Today I’m feeling a mix of emotions as a
Guider. I’ll explain why.
For the first time in over 35 years, my unit has
two Guides tackling their Patrol Camp Permit this weekend. M and L have had a lot of training, and done
a lot of preparation work, and I’m confident that they will be well organised,
and will both run successful camps on their neighbouring sites. Not only is it over 35 years since my unit
had candidates for camp permit, but it is also over 25 years since anyone in my
Division tried for it. I’m looking
forward to spending a weekend in the field-over-the-road, being their contact,
but otherwise staying tastefully in my little tent, so they have peace to get
on with it and do it their way.
So emotion 1 is that I am proud of them, that
they are all set and ready to take on the challenge. And emotion 2 is that I’m nervous for them,
that they will have everything organised and keep the site ship-shape, that
they will cope when the unexpected and impossible-to-prepare for happens, and that
the assessors will be positive and kind.
But, and this is a very difficult thing to say –
the 3rd emotion is that I’m also proud of me. For M was one of my Brownies for a while, and
I’ve seen both M and L rise through Guides, the opportunities they’ve taken,
the way they’ve matured, the skills they’ve learned. For parts of the time I was running the Guide
unit single-handed, and I’ve been Leader-in-Charge throughout their time in the
Guide unit. Over the years (and
especially in the last 12 months) I’ve laid the path towards this with the
camps and holidays my friends and I have run – it’s no coincidence that in
recent terms my unit has covered fire safety badge and large chunks of first
aid badge, that we’ve regularly had the Guides cooking on fires and on stoves,
building shelters in the woods and working on Patrol challenges, that M and L
camped together at last year’s camp, and I’ve run PL trainings.
So often in our units we focus on the negatives. We note the number of dropouts, without
properly acknowledging the number who stick in the unit through thick and
thin. We note the times when there are
low turnouts, without paying much heed to the times the turnout is good. We agonise over the misbehaviour, and wonder
whether we could be handling it better.
We worry about progress and targets, and whether our programme is
balanced enough, challenging enough, up-to-date enough, engaging enough. We worry about smartness, and rules, and
other things which are very important, but not absolutely vital.
So I think it is right and proper that, just
occasionally, just as a one-off – we take five minutes to sit back, pat
ourselves on the back, and say, despite all the negatives we so often prefer to
wallow in – we’re a success story and we should be proud of it!
