This last year has been like nothing I’ve experienced ever. I’m up to about five Girlguiding roles and this summer term, I’ve been out four nights a week plus the weekend quite a few times. So I thought, as possibly the busiest volunteer in the country, I’d talk a bit about each of those roles over the last year.
Rangers
I started my Ranger unit officially at Easter 2023 so this is our first full year. I have four girls, one of whom has been missing for at least half the year thanks to an obscene number of mock GCSEs, to say nothing of the real things, with three new girls hopefully to start in September. Rangers has been really hard work and a lot of the time, I’ve felt like I’m making it up as I go along. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a unit all of my own, with no help other than the presence of the Guides in the next room, and this term, that hasn’t been often. This year we finished the Camp Stage 5 Skills Builder badge that we started on camp last year and we also did the First Aid Stage 5 badge. According to the time on each card, we shouldn’t have been able to fit that into one evening but Girlguiding clearly think Ranger units are just as big as Brownie ones and that the girls need to do a relay race to learn CPR and things like that. No, we can get through all this in an hour and a half!
Our big thing was that we went to Sparkle & Ice. I’ve already written about that so I won’t do it again. We’ve been to the boathouse, we did a chip shop hike, we made bowls out of coconuts (“can we actually? But it says hacksaws!”), we’ve done a campfire and cooking on a gas stove, we’ve made cookies and ice cream, acted like three-year-olds, invented a surprisingly wholesome game considering it’s called “Pregnant Bucket” (tie a bucket around your waist with your jumper, try to catch plastic balls in it without using your hands) and most importantly, I feel like I’m starting to bond with them.
My previous Ranger unit fed from the Guide unit that met at the same time and so although the Guides don’t know me very well, I was always around. We always went to Guide events, we mingled, I wasn’t a stranger and Rangers was a known quantity. But here, I’m brand new and so is Rangers. That is, there was a unit a few years ago but the older Guides that I adopted had never seen Rangers. As the years go by, they’ll get familiar with the concept and with me and the transition will be easier. But for this first generation, part of the art has been getting to know them and them getting to know me. Once we can pick on each other a bit, that feels like when we’re starting to get there. When we inadvertently start a game of “what year were you born?” and one of them says “I reckon… 19… 74?” and I get to play ancient and decrepit and say “You know, I’m 50 this year, it’s a miracle I can even get out the house these days”. When I see them making a particular face when they arrive and I say “Ok, what are you planning, why are you looking at me like that?”. When I can say “Oh, you had a thing this week, how did it go?”.
I could really do with another pair of hands to help out with the admin because that’s the bit that’s really standing between me and enjoying my proper grown-up humans.
Brownies
Ah, Brownies is so much easier. We have four adult leaders and two Young Leaders and I do very little of the admin. I do keep track of our badges – that is, 26 girls x 18 interest badges x 24 skills builder badges x the entire UMA collection. It’s fine. I lay the card down next to the register and take a photo, then I enter it all into GO the next day and find time over the weekend to go through and transfer it all into my colour-coded spreadsheet. 45% of our girls have got their Bronze Award, we’ve got two Silvers and a Gold and I’ve got my eye on another Silver and a Gold next term. The problem we have is doing interest badges. The reason for the low Silver uptake, by the way, is that pretty much everyone is new in the last two years. I think now the summer term has finished, we’re down to just two girls who pre-date me. I’m hoping a lot of our current lot will get Silver and eventually Gold but they just need a little more time – and to do their interest badges!
What have we done? We’ve got through three Skills Builders and an interest badge in the unit (Explore Stage 2, Make Change Stage 2 & Reflect Stage 2, plus Aviation), we had a space-themed district activity day, won our category in the carnival, went to see Wish as part of the Girlguiding-exclusive screening, Parliament Week, region Thinking Day badge, Easter creme egg animals, chip & playground walk and also various games, UMAs, crafts and all the stuff Brownies enjoy.
Boathouse
This one’s had an entire post of its own but if you don’t want to read about being a kayaking instructor and just what my Guiding year has been like, I’ll do some selected high- and lowlights.
I love the boathouse but it really eats up my summer. We had 19 sessions in the calendar between April and July so some weeks there are none and some weeks there are four. Of course, it’s been an appalling summer and we’ve had to cancel a lot but if boat club is cancelled, I just go to Brownies and more often than not, if a boathouse unit evening is cancelled, there’s still something else I could/should be doing.
