Shop 'til we drop

Ultra organised team are now sorting out all the purchasing.  Research shows who has discounts or membership cards, what can be borrowed and where the bargains are to be had. 

Looks like we'll have everything in plenty of time so that samples can be made and cress can be got growing.

All the T shirts and fleeces have arrived so it is going to look great and even if there are other groups on site, we'll be able to spot our girls.

Another interesting contact

I wonder if we can fit 2 more in and how an already enrolled Brownie would work out?

Just been contacted by Families First to see if one of the girls I contacted some time ago could come but could we help with transport or a subsidy and if she needed to come with a friend would that be OK?

Unfortunately we don't have another girl coming from the area to car pool.....

Well, my thought is that if we are to be inclusive we need to find a way to support this youngster in a sensitive but constructive way.  So I've offered a discount or a 2 for 1 and/or help with taxi fares from our grant money. 

A quiet day

A day off from anything on the programme today.  Still not absolutely sure if we will have 18, 19 or 20 girls but hoping this will be resolved by the end of the weekend.

Looking forward to welcoming the Region's Growing Guiding lead to final day and enrolment ceremony. 

A challenge but a good one

We have now been asked by a parent of a girl with learning disabilities if we can include her after last night's briefing where she was so impressed by the programme and our approach. 

We are going to try with the expert help we have on hand to call on to help us.  This is something new for all of us but a challenge I am sure we can rise to. 

Meet the Parents

Fantastic session - the leaders gave a super account of the programme and how it would work, what they needed from parents and what the girls would get out of the programme.  Enthusiastic parents who asked the right sort of questions and were really pleased and excited about the opportunity.  Word of mouth meant we had 2 possible additional girls to sign up - one of whom would have special needs, but I am sure that we can give her the extra help she will need and if her Mum thinks she is up to it, we will work with her to establish how we can give her enough support without taking away from her the fun of having a go with friends.  We are lucky that we have a great adviser for members with disabilities we can call on too.

Found the Makaton Promise on the web as her Mum thinks that is what she might be able to manage - that would be a fun challenge for all of us to learn......

Left the meeting feeling really upbeat - both about the young leadership team and about the support we would be able to get from parents. 

Planning the parents meeting

The team met up to prepare a great presentation.

We'd booked a handy hall for an hour which meant we had chairs, facilities for using IT and tables for filling in the forms.

The presentation was designed to be short.  The slides had little or no writing on them, just prompt pictures so that it came across as a very natural chatty presentation.  The biggest challenge was sourcing a picture of each of the leaders from their facebook accounts which would look fun but in the right way... 

The girls attending each noted down the key points they would need to make on their part of the presentation from refreshments to health and safety .

We packed up the laptop, projector, extension cable, stand,  forms, receipts and examples of the resources and then forgot the pencils and pens!

Budgets Budgets

The team have developed a fantastic looking programme based around the Pre-Promise book and the Brownie Skills badge plus activities, games and crafts - I wish I were a Brownie again!

We know we can borrow some equipment and the scrap store will give us some of what we need but after an hour or so with the Baker-Ross catalogue, Tesco Direct and the Girlguiding shop website all variously consulted, we can offer an amazing programme with lovely activities within our budget of £36 per girl for the 3 days. 

Each girl will get an event T-shirt, a Pre-promise book, a badgebook to take away, promise badge, Brownie Skills badge and promise certificate, 2 activities - grass sledging and low ropes, crafts galore and refreshments including ice-creams each day. 

The county will pay for the leader shirts, some equipment that can be used again like the Jenga game, plastic storage crates etc.  plus the daily expenses and travelling costs for the leaders. 

It is all looking very promising.

Go - No-go?

Back from my holidays to a pile (a small pile admittedly) of applications.  Definitely enough girls to run the 19-21 August programme so we're up and running. 

T-shirts and Jenga ordered

Although we are still short of girls we are going ahead and getting in T shirts - we had already decided not to put a date on them so they can be used in future events. 

A Giant Jenga is on its way and we also got permission to order an outdoor table tennis table from the Exec last night so that is going in too.  That will offer extra flexibility for the less structured sessions but also be good for team building skills

First cheques have arrived

After a nervous wait, we now have a cheque...

Word is also getting around and this has meant parents approaching me to ask if their daughter can attend.  I am making sure they have registered on Join Us and then getting them on board.

Several e-mail confirmations, unfortunately with a number of parents unable to make the parents evening but I am asking them to come a bit earlier on the first day so the leaders can meet them.

First Low Ropes Training Session!

On Tuesday, Charlotte, Emily, Belinda, Sian and Sam embarked on their first training session for the low ropes course at Deer Park, Cowley. We are fortunate to have such brilliant facilities in the county and an equally brilliant team of instructors to guide us! We met up with Roger and Steph, our trainers for the evening, who explained more about the training sessions we would be taking part in.

