My Rainbow's Promise Ceremony

My Rainbow's Promise Ceremony  

Having a promise is something that really sets Guiding apart from other organisations and enrolment evenings are a very special part of our termly fixtures. Each unit has their own traditions and how you enrol each section is slightly different so I thought I would share with you how I enrol new Rainbows into my unit. 

On the evening our girls get enrolled parents are invited to come 15 minutes earlier than our normal finishing time to watch their daughters. We then practice the ceremony a few times before playing some of the girls favourite games to help battle any nerves our newbies maybe suffering from.

Our existing girls create an aisle for the new girls to walk up, standing in pairs facing each other. We have these Rainbow ribbon sticks that the girls hold and they wave them as the girls walk up the aisle. After the girl has made her promise she is given a rainbow ribbon and then takes part with the other rainbows for those remaining to make their promise.

I call each girl by her name , she walks up the rainbow aisle and i ask her if she is ready to make her promise and then ask her to tell me it. I was super impressed with my Rainbows last week as all of them knew their promise off by heart! After I pin their promise badge on, ask them (and help) to salute and then welcome them into the unit.

We give each girl:

- Promise certificate 

- Metal promise badge

- Woven Welcome to Rainbows badge

- County silk

- Unit tape

I'd also like to start giving the girls a guiding bag as my home unit gives these to the girls and I find they work really well but i want to see what the new programme brings to make sure the books fit in them or if they bring out new bags. 

Once all the new starters have made their promise the whole unit gets into a circle and as a group we shout welcome to Rainbows. Depending on the remaining time we may play a game or too before singing our goodbye song and going home.

We do also have a promise song that we forgot to do this time which goes 

Made my promise, made my promise, made my promise here today,

become a Rainbow, become a Rainbow, here today

Next time we will sing that once the girls get into the circle after they have all made their promise.

I was really quite touched by all the parents thanking me for the ceremony, commenting how cute it was which I've never experienced before. This was my first time doing an enrolment evening as the main unit leader and I think i was more nervous than the girls! 

I  hope you've enjoyed this post and I would love to here your stories and traditions for what you do for promise evenings! I'll also write a post about what we do when the girls leave Rainbows and earn their pot of gold!

M x