one step at a time.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Guiders Warrant

As my Brownie pack has grown, THANKFULLY so has the leadership team.

We are now:


Me,

Guider-in-training (I think she has probably done everything she needs to for the qualification, she just needs to write the book up)

Young Leader.

I got my Leaders warrant a few years ago. You have to complete a workbook - it has several modules that are intended to teach you what you need to know to run a unit.

You are asked to:
- chart development of kids who are making their promise to see how they change through Brownies.
- to show how you've used the Programme in planning.
- to turn up to something outside the meetings in the hall. You have to do something that involves different Units, or different aged kids. So you could do a joint night with 2 packs, or you could invite the Rainbows for a party.... Does that make sense?
- do First Aid. This bit works well.
- assess the safety of your meeting place. This bit is very important as it isn't something you would know to do unless you had run a group before.
- do accounts and you need to keep records.

That's all I can remember.

The part I think that fails is in the fundamentals of Guiding. Who teaches you what Brownies is? Who talks through the programme, or the Adventure? There are packs for Guiders - a manual and an Adventure File, so you can read and teach yourself.



When I did my license there was a Guider sort of running my pack. There was no routine, there was no weekly plan. There was no singing of Taps. There were few girls in the unit.

There is no reason to assume that a trainee Guider has any experience of Guiding in her past. The Adventure File tells you about opening and closing meetings and is actually a really useful resource, but it can't teach you songs (unless you read music.. and if you do you'll notice that the Brownie song is printed in a minor key... which is just weird).


The answer, presumably, to this is that you should have a Mentor. And the Mentor should not be a Guider from your own Unit.


I had no Mentor and nobody to teach me in the Unit. I knew that I didn't like the way it was there, so when she eventually quit I changed everything.


My trainee has no Mentor. I want to do it properly and make sure that she really knows what she's meant to do, but I don't have much time and I am not entirely sure that I know enough about it myself - I'm fairly new to all this!

No comments: