Forgotten Again

A joint event was being held for all the sections in the area.  The organisers had put a lot of work into organising a range of activities for the girls, and everyone in the area was invited.  Only £5 per girl too.
 

Trust me to put a spanner in the works by asking the nasty question.  You know the one.  The one that should be perfectly innocent, but so often makes you sound like a troublemaker.  “What’s been organised for the Senior Section, I see some of the Rangers have booked to come?”

Yes, that question.  It received it’s usual response.  A bit of silence, followed by a ‘well, I suppose they can help out at some of the activities or join in with the Guides.’

And sure, I don’t doubt they could.  I’m going to assume that the response was not thought through, and that she wasn’t really proposing that Senior Section members who had paid £5 like everyone else would actually be paying for the privilege of spending all day being odd-job helpers, when they had applied and paid to attend as participants, or doing activities which would likely be fairly babyish to all but the youngest of them - she was probably just scrabbling for an answer because the truth would have been that nothing had been organised and nothing was going to be.  Again.

Well, we’ve got 12 months to sort it.  For in 2016 it will be the turn of Senior Section to have their 100^th birthday celebrations.  It gives those of us in the sections who have already had birthday celebrations a year to plan what activities we will make available to them, to plan our offers of help to their Leaders to help them make it a big year.  To return the thanks for the work they did during the Centenary and the Big Brownie Birthday when so often they had to smile through gritted teeth when turning up to events as participants to find that they were expected to either join in with the 10-year-olds, or spend the whole day working at odd jobs.

So next time you’re planning a training or a multi-section event – why not plan the Senior Section activities first for a change?

Change . . .

There was a time when ‘parcel tape’ was a kind of lick-and-stick paper tape which was difficult to use and not very effective, so the wisest way to secure your parcel for postage was with string. Nowadays, with the machinery the post office use for parcels, string is a snagging risk, and modern parcel tape is usually better.

There was a time when runaway horses were a real menace in busy towns and cities, and knowing how to deal with them was a valuable skill. Nowadays horses are very rarely seen in the street, so the risk is much lower.

There was a time when every house would have had coal fires, and many would have had coal-fired ‘ranges’ for cooking on too. Nowadays fires are very rarely used, so girls are less familiar with them.

Back then, girls wore ankle-length skirts, and wouldn’t be seen outdoors without a hat. Middle and upper class girls would not be allowed out without an adult chaperone anyway. Working class girls would leave school at 14 to start work (although some left as early as 11 or 12). Girls were discouraged from taking part in sport for fear it would ‘damage their organs’ – and the corsetry which it was customary for women to wear limited the exercise they could take anyway.

Hence, although the first handbooks gave information on how to tie parcels with string, how to stop runaway horses without excessive risk to yourself and how to light fires and put out clothes on fire, the current handbooks (or their equivalents) don’t. Is that not terrible? Wouldn’t the founders be turning in their graves if they knew of it?

On the other hand, in those days there was no television, radio or computers, and cinemas were a new invention, so there was less ‘adult’ material for girls to encounter. Cars were a new and rare invention, so the speed of traffic wasn’t the issue it is nowadays.

So I find it fascinating that so many media commentators and columnists seek to paint the way in which Guiding programmes have changed over the decades as if it were a problem, perhaps even a crisis, and clearly something disgraceful that the public should be up in arms about. It’s as if these writers honestly think we should still be doing the exact same activities in the exact same way we did 50 or 80 years ago, regardless of circumstance. Is it a problem that where we used to promote good health and body image through the ‘health rules’ that nowadays we do the equivalent thing through ‘healthy lifestyles’ and body image campaigns? Or should we still be teaching the girls to recite “Only feed on wholesome fare . . .” parrot-fashion regardless of whether the girls understand what ‘fare’ is or not?

