International Opportunities
As part of our 50th Birthday Challenge launch we explored our International Explorer theme. This blog tells you more about the opportunities available for yourself and units to get involved in international activities and trips, once circumstances change to allow travel again. For activities related to this theme visit our blog on the International Theme.
Below we look at what is on offer to different age groups, starting with our youngest members.
Rainbows can get a feel for an international camp in the UK, by visiting an international jamboree just for the day. Here is the link to one such event.
By the time girls move up to Brownies they are able to go on international trips, we know that Disney World Paris is a popular destination. Please do share any photos or stories with us at anglia50@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk of any Brownie trips you’ve been on.
Over the years we’ve seen some amazing international trip badges created for those taking part, have you got any trip badges you could share? Thank you to Girlguiding Buckinghamshire for sharing this one.
You could start a unit blanket and see if you can get a badge from every country or region in WAGGGS.
Girls aged between 11-13 can take part in a region International Community Experience (ICE). ICE is an amazing three-stage project, that brings Guides together from all over Anglia to have fun while doing something for others. It offers the opportunity for personal development through community action work, teamed with an introduction to international experiences.
If you’re aged 10-18 then the world is your oyster!! Take a look at the Anglia Abroad booklet and see the adventures some of our region members had.
Districts and divisions may organise trips too, counties often have an annual international opportunity day/weekend (INTOPPS), where Guides can find out more about what is available to them. This year there may be virtual events, check out the international section on your county website for more information.
Our Girlguiding Anglia Inspire (18-30) community can have all sorts of adventures:
- They can apply to take part in a GOLD project, like the one in this video
- The next Gold selection weekend is hoped to be this year, check out the webpage for more information
- There are lots of other opportunities on the WAGGGS website:
- Juliette Low Seminar
- Helen Storrow Seminar
- WAGGGS Volunteer Pool
- Plus there’s The Academy!
Our region adult leaders and Trefoil Guild members can join local or region trips as part of the leadership team, giving an opportunity to explore the world whilst supporting girls. Our International Adviser, Sue Trischitta, has Peru and Disneyland Paris on her bucket list. Where would you love to go?
There may, in the future, be county/region adult only trips. The world centres are popular destinations and allow our leaders and Trefoil Guild an opportunity to meet other members from WAGGGS.
International Jamborees provide opportunities for our adult members to take a role within an international service team (IST). If you’ve been on an IST we’d love to hear your story, please email us anglia50@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk.
TOPAZ is for Trefoil members only, “a chance to get involved in challenging international projects”, take a look at their website for more information. It would be lovely to hear from Trefoil members about their experiences, or perhaps you could contact your local Trefoil Guild and ask them to share their experiences with your units as part of the International Explorer theme in the ‘Buzz about Anglia’ birthday challenge?
Other opportunities include:
- WAGGGS Leadership Programme
- WAGGGS volunteer pool
Volunteer at one of the world centres, check the website for more details.
We hope our focus on international throughout 2021 will excite and encourage members to learn more about the opportunities available and get involved if they can. For further information contact your county international adviser or email the Anglia region office for advice angliahq@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk.
Happy adventures!
Girlguiding Anglia 1971-2021
‘Buzz about Anglia’ 50th Birthday Challenge
Introduction
In 2021, Girlguiding Anglia celebrates its 50th Birthday and we invite all of our members to join in the celebrations with us.
Girlguiding exists to give girls and young women a space to have fun, find their voice, build their confidence and empower them to make a positive difference in their community.
To celebrate our 50th birthday we have a big birthday challenge for you to complete called a “Buzz about Anglia”. The challenge was inspired by bees, we have been busy buzzing around for 50 years and just like bees we are helpful, community minded and care for one another. Have you heard of the Baden Powell bees? Robert Baden Powell described bees as a model community.
The Challenge
Our birthday challenge has six themes with activities for you to complete across the year to compliment our Girlguiding programme. We have also linked our themes to the Girlguiding strategy, Today, Together, Tomorrow; reminding us all that #TogetherWeInspire.
Each theme will offer lots of activities to take part in, and we will provide a variety of ideas and resources throughout the year to support your planning, enabling you to link to the programme and other activities you want to do. We hope you have plenty of fun taking part and challenge yourselves and your unit to try something new.
The challenge is designed to last all year, giving you plenty of time to visit each of the six themes. To complete it we would like you to try at least one activity from each theme but we would love it if you tried more. Every two months the region team will highlight one of the six themes as well as adding ideas and extra resources for each theme at relevant points throughout the year.
What are the ‘Buzz about Anglia’ themes and what do they mean?
The six themes spell out ANGLIA and each will be recognisable by its colour and theme icon.
Bee Adventurous – Have a new adventure or try a new activity.
Bee New and creative – Use your imagination to create or learn a new skill.
Bee Giving – Give your time or generosity to others or your community.
Bee a Leading light – Lead the way on those things that important to you or those around you.
Bee an International explorer – Discover more about guiding around the world and WAGGGS. There’s a whole world out there to access and enjoy.
Bee Amazing – Be amazing, celebrate being you and being part of Girlguiding Anglia and all the amazing fun and friendship Girlguiding has to offer.
What Happens Next?
The challenge is totally flexible and you can tailor it as you wish. Explore the themes and activities in any order and you can do them either alone or with your unit or group. The challenge can be started at any time as long as you complete it by 31 December 2021, the end of our anniversary year.
