County Newsletter July 2008

You can download a PDF version of the County Newsletter (which will include all the contact details, forms and images) from here; click the game title to expand the details, or expand all /collapse all. This edition includes:-

• From the County Commissioner
  • Dear all
  • I do a lot of travelling by train and a while ago went into a book shop on a far flung station platform to find something to while away the hours getting home. I picked up a book called the Rules of Management by Richard Templar which I thought was going to be one of those funny takes on working life. Instead it is a well written series of short essays on aspects of being a manager. In one piece he says "No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it." He goes on to talk about the essential task of building and supporting a team. In the County, we the Leaders, Unit Helpers, Young Leaders and helpers are the team that needs building and nurturing.
  • If we tried to add up how many hours we all give to Guiding, we would be amazed and overwhelmed by the size of the commitment. Between us we do an enormous amount and we leave a footprint on the lives of the young people we meet. Thank you for your commitment and your hours. We as a County could do more if we attracted more Leaders and helpers. This Newsletter is a little different to the normal ones as we are concentrating on recruitment and retention of Leaders and helpers. I hope you will find it of interest and of use. Please pass any thoughts you may have as a result of these articles back to your District or Division Commissioners. And then perhaps we can rustle up a good tune together.
  • My thanks to all of you who sent me photographs and bits and pieces for the Annual Review. It was difficult choosing what to include but I hope you found the report interesting. Please show it to others, put a copy up in your meeting place and let others see what a lot we get up to in Surrey East.
  • Lastly, I am very pleased that the Surrey East website is now officially launched with material which we hope you will find useful. We have concentrated on content rather than worry about being jazzy. That can come if wanted. If there is something you would like to see there that you could not find, please let the Webmaster know. And our thanks to the Webmaster for his work on this and to the contributors.
  • Depending on when this reaches you, have a good holiday / I hope you had a good holiday
  • Margaret Frosztega - County Commissioner
• Copy for the County Newsletter
  • The County Newsletter is published at the beginning of February, May, July and October of each year. The deadline for guaranteed inclusion is the 15th of the previous month.
  • Please give a contact name and email and telephone number with every contribution (even if you wish it published anonymously), and mention that it is for the County Newsletter, especially in the email subject.
  • It would be a great help to the Editor if items for the newsletter could be e-mailed as a Word document.
  • Jan Futcher - Editor
• Programme & Training
  • Do you have a skill or hobby or do you know someone outside of Guiding that does? Or have you done an activity with your unit that was really successful?
  • We are compiling a database of people who would be willing to share their skills/ideas with a small group of Leaders at a training. If you can help or would like more information please contactme.
  • Maria Young - Training Support
• Camping Equipment
  • 1st Surrey East Trefoil Guild, formerly 1st Surrey East Rangers, no longer camp. We therefore have an amount of equipment, including tents and marquees which we no longer need.
  • On Saturday 20th September this will be available to view and take away from our store at Oxted Guide HQ between 10:00am and 12 noon. Nothing is for sale, but a donation to our funds would be appreciated..
  • Mary Newstead
• Pond Access Project
  • The ground on 12th June was still very soggy, so nothing yet has been done. All we can do is to wait until it dries out sufficiently for the contractors to get their heavy duty vehicles on to the site to allow them to start work on the path.
  • Julie Woodland
• County Campfire
  • On what was a very pleasant evening weather-wise, the County Campfire took place at Jordan Heights on Monday 9th June. This year we started with an hour long session for 82 Brownies plus adults; had a half hour break, then 1¼ hour session for 37 Guides plus adults. This format worked really well so we will continue to use this in future years. Janet and I were joined by Lorna Smith to help us lead the songs – we thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope that those who came did as well. Our thanks also to Betty Mayes who booked everyone in and took the money for us.
  • Julie Woodland
• Fancy a Walk?
