We
should all know that major programme changes are coming to Guiding in the
UK, to be finally announced and launched in a few weeks' time. Because the information has been
communicated to Leaders in a range of places and ways.
It has had wide coverage in each of the last few issues of Guiding
Magazine (which is sent by post to all adult members free of charge
quarterly). There have been regular
articles on the website as front-page splashes.
E-newsletters have been issued to all who subscribe to them, each
containing many references and links, and often with the coming programme
changes as the lead story. There has
been coverage in various forms of social media such as Facebook and twitter, on
both the official and the unofficial forums, national and local. There have been several questionnaires and
surveys issued from headquarters by various means in order to collect opinions from Leaders. Many Counties have included updates in their
regular newsletters (on paper or online), and some have organised trainings. Taster packs of activities have been issued
to every unit, in all sections, for them to try. Units were invited to apply to test
activities and feedback on them.
Information on how it will actually work as a structure and for the unit
week to week, and what the specific details will be for the individual unit -
may be scant - but by any reasonable
measure, and regardless of your opinion on the content of the information
issued, every Leader should be aware that significant change is coming, for all
sections, and starting from Autumn 2018.
But –
are they aware?
It
seems that, despite the vast amount of time, effort and expense to
date on communications - there are still some Leaders out there who have a
vague awareness that change is coming, but no idea of what or what scale. And, more amazingly still, there are also
some Leaders who claim not to have heard of any coming change whatsoever. These are often the Leaders who will freely
admit they never open the wrapper of the magazine which is sent to them (or who
haven’t kept their contact details up to date in order to receive their copy),
who don’t subscribe to any of the e-newsletters, who delete Guiding emails
unread and do not check the national website, who don’t attend District
meetings or read the minutes from them, and don’t read the County newsletter or
website.
One
might suggest that those who try so hard to remain uninformed – could be judged
to have ‘voted with their feet’ and might have their clearly-expressed wish to
be left in the dark respected? How much
effort should Guiding bother to put into trying to issue information scattergun
by umpteen means in the hope that a little of it might reach the attention of
these hard-to-hit targets? Or should
Guiding simply focus on using a few means, electronic and non-electronic, which
between them are sufficient to reach all those who want to hear. The rest can sink or swim when the changes
come, as they so choose?
The
problem with that is - that for every Leader who does not receive the
information, it means a whole unit of girls, and their families, do not receive
it either. For the Leaders
are not at the end of the communication chain, they are one of the key links in
it. If they have not grasped that change
is coming (far less what the change incorporates and means for them and for their
units) they will not be informing their units that it is coming, nor preparing
the unit’s programme towards it by preparing to tie up the loose ends and
letting the girls and families know that they might want to finish off any
challenges they are currently tackling, and any badge
work which has been started. And the
unit members could be left high and dry too, with challenges or major awards
part-way through (or almost completed) the deadline for completion past and the badges for them no longer
available. Meantime the new programme
could be well under way and most of the trainings on it long since over. It may be that the first they know of a
change may be when they can no longer get the badges for the old programme, and
not a minute before.
So, in
terms of those Leaders who claim full ignorance that anything is happening and
who have proved unreachable so far - what more can (or should) Headquarters do
to reach them? If anything?