Danni’s Academy trip to Poland

Back in October I was given an amazing opportunity to attend The Academy held by WAGGGS and WOSM Europe. In November, I was able to fly to Krakow Poland to attend along with 5 other members from the Girlguiding UK.

From the minute I landed in Poland, I met Scouts from a variety of countries whilst at the train station. They all had their national neckers on so I was able to spot them easily. We made our way to the hotel which the event was taking place in. I was finally able to meet with the other girls from the UK which I hadn’t met before. We took a nice trip into the city to have a look round as well as find the donuts I heard others talking about.

The second day at the Academy is where all the fun began. We were put into peer groups that we remained in for the rest of the week. Each day we would come together and share what we had learnt and share facts about our own organisations. I had some really amazing people within my group! I hope I can keep in contact with them going forward.

The sessions I got to attend were run by amazing facilitators from WAGGGS and WOSM. There were so many sessions to choose from it was a very hard choice. I attended a few sessions about Growth and what barriers we face. I also attended a session about mental health in which I found some new calming exercises for when I’m in a heightened moment.

The session which surprised me the most was an Intro to Gamification. The idea is how can we add game like features into a context which doesn’t have them. Gamification within guiding and scouting is seen to be the starting point of it all in how we collect badges. We also are gamified when we shop in the supermarkets or use learning platforms that reward us. I almost didn’t go to the session, but Lauren took me along and it turned out the be one of the best sessions I went to.

We got to celebrate our countries at international night. What a night full of dancing and exchange. I got to try many national sweets from the countries as well as a lot of cheese! We offered a variety of British snacks including biscuits, quality street and Scottish tablet. We took part in a traditional Polish dance and the Scots taught us all how to dance the Gay Gordon. It was such a great night of culture and celebration.

On the final night we were able to take part in a race across Krakow. As peer groups we had to complete a series of questions hidden around the city to collect points. It was a great way to explore Krakow. Each team had its own item to swap and whilst on the mission we had to swap cards with all the teams to collect extra points. I was in charge of swapping these cards and I’m not saying that I’m amazing but we were the only team to collect all the cards. We won the challenge! It was amazing and in true guiding spirt we were awarded regional neckers from Krakow.

My favourite part of the Academy was meeting amazing people from all over Europe and learning so much about their organisations.

Some of my favourite findings were:

• In Norway it is common to camp in Ice Caves in -30.
• In many European countries you would be considered retired from guiding at the age of 30 (People found it hard to believe that in the UK we have leaders of all ages).
• Many countries have multiple organisations that all come under an umbrella organisation (Imagine all countries and regions having their own syllabus, completely different uniform and their own promise but they all were members of Girlguiding UK too).
• Finally, just how small some organisations are. We are so lucky to have such a large number of girls join us in guiding, I spoke to the Swedish who this year celebrated having 80,000 members nationwide.

Overall, the memories I made at the Academy have been amazing! I loved every second of it and I learnt so much I hope to implement into not only my Guiding journey but my day-to-day life. So thank you to the Chief’s team for allowing me to go on this amazing journey!