In addition to learning the rules and safety measures for each piece of equipment on the low ropes course, we were able to actively take part. This was a lot more engaging and allowed us to have a better understanding of how each section is approached by the participants. This also gave us an insight into how to tailor the course to suit the group, with sections of the course more suited to Guide aged groups and others to Brownies and so on.

Overall, the session was really informative and showed how the girls can have fun, develop teamwork skills and overcome challenges, all in a safe environment. We are really looking forward to completing our training and to incorporating low ropes into our holiday programme.

We'll do our best to get some photos next time - we missed some brilliant photo opportunities this week (specifically one of the leaders accidentally throwing a cup of water over herself on one of the sections...!). At least the weather was nice!

Join Us - another black hole

Just discovered I cannot see the waiting to transfer area of Join Us.  Seems well organised units have girls in there too who would be eligible.  Cheltenham coming up trumps with new names for me.  Good thing as I still have not had a single acceptance.

More invites, more new names

Another pile of invitations mailed out today.  A new look at Join Us is showing Rainbows being added to the list, presumably as they finish for the term and are set to move up.  Have e-ailed DCs to say please may I invite them as I do feel we need more girls and I suspect some of the girls may be in for a wait.

HB team meet the Chief Exec

A lovely sunny afternoon gave us a great opportunity to have tea with Julie Bentley and for her to ask loads of questions about the project.  Ideas for the programme were shared and she went away feeling quite inspired about it.  Later she had the chance to spend the evening at the site where the programme will be run.  Let's hope we have more weather like this week over the holidays.

T shirts plans advanced.

What fab news on a Monday morning

Having been away for the weekend, I read the West Division meeting notes. 

Dursley District

Following on from our reporting at the last meeting that we will also be

opening a new Brownie unit in September, I am delighted to say that we will

also be opening a new Rainbow unit. Both of these are as a result of the long

waiting lists and we are very lucky that we have enough Leaders in the

District already to juggle them about and still leave at least 2 leaders in each

unit and have some spare for these new ones. The brownie unit already has

15 ready to start in September and the Rainbows will start with at least 8.

7

 

 

This is a great way to grow using leaders you already have imaginatively.  Well done West and Dursley

First sign up

The first parent has e-mailed back a ....YES....  can't make the parents meeting so I have said to come 15 minutes early on the first day and have e-mailed the starting Brownies form so we get all the details we need for GO!

The starting Brownies form isn't ideal but not a problem, they can hang onto the information until they start a regular unit

Join Us - moving girls to the unit for the summer

Hum, can I do this?  It may mean each leader has to re-assign girls and I have to pick them up then re-assign them at the end of the programme.  Wish I could do it all as I don't want the Brownie leaders to have to do anything more than consent to the invite going out. 

Really partnering with a packed out pack!

As I am getting responses back, it is providing a few extra names but it has shown that I can't see all the names of girls who we could be inviting....  One heavily over subscribed Brownie Pack knows that it has current Rainbows who can't be offered places in September but I can't see them as they are girls registered with their unit.  Fortunately working with the Brownie leader, we have been able to add 5 more girls to the list and send out invites.  This is a case where if we can't get more local leaders we need to look at a.  encouraging girls to join other more distant units that may have spaces or b. try to get some university students up there  from Fresher's Fair - paying their travelling cists if necessary so we can get a 2nd unit running.

More names to invite

2nd positive response from a DC today and suggesting some additional names (great).  Join Us not playing ball though so I am having trouble getting parent addresses to send them an invitation. 

Some of the girls won't be 7 at the time of the programme although they will be 7 early in September so we won't invite them at this stage.

Hiccup 1

We can't use some parts of the campsite for the first programme and will need to be more outdoor based/orientated.  We may reduce numbers a bit for that programme to help, but we'll see what demand is.  That is the programme we have most leaders available for so it may not be too bad.  We might even be able to organise an off-site trip as an alternative for part of a session.

NO panic, just a bit more care going into the planning and thinking about borrowing extra equipment that can offer good facilities for crafts/cooking outdoors.

Who to invite?

Once we had agreed on 3 sessions, we would need to find a way to get between 60 and 70 girls along. 

By creating lists from both "waiting to join" and "assigned" on Join Us, we had lots of girls of the right age to choose from. 

We narrowed it down by only looking for girls over 7 and in the Divisions immediately adjoining Cowley.  We also looked for clusters of 2 or more girls so that parents could organise car pooling for the journeys to and from the centre.  This gave us an initial target list of 57 Brownies. 

An e-mail was sent out to DCs cc'd to Division Commissioners on 30/6 asking for permission to contact the girls parents directly about the programme.  Commissioners were invited to propose additional names to us if they were aware of girls who should be added to our invites.

