Gearing Up Again

[smallhobbit]

We started back at Brownies last week, with our customary games night.  We had two new girls, one the younger sister of one of our current Brownies, the other a transfer, as the family have just moved back from Gibraltar (which is a first for us).  Another new girl joined us this week, bringing us up to 21 girls.

This week we opted for a simple craft, since Sparkly Owl was on holiday.  We asked the Brownies what was special about May, and after some thought, one of them said, 'Isn't it Star Wars Day?' so I gave the correct greeting of 'May the fourth be with you' and we carried on trying to get someone to say May Day celebrations.  They didn't, but nevertheless we did our May Day craft - a thin hairband to be decorated with paper flowers.  Very simple and very popular.

Last week we'd said we would be running another badge night and asked the Brownies to think which badge they wanted to work for.  So this week, while they were working on their craft I went round to each of them to discuss what they wanted to do.  They've chosen a wide variety of badges, so we're very hopeful as to what will be produced.

On Sunday afternoon, one of the mothers had phoned Brown Owl to rant that her daughter wasn't to do any badges, because she found it too stressful.  We were completely unimpressed, and I was all geared up to say something when she came in to continue her reasoning as she had promised to do.  In fact all she did was drop her daughter off and stand as far as possible from the door to make sure she came in.  I spoke to the daughter, came up with a solution which she was happy with (we have all sorts of ways of enabling the girls to achieve badges) and then when the daughter told her mother she said to me 'and she's happy with that?'  By and large we can cope with problem Brownies, problem parents are another matter.

Brown Owl has decided she wants to retire, having spent over 30 years leading Brownie packs.  Although sad, I can understand her feelings.  I'm not taking on the running of the pack, although intend to continue helping.  Unfortunately support from county headquarters to find someone to take over is limited to 'here are places you can try to get help'.  Which always annoys me - the reason for stopping doing something is generally need for the time, so it isn't helpful to say 'continue what you're doing and do more'.

And finally, a request to my non-UK flist.  If you know it, could you point me to your national Girlguiding/Girl Scout website so I can look at uniforms and a few basic details, like the different groups and their age ranges.  It's for an activity I'm planning for next month.

Comments

[moth2fic]

Problem parents are always more difficult than problem children!!
Good luck with finding a new Brown Owl!

[smallhobbit]

You are so right! And thank you.

[solosundance]

Ah, Brownie badges, happy days! I remember when my sister (a PE teacher at the time) was 'Tester' for the Swimmers Badge in my mum's pack. Sis got into terrible trouble with a couple of the parents for not awarding the badge to their daughters, who unfortunately just couldn't swim the required distance. The actual Brownies were pretty cool with it, it was just the parents who got cross. Difficult, but with that particular badge I think my mum and sis did right to hold the line.

But anyway - hope your badges all go smoothly! And hope you find a new Brown Owl without too much trouble - shame County HQ aren't being more helpful.

[smallhobbit]

There are definitely some badges which need to be completed properly - which is why for something like Swimmer we ask the Brownies to get their swimming teacher to sign for it. We're more lenient with something like Craft, where if the three crafts the Brownie makes don't quite fit into the various categories we're not too bothered, so long as they are different crafts - and after all, interpreting a 'traditional' craft leaves plenty of room for manoeuvre.

[nagi_schwarz]

http://www.girlscouts.org/ - apparently American brownies (after many wrong hits on recipes) are governed by the Girl Scouts. Hope this helps! The work you do with your Brownies is amazing. Kudos to you.

[smallhobbit]

That's brilliant, thank you so much. Could you let me know how old girls in Grades 2 to 3 are, since we work by age, not school year.

[nagi_schwarz]

Girls in second and third grade are 7 or 8, assuming they start first grade at 6.

[smallhobbit]

Thank you very much. That means Brownies are roughly the same age, since ours are aged 7 to 10.

[hardboiledbaby]

I was tickled that one at least knew about Star Wars Day :)

[smallhobbit]

I think at least half of them were aware of it in some form or other :)

[margaret_r]

Girl Guides Australia is:

http://www.girlguides.org.au/

They don't distinguish age groups as Brownies etc, it's all just Guides

Scouts is:

http://www.scouts.com.au/

And they are open to both boys and girls (sorry I don't know how to do links in comments)

Just love the Star Wars reference:) We don't celebrate May Day here so our guides/scouts would have been as confused.

Hope you find a Brown Owl.

*oh! how ingenious, when I posted the comment the links appeared!*

[smallhobbit]

Thank you so much for the links, which were extremely helpful. Our Scouts take both boys and girls as well, so I've concentrated on the Guides site. It's really interesting that they don't have different age groups, all the other countries I've looked at do.

I don't think May Day would be the same for you, especially as it's celebrating the new flowers and better weather. No dancing around a maypole then?

[margaret_r]

I remember when I was very young we did a maypole dance at school for some event or other, which was probably not necessarily in May (can't remember it was too long ago and I was too young)! I enjoyed it, though whether it was the traditional dance or something the nuns made up (I went to a convent) I'm not sure. Other than that I've never heard of or seen one here sadly.

I think the way the Guides is organised here is that the girls go into certain age groups and those groups can chose their own names, e.g. Rainbow, if they want to.

[smallhobbit]

I suspect it's the sort of thing which only happens occasionally in rural England.

Yes, that was the impression I got from reading the website. And the uniform varies slightly, although the nice thing is they can change uniform when they're ready rather than on changing group, thus avoiding the having grown out of something with six months left to go problem.