Meg's Guiding Adventure's

The 'Girls Attitudes' survey is research commissioned by Girlguiding that is currently in its 9th year! This year over 1900 girls aged 7 to 21 took part both members and non members of the organisation and it's split into 6 parts. Girlguiding uploaded information about the results onto their website which you can find here but I thought I would do a post too on the results after reading through the full report!  1. Gender Stereotypes.  Half of girls surveyed feel the need to conform to gender stereotypes but for a third of girls it inspires them to succeed!  A promising statistic is that 50% feel they could challenge teachers when they use gender stereotypes! 42% of girls feel boys are better at being strong that them! Gender stereotypes makes girls feel: angry, anxious about the future, less important than boys and more determined to succeed.  2. Education A worrying statistic that the survey discovered is that 1/4 girls say harassment from b...

Recently I was reading a blog post by a Girlguiding Advocate called Emma (which you can read here ), and it included a fact which I thought was pretty incredible- research conducted by Edinburgh and Glasgow universities found people who had been involved with guiding and scouting have a 15% lower risk of suffering from anxiety and mood disorders! Being a member of Girlguiding has been found to reduce the chance of its members suffering from mental health disorders and I think that is pretty incredible! Guiding opens the door to so many opportunities, I've known people who have travelled to Malawi and Oman and everywhere in between! International trips provide girls with experiences that they would otherwise never have dreamt of and allows them to do life changing work! Even in the UK the opportunities are amazing, from the Queens Guide award to a Rainbows first sleepover, every member gets to do something they otherwise wouldn't have been able to. I've seen girls j...

I’ve completed 7 out of the 8 octants and i’m not going to lie, as a lover of badges, I am very excited to have the completed octagon on my blanket! Today I thought I would tell you what I did for my Leadership Octant which for me I found the easiest as I have been a young leader since I was 14 and always knew one day I wanted to be an adult leader!  The first thing I did for phase 1 was plan a meeting and run it. As a leader you will end up doing this a lot but you can make it as easy or challenging as you like for yourself. You may like to do a craft with the girls or have a games night, it really is up to you. Make sure you discuss your plans with the unit team and always have a few backup games incase you complete something early. The next thing I did for phase 1 was attend a leadership training. I attended both safe space and the Rainbow sectional training and recommend both! The safe space is not only a leader requirement but makes you feel more conf...

Christmas is my favourite time of year and i love getting to do christmas activities with the girls! Over the last few years I've done a few christmas challenge badges and this year I'll be doing another so I thought I would share a few with you for a bit of inspiration. Now I know this is a bit early but us leaders are organised people and like to plan ahead!  1. Be An Elf Yourself Challenge This is the christmas challenge I'll be doing with my Rainbows this year which I talked about here . Not only is the badge adorable but it has quite a few community action activities in it which i think it important all year round but is certainly more common around the festive period. This challenge has both shorter and longer activities in it so you can spend as long or little time on it as you like. Also not all the activities are christmas related such as learning how to care for your teeth as elves eat lots of sugar meaning you don't have to worry about starting Christm...

Playing games during meetings is something I am sure we all do with our girls and the majority love it! However sometimes it can feel like you are always playing the same one or if like my Rainbows at the minute only want to play one game and one game only! I feel to ensure leaders sanity its important to introduce some new ones once and a while! So today I will share with you 5 games I play with my Rainbows which would also work well with Brownies!  1. Sharks This game involves a few rainbows (depending on your numbers) standing in the middle of the room along with one leader pretending to be sharks with their hands. The other girls start at one side of the room and have to run across to the other without being eaten (touched by the sharks hands). If they are eaten they then go to the side and watch and the last Rainbow is the winner! The name and animal could be changed to fit with a certain theme or badge and not only does in burn some energy but I find they love it!...

Rainbows have roundabouts, Brownies and Guides have interest badges and Rangers have Octants which form part of the look wider programme. They range from things such as out of doors to personal values and their is something to suit everyone in them! Octants have 3 phases; phase 1 involves completing 3 small activities relating to the octant, phase 2 is one activity that takes around 20 hours and phase 3 is one activity that takes 30 hours. If a Ranger completes phase 1 and phase 2 of every octant then they earn the Chief Guide award which doesn’t happen very often!  Rangers I talk to often say they struggle to think of ideas to complete their octants so I thought I would tell you what I did for my Independent Living Octant which was the first one I completed. I think the Independent living octant is a great one as it lets girls explore things they don’t in school and can help develop important skills from transiting beyond school and college.  So for Phase 1 I made ...

This term will be the first that I am studying at university and although it will be an exciting change tt will mean I don’t get to see my Rainbows very much :( I’ve volunteered with my current unit for a year and a half now and I love all the girls and the team lots. Luckily though I will make four of their meetings this term and the Christmas trip and on Tuesday night had lots of fun planning what they’ll get up to this term! For the first half term, the girls will be completing their festivals roundabout which I think they’ll enjoy! We’ll be kick-starting with Harvest and making their favourite meals out of play dough as well as collecting donations for the local food bank. For the other three sections of the roundabout the girls will decide at their Rainbow chat next week and I’m sure they’ll pick some fab activities!   From after Halloween to Christmas we’ll be completing the ‘Be an Elf Yourself Challenge’ which can be found on the unofficial badges Facebook page. W...