As permissions came back in, contact addresses were extracted (rather laboriously) from GO! and letters and permission slips sent to each family by post.

Qualifications

The mentor took everyone through the module 1 qualification so we can ensure that we cover all the ground so the qualification can be achieved.  As experienced leaders, it was agreed that completing the new on-line leaning module would be appropriate training this time as no classroom sessions are available. 

Additional First Aid training was investigated but unfortunately the timely and suitable St John's Activity First Aid course was cancelled.  On reflection, we will not attempt to find another course at this time as everyone has a valid First Response certificate.  We will try to schedule something for a future date perhaps using our own Guide trainer.

The low ropes instructor course takes about 7 hours and will be offered in sections starting on 9 July by our team at the activity centre.

Other activities which are leader-led eg. grass sledging will follow the normal routine of a comprehensive safety briefing on the day to the leaders.

We will book instructors if other specialist sessions are required this year and review adding training for future years

Planning Meeting 1 - 26 June

After a tour of the activity centre (mainly for the group mentor) 2 hours was spent working out dates.  We decided to set the first event a little later and reduce the offering to 3 only (2 Brownies and 1 Guides) as we did not want to rush the process as we felt quality was the most important thing rather than quantity for this first summer.  Also the first week of the holidays was already very busy at the activity centre.

Individuals took responsibility for elements of the programme, finance, admin, design and getting quotes for T shirts. 

Budgets?

We are fortunate to have some additional funding available to us for Growing Guiding initiatives and although we do not intend to offer an unrealistically lavish programme, we do not need to be too concerned about costs this year though we will keep careful records to ensure that we have a good grasp of the budget for future programmes.  We may need to buy some start-up equipment which can be used in future programmes.  We have decided not to apply for a new unit grant though it might have been possible.

Girls attending will be charged an equivalent of a term's subs - £36 for the 3 day programme which will offer 12 x 1.5 hour sessions. They will receive some Brownie books, an event T shirt, snacks and drinks. 

We also intend to ask for the 12 month annual subs which will transfer back with the girl when they are able to join a unit, or if they continue with holiday Brownies will be paid in February next year when it becomes due.

The normal costs of using the activity centre facilities, instructors etc. will be credited to the centre.  The expenses for the leaders will be met centrally. 

What is in it for the volunteers?

What is in it for the volunteer leaders?

Skills development

·         Planning

·         Programme building

·         Teamwork

·         Time management

·         Budget Management

·         Guiding knowledge and skills (extra leadership modules may be gained)

·         Low Ropes Instructor skills

·         Leadership

·         Evaluation

·         Creativity

·         Risk assessment, H&S

Visibility

·         With Region Commissioner (possibly)

·         With Chief Executive

·         With County team

·         With Region Growing Guiding Coordinator

Other

·         Evidence of Community Service for awards (eg Queens Guide or DoE)

·         CV evidence

·         References

Although this is a volunteer role, each person will be given £10 per day to cover food, snacks and sundry extras.  Drivers will be paid all mileage at 45p per mile (our standard county rate).  Other receipted expenses will be met.  Use can be made of County office facilities for broadband, copying, laminating etc.  A laptop can be provided if required.

Leader polo shirts and one hoodie will be provided.  Hoodies should be returned at the end of the programme for re-use but polo shirts can be kept.

How did the leaders organise themselves?

When this started in May 2013, they were all still away at college so facebook (a closed group) was the obvious means to start sharing plans and ideas.  This allowed them to introduce themselves to each other, for a "Doodle" to be created to work out the dates for the programme as well as planning meetings, and for messages to be exchanged. 

Who could run holiday sessions?

We are fortunate that many of our Young Leaders complete their adult leadership qualification and become qualified on or about their 18th birthday.  Many then head off to university but come back into County for their long holidays.  Now that holiday jobs are harder to find, this offers them the chance to do something really worthwhile which they love. 

This year as it is our first pilot, we asked a handful of girls who were known to the County team to lead this initiative and without exception they all agreed.  Charlotte, Emily, Sian, Belinda, Sam and Hannah will be the face of holiday Guiding. 

Why think about it?

There are hundreds of girls who would like to be Brownies and Guides (and Rainbows) in Gloucestershire but at the moment we are short of spaces.  We have an amazing activity centre at Cowley Deer Park so we were looking at ways to give girls an exciting experience during the summer holidays so even if they had to remain on waiting lists for a while, they were still making new Brownie friends and benefitting from all Brownies can offer.

Welcome to Growing Guiding in Gloucestershire - Holiday Brownies

We're delighted you are interested in this project which we hope will get more girls into Guiding in Gloucestershire and having a great time. Please feel free to share your comments

I will be using this Blog to actually record the way we have gone about it so that if others are interested they can use or improve the process