Meg's Guiding Adventure's

Peer Education is a part of guiding I am very involved in and I love having the role of Peer Educator. My home county, Shropshire are a super active team and as it is all I've ever known I kinda thought all counties were the same... However leaders in my new university county don't really know a lot about the programme as not many girls run it and I'm sure they aren't the only county like this so I thought I would do a bit of a post to explain how it works and why you should get involved!  Peer Education sessions are ran by trained members of the Senior Section on topics such as body confidence and mental resilience. Girls do a complete range of activities from games to crafts and group discussions to learn important messages to help them in their futures.  Currently there is two programmes Peer Educators can run; Free Being Me and Think Resilience with one focusing on Gender Stereotypes coming soon! Free Being Me is sponsored by Dove and is focused on help...

As we have entered November I know a lot of our minds have turned to Christmas and some of us start to think of ideas on what to buy those around us. Some units buy gifts for their girls and we often buy pressies for our guiding friends and family so I thought I would put together a little gift guide on ideas for girls and leaders to provide you all with some inspiration! * Meg's Guiding Adventures Christmas Gift Guide 2017 1. North West Region Christmas Cards I think the North West Christmas items are super cute although I may be slightly biased as I've just become apart of that region! But I'm sure anyone guiding or non guiding would love to receive one of these cards this christmas! I plan to send them to my guiding friends from my home region. 2. North West Region Christmas Badge Again another item from their cute range but these are perfect for your girls, leaders or guiding friends and would look adorable on any camp blanket.  3. Carol Singing Ba...

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!...