Meg's Guiding Adventure's

A while ago now Peer Education posted on their Facebook page asking for some Peer Educators to help film a video as part of an application for extra funding. Being a Peer Educator is one of my favourite roles in guiding but since starting university I haven’t had the chance to run any sessions or get involved and seeing as the date for the filming was in the holidays I decided to take the chance and apply! I was super excited to get an email back shortly after saying I had been successful and was invited to London to take part in the filming! I had such a great time so I thought I would share with you all what I got up too! I got to HQ for 12pm and met the lovely Amelia and Emma and headed down to ICANDO, the location where we filmed. At first I was shocked by how professional the set up was, I was kind of expecting a few guiders and a camera but we had a really lovely camera man who made us laugh and feel at ease and lots of lights too! We had a rough idea of what we were sayi...

I know that we have yet to celebrate christmas but being the extra organised person I am I've put together this list of challenge badges (official and unofficial) that you might like to do with your girls this spring term! Coming later this week I'll have a post on non badge related ideas for the 2018 spring term too! 1. The year of the dog challenge * * * * 41st Blackburn Guides I know it isn't about the design of the badge but as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to do it with my girls! As a big advocate for animal welfare I love that this badge teaches girls how to properly look after their furry friends and it also ties in well if you want to do some Chinese new year activities as 2018 is the year of the dog.                                                    2. Libraries gave us power challenge * * * *   38th Aberdeen Brownies...

It's a well known fact that I like badges and I love sewing new ones onto my camp blanket! As well as loving badges for my own blanket I love finding ones to gift to my guiding friends for special occasions or ones that I feel suit them well so I thought I would put a post together with some of my favourite 'fun' badges currently out there*.  All of these are pretty much from guide Facebook groups I am apart of (Girlguiding unofficial challenge badges and guide buy, swap, sale) so if you don't use Facebook but would perhaps be interested in a badge I feature of this post let me know and i will see if I can find a contact for you!  First of all are these alternative Happy Birthday badges, the Guiding website does sell birthday badges but only up until 14 then a few metal badges till the age of 21 but nothing for older leaders! I think these badges are super pretty and would be lovely for anyone in guiding whose birthday may be coming up!  Camping in winter i...

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...