Meg's Guiding Adventure's

One of my roles in guiding is being a Peer Educator and I love it so much! I visit Brownie, Guide and Ranger units and talk to them and teach them topics like body confidence and mental resilience. I thought I would do a post explaining a bit about Peer Ed and what you need to do to become a Peer Educator and once you are trained! To become a Peer Educator you first of all need to attend a training which usually runs over a weekend, organised at either county or regional level. You can usually find out when these are running by contacting your county Peer Ed coordinator or checking your local guiding websites. Even if there isn't any up and coming, tell people you want one as if they know there is demand it will increase the likelihood of a training taking place. After your initial training you will be able to run sessions for units in one of the three resources, then after your first day you will be able to attend extra day trainings on the other two resources.  It...

Currently I am working towards my module one for Brownies, although Rainbows is my main section, I still work quite a bit with the Brownies through Shropshire Holiday Brownies, Peer Education and since starting University I stay most week after Rainbows to help with Brownies. So I thought it might be useful to complete my module one for the section as then I can be an official Brownie leader! I’m also using module one for Brownies towards my Queens Guide (Service in guiding, 20 hour project) so all in all it’s going to be a pretty useful qualification to have!  I’ve only been working on it since after Christmas, so I really haven’t achieved a lot, however last week I ran the session for my Brownie unit on the promise so I thought I would share with you all what I did for some inspiration!  I wanted to start the meeting by letting them let off some steam so I made a promise relay to act as a reminder of the promise and get them working together. For this activity I pri...

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...