In the latest in our series of support blogs, we have asked leaders to share what has worked for them when fundraising as well as pulling together all you need to know about applying for grants.
Fundraising Guide
There is a wealth of resources available to leaders on the topic of fundraising, both internally produced by Girlguiding and from external organisations. However, with volunteer time so precious, we appreciate that sometimes you just need to know where to find the information you need quickly, what has worked for other leaders, and some ready-to-go resources.
Download our Fundraising Guide from our member support resources section.
Internal Grants
There are various grants available both from Girlguiding and Girlguiding Anglia. Amongst others, grants are available for unit recovery, new unit support, accessible guiding, and international travel.
Find out if your unit, you, or your members are eligible by visiting the following sites:
Girlguiding.org.uk – making guiding happen – running your unit
Girlguiding-anglia.org.uk – member support – grants and applications
External grants
There are many external grant funds available to Youth Groups including Girlguiding units. To help you find these more quickly and easily we’ve begun compiling these on our website. If you know of other grants you have been successful with, please let us know and we can add them to the page to be shared with members across the region.
Girlguiding-anglia.org.uk – member support – grants and applications – external grant funds
Find our previous leader support blogs here
Hi everyone,
Firstly, I wanted to talk all things strictly, I’m sure many of you have taken part in the Children In Need and strictly partnership over this last week. There has certainly been lots of social media posts with units taking part in dance evenings. I too, with my own unit held a dance evening, we twisted, jived, did the macarena, and much much more. It was a great evening of fun, and I’m sure the guides enjoyed it too! As a big fan of strictly, I have watched this series with renewed respect due to the diversity and inclusion within the programme. Rose Ayling-Ellis is a true inspiration and I’m sure you would agree, would make a great ambassador for Girlguiding. This weekend I attended the National Operational board meeting which was held at HQ, and here is the picture of the front window, which as you can see, even has its own glitter ball.
We are now on countdown to our own celebration, as we’re coming up to the 50th Amazzzing birthday party. Thank you to all those who took part in the birthday card swap, I now have my envelope ready to open and look forward to seeing who made my card. Many of you will be having birthday parties on Saturday or Sunday or even the days ahead. Don’t forget to send us your photographs of your birthday cakes, singing Happy Birthday, and of course all the fun at your party activities. I shall be in Lincolnshire South on the 27th, this weekend, and I’m looking forward to celebrating with members in that area.
We are now coming to the end of our 50th year, where we’ve been buzzing around the region and thank you to all who have taken part in the challenge and have explored all the themes. I have particularly enjoyed this challenge where we can incorporate many aspects of the programme alongside extending the themes further. This was our intention when we set up the year long challenge. We are now looking forward and 2022 will soon be upon us, so checkout the newsletter to find out what’s coming.
If you are looking for a new challenge or a new adventure in Girlguiding, why not take a look at our vacancies and opportunities. We are looking for the following: an Adventure and opportunities coordinator, Outdoor activities advisor and Queens guide advisor. In the new year, we will be also advertising trustee vacancies for two grassroots members, so please do checkout the website if you would like to be involved, and do not hesitate to get in touch if you want to have a chat about any of these fantastic opportunities.
As always, thank you to you all, Keep Smiling and stay safe
Tracy
Norfolk 
We currently have over 6200 Girlguiding members in Norfolk. We are a large county, both in terms of membership numbers but also geographically. Google maps says that to drive from Hunstanton in the far west of the county to Lowestoft in the very east of the county would take well over 2 hours and is nearly 80 miles! And bear in mind we don’t have many motorways in Norfolk!!As a large and diverse county, Norfolk boasts a fantastic coastline with many popular seaside resorts such as Great Yarmouth, Cromer and Hunstanton to name but a few, the beautiful Norfolk Broads, many large historical towns, hundreds of small rural villages and of course the lively and vibrant city of Norwich.
As a county we are very lucky to have so much on our doorstep. We are very proud owners of Patteson Lodge Estate in Coltishall, home to our county residential centre and campsite and more recently our purpose built Archive Resource Centre (the ARC). Patteson Lodge is just over the road from Hautbois Activity Centre (Girlguiding Anglia) and our members certainly make good use of those facilities and activities. Closer to Norwich we jointly own Eaton Vale Scout and Guide Activity Centre which also offers a wide range of outdoor activities and residential accommodation in a beautiful, peaceful setting. Throughout the pandemic our volunteers and young members continued to meet, many quickly getting to grips with Zoom or staying in touch by other means and they managed to achieve such a lot – including thousands of badges!
It is always a proud moment as county commissioner to read about all the varied and interesting activities that units get up to in our county Blue Sheet – which can be found on our website: https://www.girlguidingnorfolk.org.uk/latest-news/blue-sheet/. The fun that is had and the memories created are priceless and will stay with the girls and their leaders for a lifetime. That is what guiding is about isn’t it?
It is great to see so many units now back to meeting face to face, either inside or outside. Some are even venturing away on residentials and week on week there is more of a ‘normal’ feel about guiding. Let’s hope that can continue during the winter months.
One of our many successes during the pandemic has been the launch of our county online shop. The team is currently extremely busy sending out our Christmas 2021 badge – isn’t this penguin so cute? Our gorgeous 4 seasons sleepover badges are also very popluar – but you will need to look at our shop to see those! Link to our website is below.
As a county we are working on our plans for 2022 – Patteson Lodge celebrates its 40th anniversary in July so that will be of course be a good reason to party! Add into the mix the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and it is all shaping up to be a good summer.
Thank you for reading. We would be delighted to see you in Norfolk sometime. You would be assured of a warm guiding welcome.
The links below take you to our main websites:
https://arc.girlguidingnorfolk.org.uk