In their pleas, what these commentators overlook - is the real reason why many of these activities were put in the Scout and Guide programmes in the first place. Why did Baden-Powell include knots? Not for their own sake! He made it clear that his real aim was for the Scouts and Guides to develop their concentration and their manual dexterity, and knots were just the practical means. Signalling with Morse or semaphore weren’t really done for the long-distance communication they enabled, but were actually mainly included for the concentration and stickability it took to sit down and properly learn each letter and symbol by heart, until youngsters could use them from memory, and at practical speed. All that skipping and ball throwing was not an end in itself, but actually just to develop co-ordination. He put in things about washing yourself regularly and changing clothes for bed because most of the Scouts and Guides would get one bath a week if they were lucky, and one laundry day a week – so that basic level of cleanliness was a realistic target to ask for health-wise from even the poorest. Now that houses all have flush toilets and running water, we can focus more on enough hours of sleep and improving diet.

So there is no need for us to set our programmes in stone, or worry about anyone turning in their graves because we aren’t still doing the exact same things we did back in 1912, so long as we focus on putting in place a programme which develops the equivalent qualities and skills in the modern youngster. The same community-minded spirit, the same personal development. Scouting and Guiding didn’t just keep re-printing the same old handbooks year after year – look back and you will see that every few years, right up to his death in 1941, Baden-Powell made significant revisions and issued new editions of the handbooks - and there were regular updates in the official magazines between handbook editions. Because the founder kept on developing and altering and refining the original ideas, making changes both minor and major. And I’m willing to bet that if he were still around, he would still be making revisions yet, to ensure that the programme was still attractive to the modern youngster . . .

Meet The Neighbours . . .

Had a visit last night from a Senior Section unit who are on a trip ‘up our way’ and wanted the chance to see what other units do.  The Brownies were working on their fitness challenges from Adventure and Adventure On, I think they found the skipping a bit exhausting!

 

Probably as interesting for them was finding out ‘what we do’ – which it appears is quite different from what they are used to.  And I think they found out that they are experiencing quite a lot of byelaws in their area, which they hadn’t realised were actually byelaws!  Perhaps I dropped a boulder or two, not merely pebbles?!  Although there wasn’t much time for comparing notes in a busy Brownie meeting, what did we find?

That opening and closing ceremonies (even those which follow the traditional format) vary quite a lot in the detail.  That it’s always useful to see some of the songs and games that other units do (although I think they found doing ‘head, shoulders knees and toes’ in Scots language a wee bit trickier than it would have been in English!).  That you can introduce a balanced amount of democracy into a Brownie unit – they were fascinated by our term planning sheet with it’s coloured boxes (details below) and that the Brownies had organised their own meeting a couple of weeks ago, with no adult input!  That they were being misinformed when told that they had to have 3 adults at a Guide meeting for ratios, even at their own hall! 

And after my Brownie meeting was finished, they were getting the chance to see the Guide meeting afterwards too – I’m sure they would have found other differences with the Guides, too . . .

In some ways, ‘visit a unit’ is something I would love to see promoted to Leaders more generally.  It wouldn’t have to be the same section (could be a great chance to find out about other sections and get info to help with transition), but seeing the same section would be especially valuable.  It wouldn’t matter whether it was the unit down the street or one at the far end of the country and it wouldn’t need to be a ‘special’ meeting – indeed more valuable if it was a regular programme.  Just the chance to see how other people do things, what songs they sing, games they play, opening and closing ceremonies they do, what sort of halls they meet in, who takes what role in the unit and how they share the work out.  It’s like a free training, running every night of the week, in locations across the country!

So – next time you are travelling on business and face a long dull evening in a hotel, or you have a spare night with nothing doing – could you arrange to go and visit someone else’s unit meeting, notepad in hand, and see how the other half live, how they run things, what they get up to?

 

(For our planning, we prepare a sheet which has boxes for each date in the term.  We also produce a number of coloured squares with headings written on (more squares than there are dates available).  The headings would be things such as ‘music’, ‘craft’, ‘science’, ‘outing’, ‘adventure book work’, ‘cooking’, ‘Brownie-run night’, ‘surprise’ etc.  In some cases there might be one or two copies of each square, in others several.  The Brownies are then supplied with blu-tack and it’s up to them to discuss and decide which squares they want to stick on, and on which weeks.  Other than guiding them a little on practicalities (for instance, having outings a few weeks into the term to allow time for planning) we give them a totally free choice of what to put where.

