn't able to input to the title of the training in advance due to the last minuteness  and in addition the Leaders were the ones that didn't need the training and in fact had a lot to offer on


The Promise Tree

the topic. Next time I won't cut the hands on
tasks. There was a lot of interest in some of the region based resources and the conversation flowed really well. I finished by handing out the 5 Essential flowers.

5 Essential flowers & scary guide!

E-Learning on being a Leader

Don't make the mistake of thinking the GG UK E-learning modules are just for those undergoing the Leadership Qualification. There are some really useful gems of information embedded, the Guide Leader one includes 2 additional pages of ideas to get your girls participating which are not included in "Participation on a plate" as well as a template to illustrate programme planning (the sort of thing we have all created to use in trainings ourselves).


Remember to check that the E-learning has been added to your Go! record, which can take a few weeks to process, and print off the certificate to use as evidence for your qualification. There is no certificate with the "branding" module as it doesn't link to a GG UK qualification. One of mine wasn't registered, I sent an email to the leadership address given, which was followed up within the week and the module was added to my Go! record.  


Well worth promoting during Programme trainings.

"Why Train?"

There is a lovely posting on the Canadian Girl Guides blog http://girlguidescanblog.ca/ from Stephanie Nash of 2nd Mount Hope Guiders & Pathfinders on 16/10/13. Stephanie explains why, despite her hectic life, she takes the time to attend trainings and the benefits she gets from her time well spent. It's very inspirational thank you Stephanie it's lovely to see it written down.

E-Learning: Mentoring Module recommended

Finally got around to taking the very first of the e-learning modules and it is probably worth a look for even experienced mentors. It only took 40 mins and there is a good mix of reading, you tube videos and exercises (the most challenging of which was translating the examples of text messages). I failed dismally on matching the obscure facts to the celebs but I always do on that sort of thing. There are some serious messages effectively communicated. I preferred it greatly to the Boy Scouts of America safety module for which I had to use an Anglo American dictionary to translate (but the advantage is that the USA one is mandatory annually). You also have to submit your certificate in order to renew with Boy Scouts of America. The GG instructions at the start tell you that your Go! record will be updated automatically. I gather there hasn't been a huge take-up; going on the you-tube counter, I was no. 680 to view the you tube clips. I think that is a great shame and it won't be time wasted for Trainers, Advisors & Mentors generally - give it a go.

Back in the UK again!

I know it's been a long time but its all change now as we have moved back to the UK and I have returned back to work and thinking about professional CPD again. As there is some overlap with CPD in guiding and my professional life, I thought it was time to re-activate my blog.

My annual Girl Guiding UK training form is also due for submission so I need to start documenting just what I did do in 2012 - there were some activities but the main reason for my lack of posts was that I undertook an Open University module from November 2011 to April 2012 which I passed but decided that at 40 somethingish my days of 3 hour exams are well over! I did enjoy the experience of my first long distance course, and the case study involving 3 assignments has given me some really good insights and prepared me for the return to work in September 2012 following the move back home in July 2012.  (I also hear that long distance learning is going to be the preferred way of learning in the future).

So Girl Guiding has gone on the back burner until 30th June 2013 but I am assisting with a Guide unit on a monthly basis to keep my hand in. In the meantime one of my new years resolutions is to start blogging again.

Reflection on BGIG Training weekend

Now I have submitted my triennial renewal form for my Training Qualification complete with observation I decided it was time to start filling in the new paperwork for my 2011 training diary and start as I mean to go on with good pure reflection! However "The Trainer's reflective training diary" wasn't quite as user friendly as I had hoped; therefore I have given up for the time being and emailed a few questions on how to tame it, off to London.

In the meantime I thought I would capture some of the reflection here (before I forget). I'm pleased I put together the games booklet and activity packs - never anticipated there would be anyone present with a latex allergy! I finally found a use for the SW Region folding frisbee in an ice-breaker. Nor had I appreciated just how new the Brownie guiders would be to guiding and I spent a lot longer on the 5 Essentials than I had expected. I'm glad I did the 5 E's book-marks; they looked a bit like frightened rabbits when I asked if anyone knew what the 5 E's were? After I had initially being sceptical of the new Guiding Handbook it actually came in quite useful. I need to use a different brownie quiz to the one in Anglia's Pic 'n' mix as the guiders found it quite difficult to answer, (and I originally gave out the answers instead of the quiz). It was lovely to see the light bulbs going on in the middle session. It seemed to work well getting them to develop the unit team collage as the training progressed. I would have liked more time to go into the Brownie programme but I think in retrospect we had covered a lot of ground in the 3 hours. The craft bag with make a brownie craft seemed to go down well.

Saturday night entertainment of Guiding Trivial Persuits was well received (thank you Lesley) and a select group of guiders still ended up singing in the bar. Sunday sessions were in the main too short and the evaluation highlighted that the 45 min sessions were not well received. There was a great deal of contribution on the Sunday sessions - thank you to the training team.

Rainbows in Stuttgart

I went to do a unit visit yesterday to the only British Rainbow unit in Stuttgart.A lovely happy bunch of girls who seemed to really enjoy their unit meeting. The 5 essentials were very evident; and I remembered why I've never worked with Rainbows! Although whilst completing the observation form on the train on the way home it did cause me to reflect how much my own children have grown up. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this beautiful flower returned by a Rainbow, what a lovely idea.
I also had a reflection or 2 on the German trains which are truly "wunderbar" and very comfortable.