It’s been a busy couple of months since I wrote the last blog. If you didn’t catch that you can find it here – you’ll find an overview of the project and what we hope to achieve in the next year or so.
What’s happened since your last blog?
We’ve financially supported 3 new units via our new unit grant – welcome to 1st Chigwell Rangers, 5th Ely Guides and 1st Thedwastre Guides. Also a big shout out to 1st Wixhams Guides who first met in March 2023 and got in touch. I’ve been to two student freshers fairs and hopefully recruited about 12 new volunteers from these.
I said in my last blog that I was going to attend the commissioner and adviser day organised by Girlguiding Lincolnshire South. Sadly I was too sick to go but I’m still hoping to catch up with the county team soon. I was very sad not to be going as the day had a wide variety of sessions and talks and I was hoping to dip my ear in to some of them. They had everything from inclusion to GO and many topics in between.
What’s inspired you recently?
I’m loving the new girl recruitment materials from Girlguiding. The graphics for Rangers in particular are so fun and relaxed and remind me of my time as a Ranger. I have so many memories of camping and sharing new experiences with my friends. We know from our inclusion audit that Girlguiding is currently not representative of the UK population. Specifically, we struggle to attract and retain girls and volunteers of colour and lower socio-economic backgrounds. We want to do better at this. Our research shows that girls and volunteers want to see more role models with lived experiences that are similar to their own. The new images show a wider variety of people and the Ranger images are my favourite.
The recruitment kit for adult volunteers also includes social media content that is specific to the section that you want to recruit for volunteers. We know that different things motivate different people to volunteer so the suggested wording reflects this and points them to a section that lets them do that.
We’ve seen Girlguiding’s impact report for 2023 is now out, give us your highlight.
It wasn’t a surprise to me that UK girls report lower confidence than UK boys. There’s no denying that girls face more challenges and many of these are explored in the Girls’ attitudes survey. What really surprised me is how much Girlguiding makes a difference.
Girlguiding girls are up to 23% more confident than the UK girls’ average.
What’s even better is that the influence of Girlguiding on girls’ confidence almost triples between early and mid-adolescence. This is the age range that I’m hoping to create more spaces for. Early to mid-adolescence is around 11-15 so Guides and Rangers to us! Guide and Ranger leaders, you are doing a fantastic job. If you need any help or support to increase the number of girls in your unit, do let me know.
Last month’s blog, next month’s blog.
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The Uniformed Youth Fund is a £15.52 million government programme. It aims to support non-military Uniformed Youth Organisations to tackle their existing teenager waiting lists in England. Girlguiding have secured nearly £2 million of this Fund to help increase our capacity for Guides and Rangers. Read on to hear how we’ll be using our allocation of this funding to support units in your region between now and 31 March 2025.
The funding will allow Girlguiding to develop learning materials for young leaders. They’ve recently released new guidance for leaders working with young volunteers. There’ll be new webinars for leaders such as a session on managing waiting lists.
In Anglia, we’ll open and support at least 14 new Guide or Ranger units. We’ll also recruit and welcome 59 new volunteers and create 270 new spaces in existing Guide or Ranger units. At least 25% of the work that we do will be in areas of deprivation.
What have we done so far?
We’ve supported 3 new Guide or Ranger units in Cambridgeshire East, Hertfordshire and Suffolk via our new unit grant. We’ll be working with these units in Autumn 2023 to see if there is any further help that will support their sustainability, as well as working with their district or division teams to support with any additional volunteer recruitment. A big part of the aims of the Uniformed Youth Fund is making sure that we scale up our offer sustainably. This means not just asking existing volunteers to take on new roles but making sure that their responsibilities are manageable and enjoyable. It is important in an area with a new unit that we make sure all sections are supported to give every unit, new and existing, the best chance of success.
What are you most excited about?
I know Guide and Ranger units aren’t normally where the biggest waiting lists exist but these young members are potentially the leaders of the future. They are the sections where girls learn life skills that support them well into adulthood. It provides them both mental and physical health benefits at a time when there is so much change in their lives. Research by the University of Edinburgh shows that being part of Girlguiding, or the Scouts, has health benefits into adulthood.
This project will allow us to push our boundaries and try new things that we wouldn’t otherwise consider. During our conversations with county members, thoughts such as holiday guiding and young leader training came up. I know that these initiatives will support the whole guiding family.
How can we help or get involved?
There will be a variety of ways that you can get involved as the project progresses. Commissioners, or people with a responsibility for growth in their area, might like to attend a 4 steps to recruitment success training session. These are particularly powerful if you can get a group attending from one division so invite your Girlguiding friends to attend with you.
If you are the main contact for 1 unit or more, use the Pass it on campaign recruitment packs you should have received in the post to recruit volunteers and generate excitement in your area. Tell other units where you have put up posters so they are encouraged to join in. They can help to find other places to advertise and reach out to the local community.
We’ve loved seeing volunteers completing our Promote and Grow challenge – if you do 5 activities you can claim a badge! Also, you might have seen our transition resources and plan on using those this term. What else can you do?