Once we have their completed sheet, we can decide which actual activities to schedule, with the freedom to interpret the headings as we consider appropriate – so ‘music’ might be singing, or playing instruments, or singing games, or movement-to-music, or having someone visit to demonstrate an instrument, or . . .and we can choose where and what the outing is!)

What I learned at this year's camp . . .

The success of a camp depends solely on the Leader team being likeminded and enthusiastic.  If those two things are in place, then all will be well, and almost anything can be coped with.

 

That one participant will arrive more than 30 minutes early (on a journey that takes 40 minutes) and at least one will be picked up more than 20 minutes late.

 

If you fondly imagine it’ll only take an hour to heat soup and cook burgers for rolls on gas stoves (with one stove between 8 people) and then wash up (hot water centrally provided) – you’ll be sadly mistaken – it’ll take nearer two hours.

 

If you then assume the following night that you better send the Patrols to start collecting wood at 4.30 pm in order for them to get their fires lit and cook and eat their two-course meals before it turns dark at 7.30 pm – you’ll find that they are all cleared up before 6.30 pm and asking what happens next!

 

Just because the Guides all live within 5 minutes’ walk of the countryside, doesn’t mean they have ever been outside after dark outwith the range of the streetlights, and won’t find the idea of turning the torches off scary.

 

That the Guide who is so organised that she had her own first aid kit and made a good job of treating the cut on her foot – will nevertheless have then crossed the dew-covered field without putting a shoe on in order to get her treatment checked out by the first aider . . .

 

That sometimes having a coughing fit at 5 in the morning isn’t all bad – since I was too wide awake to sleep, I got up and saw a lovely sunrise over the tents . . .

 

That a camp of almost all first timers can actually be easier, as they all have to listen to the instructions, because none of them know it all . . .

 

That even if you state until you are bored of hearing yourself that everything which goes to camp should have a name put on it, the parents who will be most upset about lost property will be those who didn’t put any name or other mark on said missing item . . .

 

That the Leader’s kit list should always include self-inflating mat, head torch, midge net, insulated mug, pen knife/utility knife, and folding chair.  All are essentials.

 

If in doubt, have another cup of tea.  By the time it’s made, most difficulties will have resolved themselves without any need for Leader involvement.

 

That within a week of arriving home from camp and collapsing in a chair, your thoughts will turn to possible venues and dates for next year’s camp . . .

The New Guide Uniform

Well, it's here.  We had to go through the usual pantomime of  'embargoed' information which arrived (with me at least) less than 2 hours before the photos were all over the front pages of the national newspapers anyway, and now we are going through the backlash where everyone declaims on how awful it is.  As has been done with all new uniform launches right back to the start of the movement.  And we can now use the term 'uniform launches', because the term 'uniform' is back!

If I'm honest, my own first impressions, having seen only the handful of photos, aren't exactly enthusiastic.

But almost everyone who is rushing to judge it (including me) hasn't seen it 'in the flesh'.  All we have seen of it is a handful of photographs.  So we haven't yet seen how the colours will really look when worn, or what like the cut is on different body shapes, or what sort of fabric it is, or what sort of detailing there is.  We just don't know how it will launder, or how functional it will be for hot/cold weather.  We can't really judge on how flexible the sizing will be or how it will work for different height/build combinations, or how it will look if parents buy with the inevitable 'room for growth'!  We've only seen a few pictures of a few individuals, which makes it hard to tell how it will look 'en masse'.

So I watch with interest those who claim that that as soon as they finish typing their comments they will rush to try and buy up enough second-hand items of the current uniform to keep their unit going well beyond 2016 - or those who are fast-tracking plans to get 'unit garments' made and intend to pretend to the girls and parents that such garments are equivalent to uniform and are fine to wear at unit meetings instead of the official garments - regardless of the fact the guidelines clearly state that's not the case.