How did it go, the ones that went? Well, I discovered that I may be the second most-qualified now and the one thinking of doing Instructor but I’m also the only one who has no idea what a hanging draw stroke is. On the other hand, we’ve now got a towline which we almost always remember to take out and I’ve got my own sling and krabs so I can tie up to the buoy instead of holding onto it or I can improvise a towline. I’ve not done any contact tows this year – did it every week last year. This year I’ve only had one girl who’s needed a tow. Of course, there was the time I capsized out in the deep bit – obviously that was the night the region chief commissioner was there! My Rangers came along one night and enjoyed themselves. Our sister Guides came the next night and I think the leaders enjoyed it more than the girls – we had enough spare boats for three of them to join us. Boat club, that is the small core of girls who come every other week throughout the summer term, feels like a bit of a washout – at this stage, we’ve got to find two more spaces for them over the summer because we’ve had to cancel so many.
Highlight, though, is that we’ve got a new volunteer! We had a leader one night who said “I wish I could come every night” and we said “You can! Please do!”. I didn’t have time that night to see what her skills are actually like but if she can stay upright most of the time and not need hand-holding, that’s all we really need from a helper.
Trefoil Guild
Having officially joined an in-person Trefoil Guild for the first time this year, I officially left the Internet Guild after eight years because although you can be a member of multiple Guilds, you can’t be a member of the Internet Guild and any other. It’s for people who can’t get to any other. There’s a virtual Guild run by one of the Rebel Badge Club – I’m allowed to be in that one and my in-person Guild but I’m not allowed to be in the Internet Guild and the in-person Guild.
I’ve finished my Silver Voyage Award although I’ve still got one section to sign off, I’ve learned about a quarter of the names of my new Guild, I’m the go-to for carrying tables and locking up and doing the tea, I’m the person who knows where the cups and plates live and I went to the Trefoil Annual Meeting in June. Might not do it again but I’m glad I went once.
Archery & fencing
I don’t know quite how it’s happened but according to a recent email from the county office, I am now the person responsible for managing archery at our county campsite. This is news to me. I don’t know how people are officially supposed to be book, how they pay, how much it is (it used to be £1 per head to county but the last person to share such details told me they’d paid a flat fee for use of the equipment) and whether it’s to county or to the campsite. I’m getting asked about how we can improve the storage, whether Region can borrow the stuff and… I don’t mind doing it, I’m just not sure how it came about that it’s me. There are at least four other people in the county just as qualified as me, two of whom are much closer to the campsite.
Anyway. What have I done? I did a day at an indoor camp in the winter where I did both archery and fencing and made Promises with two girls who are not from my unit, which was odd. I did toy archery at the Rangers’ division Thinking Day. I did fencing with a non-local unit in May, archery with some old friend Rangers in June and then both archery and fencing at a county camp earlier in July. And although I didn’t actually do archery at GLOW, I was backup in case three instructors needed an extra pair of hands during their eight-hour day. Oh, and I did fencing at the aforementioned Brownies activity day, with foam swords because there were lots of Rainbows there and the groups were fairly huge.
Others
What else have I got? I missed the region walking weekend because I didn’t book in time – used to be that you sent an email and they said “Sure, give us your money” but now you book online and it sells out, not helped by the fact that there are only 6 spaces in the leisure walking group. Same again in 2024, although that’ll fall into next year’s review, which I probably won’t do. I went to the region office open day, which was exactly how it sounds and therefore not quite as exciting as I expected. I did the county training day, which was less training and more craft and catch-up. Two Remembrance Parades – one of my districts does it in the morning and one in the afternoon, so I don’t get out of it either way. We did the Christmas Fair and the Easter one, I went to Pax Lodge for Thinking Day, went to my first county exec (I briefly served as division commissioner: that is, I took it on and immediately realised I simply do not have the time for it) and… I think that’s everything. In the summer term, I missed almost as much as I did. There were so many meetings on Ranger or Brownie days or events planned for days I already had a Guiding thing in – the day I went to the Trefoil AGM, I had three other things, with Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, that I had to turn down – and I don’t even do Rainbows or Guides.
So there’s a lot. I am tired. May and June were particularly chaotic, what with meetings and outdoor activities and boathouse and my own regular units. Every week I’d say “Well, next week is going to be quieter” and maybe it was but you knew it was only because the two weeks after that were both going to be worse. And it’s all things I enjoy! Honestly, if there was one thing I had to get rid of, it would be Rangers – not because I don’t enjoy it or because I dislike the girls but simply because it’s so much admin to do single-handed that it takes up a disproportionate amount of worry for just four girls. If you started reading this thinking you might volunteer and want to know what it’s like, this is absolutely not what it’s like for… well, anyone else except maybe the higher-up commissioners. But it’s a good example of the many and varied roles you can do.
You can be a leader – on your own or part of a team. You can do adventurous activities. Maybe you can help with admin or at large-scale events. Maybe you can join the Trefoil Guild and maybe do your Voyage Award. Many and varied are the options. Just don’t pick quite as many as I’ve fallen into.