Fresh ideas, suggestions and supporting resources will be added throughout the year to inspire and help you. These will be added to the individual theme blogs (details below) and shared on the region newsletter and across social media. Members of all ages will be invited to contribute to the challenges throughout the year, this could be by making videos, sharing interesting links or writing instructions. We will also try to link some activities to Unit Meeting Activities and Skills Builders to help you build a balanced programme.
We hope you will send us photos and stories of you getting involved so we can share your experiences to inspire others and celebrate your achievements, (please remember to send in permission forms with your photos/videos). Please email everything to anglia50@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk.
Whilst you may choose to do the challenge in any order we will spotlight the themes every two months.
Please keep your own records of how you and/or your unit are completing the challenge. We won’t be asking for any evidence, but please share photos and stories with us at anglia50@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk. Once you have completed at least one activity from each theme, you can send for your very special ‘Buzz about Anglia’ badge.
The ‘Buzz about Anglia’ Badge
Thank you for getting involved in Anglia’s 50th birthday celebrations. We can’t wait to see how our members celebrate the occasion, if you want to watch the video by Tracy Foster, Anglia Chief Commissioner, for more information, use this link.
As of July 2023, the 50th birthday challenges have been removed from website. However, if you would like more information on the activities that took place and how we celebrated in 2021, please contact us at commsteam@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk
It’s time to inspire Anglia.
It’s taken a while to get here, but finally the 18-30 community has a name – and boy was it worth the wait! Flexible guiding for 18-30s will now be known as Girlguiding Inspire.
To make sure the name was a perfect fit, the team at HQ and your cohort of country and region coordinators have been working hard to support rounds of testing and consultation. We won’t pretend it’s gone without any hiccups (perhaps some of the early name suggestions are best forgotten…), but Girlguiding Inspire was by far the most popular choice amongst both members and non-members, and came as a suggestion from within the movement. It embodies everything we aspire to be as young women in guiding – role models, change-makers, and forces for good.
But how can Inspire members get involved? That’s where the pathways come in.
You don’t have to be a leader to make a contribution to the movement. Girlguiding Inspire is all about encouraging and supporting members to play to their strengths and share their passions with those around them. Whether it’s running a rock climbing adventure for Guides, supporting an event, taking on a supporting role like a unit treasurer or representing the region on a sign-up-and-go trip abroad, we’re here to help inspire members to inspire others.
So far we’ve seen local Inspire groups run Taskmaster evenings, create content for Anglia’s online video resource library, and sign up as service crew for the rescheduled Rangers Festival. We’d love to hear more about what our Inspire members are up to, so use the hashtag #GGInspire to share your activities. We’re working on putting together some exciting new opportunities just for Inspire members in Anglia, so watch this space for more. In the meantime, join in on Facebook to keep up to date with events and opportunities, and reach out to your county champion to hear what’s happening in your area
If you have any questions, your Coordinators, Georgina and Ellen, are here to help – just drop us an email and we’ll do our best to point you in the right direction.
Girlguiding Anglia’s Chief Commissioner, Tracy Foster, and Deputy Chief Commissioner, Andrea Oughton, have set themselves an ‘Act Your Age’ challenge for this year’s BBC Children in Need.
Tracy and Andrea will visit as many units (virtually) as the region is years old. Girlguiding Anglia turns 50 next year so between them they need to make an appearance at 49 different unit meetings before the end of the year.
This will be a challenge for both as they need to fit the meetings in around their day jobs, their own unit commitments and their region responsibilities but Tracy explains why they want to take part:
‘This year Girlguiding has partnered with BBC Children in Need, with the money being raised through the partnership being split equally between the two organisations, and will go on to make a difference to young lives across the UK. So as Chief and Deputy Chief Commissioner for Girlguiding Anglia, Andrea and I have set ourselves a challenge and hope to encourage some fundraising activity in our region.
We felt incorporating the opportunity to engage with lots of our amazing units was a great way to show our support, raise some funds and meet lots of our members across the region, all whilst saying hello and thanking everyone.’
To enable Tracy and Andrea to complete this challenge, we would like to ask unit leaders, if they would love to get involved, to email the region office, angliahq@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk, with the date and time of some upcoming meetings and a reason why their unit should receive a visit.
If you’re reading this as a parent and your daughter’s unit isn’t currently meeting online, then please share some convenient days and times when your daughter would be able to receive a virtual visit from Tracy or Andrea and why this would be so important.
Andrea shared why she hopes members will get involved and support the challenge:
‘We know our members have done their best during this pandemic and they have worked hard to continue guiding and support each other and their local communities. This is a great opportunity to support a cause that will have a positive impact on not just the lives of girls and young women within Girlguiding but many causes that support children and young people.
Tracy and I also hope that by taking the time to join units on their virtual meetings we can share our thanks for all the amazing guiding activity that’s taken place during lockdown and listen to how everyone’s been coping. I’m sure it will be a very humbling experience and can’t wait to get going.’
As this challenge is part of BBC Children in Need’s annual fundraising event we would love as many people as possible to sponsor our chiefs; it could be as little as a 1p per unit they visit or whatever people can afford. All fundraising can be donated via JustGiving here https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/cingirlguiding2020.
There is also a special Pudsey badge available https://www.girlguiding-anglia.org.uk/products/children-in-need-2020-badge.
If you’d like to learn more about Girlguiding’s partnership with BBC Children in Need and how to get involved further yourself, look at Girlguiding’s website, https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/get-involved/fundraise-for-us/act-your-age/.
We’ll share Tracy and Andrea’s progress across social media and hope we may even receive some photos of the visits taking place. Good luck to them both!