And yet - most of the opinions I have heard to date - have been from adults, or adults reporting on what girls have apparently said (some of these adults must have spent much of the morning chasing up their members, given the number who are saying 'all my Guides think . . .').  And it has been mainly adult opinions on social media fora, Leader or parent discussion forums, and newspaper 'have your say' message boards.  Their views may, or may not, be a match for what the girls themselves really think - after all, it's by no means unknown for adults and teenagers to disagree on questions of fashion!

One positive change is that the guidelines are now clearer, for all of the other sections as well as for Guides.  The ongoing confusion between 'Guidewear' and 'memberwear' has been cleared up, so at least we now all know whether we are obeying the guidelines or breaking them.  We now know what is considered as 'formal unform' for special events, which will resolve the many arguments of the past few years over what is respectful/appropriate to wear when participating in formal parades and receptions.  Of course, the publishing of guidelines will automatically cue up a whole lot of fresh grumbles - any situation where flexibility is replaced by guidance will always produce those, and we've had plenty of the predictable 'stuff the rules, who's going to report us' reactions.

But I'm reminded of a saying which can apply to a lot of these situations - "today's headlines are tomorrow's chip-paper".  I've been around long enough to remember the major controversy there was back in 1990 when 'uniform uniform' was replaced by a mix-and-match range, and the single uniform for each section was replaced with a situation where individuals were actually meant to choose for themselves what items to wear, with a ban on having 'unit policies'.  Of the fuss over baseball caps being considered uniform, and that there were no actual skirts amongst the range, and the numbers who claimed they were going to resign over it - and it's fascinating to see that with these recent changes, people are suddenly treating the 1990s uniform as 'the good old days' . . .

Campfire Censorship

Been some interesting discussions along the 'is it appropriate?' line in various different places regarding certain campfire songs and skits.

So the first thing to say is - there are no banned songs or banned skits in Guiding.

It is left up to the campfire leader to judge what is or is not appropriate, bearing in mind the circumstances. So it depends on when, and where. On what age group(s) are at the event. And, on the campfire leader's own personal opinion. Some of the songs which used to be popular (indeed used to appear in official publications) are the sort which people nowadays would tend to avoid as times and tastes change, and things which once were ordinary, can now be seen as offensive. Topics such as race and disability are a lot more sensitive.

I'm sure every campfire leader will have songs which they know, but choose not to lead or teach, for their own reasons or tastes. (I've never taught Baby Bumble Bee!) Or some songs which they only do with Rainbows and young Brownies, or only with Guide-age, or only with adults.

It's actually a very difficult job - walking the line between the sort of songs the girls will want to sing (Guides do enjoy the likes of 'Jumped Without A Parachute', and 'Tom the Toad', Brownies enjoy 'A Brownie Ate Some Marmalade) with the risk that you could teach songs some Leaders have deliberately chosen not to share with their units. And there are still some campfire Leaders who will pack the 'quiet' section of the programme with a non-stop stream of religious songs, in some cases without being aware of it, in some cases not realising that people are being excluded by it.

Skits should ideally be previewed by the campfire leader, or by someone she trusts, both to ensure that they are appropriate, and to ensure they work - that the audience can follow the storyline, and that there is a clear beginning, middle and end, ideally not too far apart!

So, what if you are at a joint event and the campfire leader does an item you'd rather she hadn't? Then arrange to have a quiet word afterwards - and make sure it is a calm, quiet word. Jumping up in the middle of the event in order to make a point - will only draw the girls' attention to something that, chances are, half of them wouldn't otherwise have picked up on anyway. A quiet word afterwards gives the campfire leader the chance to consider your point of view, and judge for herself whether it is valid or not. And if you are that campfire leader, try to listen calmly and consider whether there is validity in the point being made. Different things offend different people, one person's inoccuous can be another person's offensive . . .

The Guide Programme - is it just us?

