Meg's Guiding Adventure's

My home county Shropshire runs a programme called Holiday Brownies for girls throughout the county who are on waiting lists for Brownie units. They learn and make their promise, earn badges and have lots of fun just like any other Brownies and they get to do it in a beautiful national trust building!  The programme runs normally in easter and summer and I first got involved this summer. I think it is a brilliant idea as not only do the girls have so much fun but it gets more girls involved in guiding! This year we decided to add a extra day at Christmas to have a catch up with the girls and help bridge the gap between easter and summer. I picked the Toymaker badge as I thought it would allow us to do some festive activities with the girls and alongside the badge we added in a visit to the the mansion and a walk to see the deers being fed and some christmas card making.  Although we only had a day with the girls we fitted lots in and they all really enjoyed it! The fir...

Now that Christmas is well and truly over our attention will start to turn to planning the next term of unit meetings for our girls! I thought I would put together a bit of a list of some ideas to incase you are struggling for inspiration.  Girlguiding North West Region released a calendar of exciting and different events and topics throughout the year which you could organise meetings on. Some of my favourites for the Spring Term are world book day, International happiness day and Storytelling week. You can find North West regions inspiration calendar here!  The Spring Term means it starts to get a bit warmer and the nights lighter meaning we can start to venture outside again if we have the space. My Rainbows love a walk to the park and this could be a perfect meeting for the Spring Term or if you want to be a bit more adventurous you could organise a treasure hunt for the girls! A big guiding event that takes place within the Spring Term is of cou...

Last year I wrote a bit of a list of things i wanted to do with guiding in 2017! Recently I found the list after forgetting about it and i'm pretty pleased I've achieved most things on it! So for 2018 I thought I would write some guiding goals then this time next year i can do another post and see how many I have achieved!  1. Run 30 Peer Ed Sessions I love being a Peer Educator and getting to increase awareness about such important topics! I want to run 30 sessions and reach even more girls and hopefully help them! So far I have ran 18 and i reckon I can do 12 in the next year!  2. Go on my Queen's Guide Exploration This was supposed to happen last summer but unfortunately never did! This summer however i want to make sure it does and get one of the biggest things ticked off! My exploration is going to be in the isle of wight and I'm really looking forward to it! 3. Reach 20 nights away with guiding So far I have went away for 9 nights with guiding as ...

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...