Girlguiding South West England: Growing Guiding Workshops

The idea began with our Annual Growing Guiding conference in 2014. C/Is were invited to bring up to six Rainbow leaders in addition to key County personnel. The Rainbow leaders took part in a two-hour workshop based on improving flexibility in the provision of Rainbow Guiding.

The next day we held a Rainbow leaders workshop day at the National Motor Museum in Somerset. All Rainbow Guiders in the Region were sent a personal invitation. We anticipated about 60, and 124 wanted to come, so we took everyone.

The purpose of the day was not a programme training, but workshops aimed at supporting leaders to take action in key areas to improve the quality and capacity of Rainbow Guiding in their area.

The aims and objectives were:

The aim of this event is to help you to Grow Good, Flexible, Rainbow Guiding in your area

Objectives for the day:

At the end of today, you will have:

• Worked with other Rainbow Guiders on key issues

• Thought about your local issues and priorities

• Identified some solutions for your area

• Developed an action plan for your local area

• Had the chance to ask questions

The Rainbow leader workshop day in November 2014 was followed up with two workshop days for Brownie leaders in February 2015 following the same format. The two days attracted a total of 270 Brownie leaders.

We offered workshops, run by trainers or Region staff. All leaders had to attend the workshop on Flexible Guiding, plus two others of their choice (made on their application form). Leaders were also invited to tell us in advance about specific issues they wished to raise. The questions were allocated to the relevant workshop leader to include in their session. We did not attempt to deal with issues which were not related to the workshop topics; where possible, these issues were referred back to C/Is.

Besides Flexible Guiding which everyone had to attend, we offered the following workshops:

Moving On: Rainbows to Brownies, and Brownies to Guides

Join Us/Go: Run by Region staff member

Excellence everywhere: ensuring quality Guiding across each local area

Brownie Adventure: making it work

For the Guide workshops in June 2015 we offered:

Flexible Guiding

Moving On: Guides to Senior Section

Excellence everywhere

Getting out and about: challenge and adventure outside the unit meeting

Managing larger units

Key points from the workshop sessions:

  • The sessions are workshops, not trainings
  • Sessions times were 1 hour for Rainbow leaders but we decided this was too short and the sessions for Brownie leaders were 1 hour and 15 minutes with a 15 minute break
  • The emphasis throughout was on the improvement of quality and capacity
  • At the end of each session, leaders had to identify an action which they were going to take back to their local area and do
  • At the end of the day, leaders were given 45 minutes to get together in their County/Division/District or unit groups (depending on who was there – if CCs were attending, they usually wished all their leaders to get together with them for a discussion). The outcome of the discussion had to be an action plan.
  • Each leader was given a card on which they put their name and contact details, and their three action points they would take back to their unit/area. These cards have been collected and collated by Region.
  • Region then followed up by contacting every leader and asking them to complete a short form explaining what they had done as a result of attending the workshops, and what the outcome was. We also asked where things had not gone as planned and why
  • The actions will be followed up to identify how leaders have improved quality and capacity, and to identify where there are barriers to change. The feedback will be presented to the next annual Growing Guiding Conference in November 2015.
  • Region paid all costs and expenses for leaders and trainers. This was made possible by a Growing Guiding grant.

More information can be found on our website:

We can provide copies of:

  1. Training plans for the workshops
  2. Introductory pptx for all 4 days
  3. Invitations to leaders
  4. Timetables for Rainbow and Brownie days
  5. Feedback card

Jacqui Dixon

Region Growing Guiding Coordinator