I was looking back over the past 12 months of my Guide unit, and picking out some of the Guides’ favourite activities:

Wide Games – we’ve done several, some in the streets and some in woodland, and they want more
Camp and Indoor Holiday – lots of demand for more of both.
Shelter Building – with groundsheets and paracord in the woods
Cooking on Altar Fires – playing with the fires, eating the produce
Cooking on Stoves – making crepes/English pancakes
Board Games Night – a chilled evening, and a rare chance to have enough people to play well.
Science Night – rotating round various experiments using household ingredients, including making slime, lava and volcanoes
Campfire – singing songs, doing action songs, performing skits and playlets
Cooking – making shortbread, pizzas, zip-bag fudge

We’ve also done some ‘dry’ stuff – discussions and GFIs and Big Brownie Birthday challenge clauses, Promise activities, and activity planning, and teambuilding – and while they haven’t minded them, and have moderately enjoyed some, they aren’t the sort of things my Guides can ever really enthuse about at the time - or will reminisce over later. GFIs especially, can be more chore than pleasure. We tend to do them in a block of 5 weeks, and have an outing the week after, as something to look forward to once the GFIs are done with. The GFIs are meant to encourage the Patrols to choose, plan and carry out for themselves, and they do. But the GFIs the Guides tend to choose are also a reflection of their tastes – Healthy Eating, Globalistic, Lights Camera, Campout, Experimental, Chocolate, Parties, Football, Survival. Anything that involves food or games or an excuse to go outside. Several copies of these have been patched up more than once to keep them in usable condition – which makes it easy to pick out the packs which are still in pristine condition despite being part of the selection for several years now – the likes of Peace, Top Job, Grrreen, Toothbrush, On The Move, Constructive . . .

So, I cast an eye to the exciting new initiatives coming out from headquarters, to keep our stocks up to date and freshen up the selection – there’s been one GFI launched in the past year or two, and they’re working on another – and I ask myself whether the Guides will be excited to get started on these fresh, new packs – and I am sure of the answer. It will be no.

Not because the subject matter of them isn’t important – the founder himself believed that Scouting and Guiding should encourage “active citizenship”. But his big, successful idea was ‘education through games’ – it’s why the first handbook consisted of a series of ‘campfire yarns’ on a given topic followed by ‘practices’ – aka games, designed to make learning the information from each yarn, fun. Yet I look at some of the GFI packs, and it seems that his evergreen idea of learning through games has been forgotten. Where there ought to be skills-teaching games, and fun challenges to tackle, there are - topics to debate or research, posters to make, projects to plan and run. And instead of the ‘dip in and choose 4 sessions’ worth of varied activities’ - in some cases it’s now ‘think up a project and work on it solidly for 4 sessions until you achieve a result’.

So I have to wonder. Is it us? Are my unit a bunch of lightweights and we never even realised it? Are we the only ones playing in the woods and toasting marshmallows on wood fires when all the other units are holding serious discussions or debates, or researching body image and the media, STEM, ‘pink stinks’, girls’ education and place in society in different cultures, local community improvement projects and how to achieve them, environmental protection projects and similar such? Are we unusual in liking outdoor adventure, food, and games, but not caring much for the cut-and-thrust of campaigning, debating, and making posters about ‘issues’?

Or - is it them? Is there a gap between the sort of activities the girls feel are important (or think they ought to feel are important), and will rate as concerns when asked in surveys - and the sort of activities they actually want to spend their out-of-school time in doing - and is this gap something that those devising the new initiatives aren’t seeing?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything about ‘issues’. Of course we should. It is important that the girls learn that the world isn’t divided fairly, and that in most cases they are very lucky to be clearly among the ‘haves’ when statistically there are far more ‘have nots’ on the planet. But we need to find fun ways and activities for sharing those messages. We’re meant to be different from school. Not night school.

I would like Guides to be a place where Overnight Hike and Big Gig both belong. Where there are GFIs for survival and for glamorama. Where we don’t shelter the Guides from the outside world where there are bad things going on as well as good things. But we need to remember that the most effective way is still to cover topics through games - whereas debates, research, and poster making should be kept to a minimum. Or – is it just my unit?