Votes for Women and Camp Blankets

[smallhobbit]

Last week was UK Parliament Week, where groups around the country are encouraged to engage in some way with our Parliament.  It's promoted by the different Guiding regions so I signed up back in the summer.  I duly received my pack - provided by Parliament, (including the bunting), plus the supporting booklet where the Guiding region had designed activities for the girls.  And particularly in the centenary of the year when the first women were given the vote it seemed appropriate for us to join in.

 

The booklet gave me ideas for the activities - and it was such a good booklet, Glitter Owl took it afterwards to encourage her daughter's school to pick up on some of the ideas.  We began by simply illustrating how only a minority of the population had the right to vote, with one of the four sixes being in that privileged position (standing up whilst the rest stayed sitting), progressing through all men and some women, to finally all women.  They were quite adamant about the unfairness of it all.

We then took the quiz in the book to see how much they knew about Parliament.  It was a multiple choice quiz, which meant we could use our favourite method of running to the corner with the right answer.  No points but just an opportunity to learn something and use up some energy.  After which we had our own ballot (ballot box was provided), and the girls voted for which game they wished to play.  They enjoyed being able to cast their own secret vote.

The final activity was one where they imagined they were cast away on island in their sixes and could only choose six items from sixteen with the need to work out how they were making their decisions.  We played the game 'Pink Knickers', which the pundits had suspected would have a landslide victory. The Brownie who won the game was awarded the Votes for Women sash, which she got to take home.  With one sash and 24 girls it seemed the fairest way of deciding who had it.  She went home proudly wearing it.

Everyone was given a pin badge, and several girls are still wearing them on their uniforms.  One Brownie asked me if she could wear it to school to show what she'd been doing, which was great.  I'd been a bit unsure about the event, but the girls enjoyed it, and although their understanding won't have grown very much they will have a bit more familiarity with Parliament and the importance of the vote.

This week the Brownies were sewing a name tape on their camp blankets and decorating their Brownie bags (cheap plain cotton ones).  Since I hate threading umpteen needles I supervised bag decoration and chatted to the girls.  We finished with another enrollment of four Brownies.

Comments

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Sounds very interesting. Those girls are fortunate to have owls that care so much about their formation!

[smallhobbit]

Thank you. We're keen to do something.

[scfrankles]

We played the game 'Pink Knickers', which the pundits had suspected would have a landslide victory. Oh, very good :P

After which we had our own ballot (ballot box was provided), and the girls voted for which game they wished to play. They enjoyed being able to cast their own secret vote. It was such a lovely idea ^__^

[smallhobbit]

One of the challenges was to have our own ballot, and it seemed sensible to vote on something which would be relevant to the Brownies and where they could see an immediate result.

[corvidology]

I like how active and creative you are with your Brownie pack.

[smallhobbit]

Thank you. We try to be as imaginative as possible.

[mafief]

Who knows, maybe the activity will stick with them for a while. The putting their vote in a box to choose an activity is rather interactive.

[smallhobbit]

It may do. And hopefully next time there's talk of a vote they'll remember taking part in their own vote and seeing how it made a difference.