- Share your stories on social media and remember to tag us because we love to see what is happening.
- Know whether your area needs more volunteers, more girls or a bit of both.
- If you have a growth action plan, know what the next step is in your area. Is it a new Ranger unit, or do you want to strengthen existing units?
The most important thing you can do is to talk positively about your volunteering experience. Welcome new volunteers and break down any barriers to joining – like avoiding using jargon that doesn’t make sense. Tell volunteers they are cherished, that their contributions are appreciated. They should be reminded of the positive impact they have on girls, young women and the local community. If there is a new or establishing unit in your area, consider being a buddy to them. Offer to show them your term plan, risk assessments and communication to parents. You could also share any resources that are expensive to buy and only get used a couple of times a year.
Each month we’ll share an update, so do keep coming back to hear what is happening.
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May saw the national big help out day and the launch of phase 1 of our Anglia awareness and recruitment campaign – Pass it on.
In Anglia a team of volunteers and staff are part of the national growth network who pull together information and data from county growth coordinators, PR advisors, grassroot member experience surveys and external insight to learn, develop best practice and advise other teams in how to best recruit volunteers and young members.
The Anglia Pass It On campaign has been developed using this knowledge and new insights alongside an experienced creative agency, Creativity Unbound.
We know that we can help to raise awareness of Girlguiding to those who have maybe not considered being a volunteer before and we are helped in that by all that our members share of their achievements and experiences on external social media. We hope that this campaign will encourage more people to see themselves as a potential volunteer with an exciting organisation in a rewarding role with young girls and women. Following this we need your help!
The best results for new enquiries who become volunteers is when they answer a need in their own community and we hope that your recruitment support pack will help you do just that.
In the pack you will find:
- 3 A4 posters. These have a space to add details of what volunteers are needed in your area for putting up on any community noticeboard.
- 25 A5 leaflets. For use on recruitment stands, community leaflet displays or to challenge members of your unit to give to someone who they think is amazing and should Pass it on.
- 6 cards. Use these as you wish to say thank you to the volunteers who make Girlguiding what it is today.
PR and recruitment stand resources
Following the Girlguiding rebrand we have now provided new PR stand resources for counties throughout Anglia. In some cases county teams have also purchased new gazebos, flags and banners. To access these resources for your own local events contact your county team direct or use the contact page on this website to get the best contact details for your area.
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You’ve shared that some of the communication around the changes to the assistant leader role is confusing, we heard that you’d like to have all the options in one place. In May, Girlguiding sent a couple of emails to volunteers with assistant leader roles offering the chance to change this to a leader role using the current scheme if you wish. We heard this was confusing, especially as some assistant leaders are leaders in other units and Girlguiding sent another communication to clarify. We want to support you to consider your options.
Option 1 – do nothing
The new leader development programme doesn’t differentiate between assistant leader and leader. As people complete this training, there will be no new assistant leader roles, but existing assistant leaders can stay as they are.
If you need to hold an assistant leader role because you would not be able to hold the responsibilities of the unit finances, there will still be an option to discuss this with the inclusion team and keep a role that is suitable for you.
If you could be a leader but just don’t want to think about this right now, that is also okay. There will be options in the future so you can decide to do nothing at this point.
Option 2 – already qualified
If you already have module 4 of the leadership qualification and would like to change your role to leader, just contact your local commissioner. Some people think that you can only have 1 leader per unit or leaders must oversee the finances. These things are not true. You can have any number of leaders and divide the tasks however the leadership team decide. You might decide that the main contact for your unit isn’t a leader and could be someone like your treasurer if you are lucky enough to have one. You might delegate the finance jobs to the treasurer and the other record-keeping tasks to a unit administrator, or you might decide to split them over three leaders.
Option 3 – complete module 4 of the leadership qualification
You can still complete module 4 of the leadership qualification until this option is removed in September this year. It can be completed by downloading it from the Girlguiding website. It consists of 9 clauses on record-keeping and effective communication. It normally takes one or two terms to complete, although you may find that you can do it much quicker than this if you already do some of the tasks.
Option 3b – complete module 4 with inspiration at our Kickstart your module 4 training session
If you are the sort of person that likes a bit of trainer guidance and an action plan, you might like to attend our final Kickstart your module 4 training session. It will take place on Saturday 24 June from 9.30am – 1pm. It won’t complete your module 4, but it will give you all the knowledge needed to do so, and many people will be able to book a discussion with their mentor very shortly after this to sign off the module. Participants on previous sessions have told us that the training was very inspiring.
Option 4 – wait for a top up learning option later in 2023
Girlguiding have said that there will be an option for assistant leaders to complete a new top up learning option which will be released later in the year. We don’t know what that will look like yet but it is likely to be online, with a mixture of eLearning modules to complete in your own time and live webinars to attend in an online classroom such as Zoom.
Whatever you decide, the region is here to support you. Do get in touch if there is anything that we can do to help.