  • One of my favourite walks is from Eastbourne pier to Cuckmere Haven. Distance approximately 10 miles, but can be extended. I usually stop for a pub/café lunch at Birling Gap and finish with a cream tea, but have not found a good tea house at Seaford. Would you care to join me one day in the summer? (I do not see this as being a walk for the girls.) Please contact me and we will try to find a suitable date.
  • Menai Jones - Walking Advisor
• Leading Walks
  • I have details of a level 3 training and assessment weekend in November in the Lake District. Offered at the same time are some Mountain Leadership courses. Please contact me for details.
  • Menai Jones - Walking Advisor
• Recruitment & Retention Team
  • We have now set up a recruitment team which aims to generate more Leaders and helpers through supporting the activities of Districts and Divisions.
  • It is made up of Denise Kinrade, Margaret King, Val Hickmott, Gill Utting, Sarah Allen and myself.
  • It will:
  • Organise trainings in recruitment in the Autumn with Surrey West (27 September and 18 October)
  • Provide help and advice to areas where recruitment is needed. This offer includes coming to events to talk to Mums, Grannies, adults young people etc if required
  • Provide sample letters and suggest which CHQ material could be used
  • Share good practise and put help on the website
  • Look at retention and see how we might help Leaders and helpers to stay a bit longer
  • Produce an induction pack
  • And anything else we can think of . . .
  • We do need a bigger team. It would be good to have other younger people on the team especially the just out of Uni age folk. A better balance of ages would help us the issues relevant to the leader with children and young leaders starting out.
  • We could do with a group of volunteers who on an occasional basis would go out to an event, and evening with parents, a stand at a show etc and talk to people about guiding. If we get a reasonable size group together, each individual may not be called upon very frequently. Ideally, we need some people from each section so that we can take leaders with experience of the age group to an event, but there is no reason why we should not also have others who are not Leaders but who have experience of recruitment or who are keen to help.
  • And we will be looking for Leaders past or present who could act as a buddy to a new leaders after they have qualified. Could you share ideas with someone, lend a friendly ear?
  • So - would you help or can you find people who could help?
  • We are actually quite good at recruiting - we recruited the about the same number of Leaders as we lost last year. But there are areas where this is more difficult. However – we do not want any unit to close unless the Recruitment team has tried to help find new Leaders.
  • NO UNIT CLOSES WITHOUT A FIGHT and LET’S OPEN ADDITIONAL UNITS TO GET DOWN WAITING LISTS
  • Margaret Frosztega - County Commissioner
• 12 Hour Challenge
  • Everyone who helps in Guiding does not have to be a Leader. Administrators, treasurers, ladies who help with craft, instructors, shed repair people, camp site maintenance crews, someone to do some PR or recruitment, and many others, all have roles which help us deliver good Guiding. The 12 Hour Challenge was set up to encourage and enable people to give us some help knowing it was on a limited time basis, that is there would be no expectation of a long term commitment.
  • We thought we would reproduce some detail of the scheme as there will be Leaders who have joined since the scheme was launched two years ago.
  • The 12 Hour Challenge is an attempt to make it easier for adults to say "yes" to volunteering to help Guiding. It is a simple request. "Would you give 12 hours to Guiding over the next 12 months". It is hoped that people who have a positive taste of Guiding may go on to make a more regular commitment.
  • The scheme can be run on, say, a District wide basis where volunteers are sought through some sort of publicity campaign, or it could apply to a Mum you are persuading to help. The essential first step is to identify what jobs are needed to be undertaken. I recently persuaded a Mum to be my administrator. And she is great - does the letters and forms, maintains lists, organises the money. It has made my life so much easier. So what jobs would make your life easier? Could someone take the job on for you? Once that is identified, all you need to do is advertise.
  • Why 12 hours? We don’t expect the 12 hours to be a ‘time-keeping’ task! It is simply a way of bringing prospective volunteers into support roles in Guiding. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter too much whether they do 6, 12, 18 or 24+ hours. The important thing is to have made the initial contact and to make the volunteers feel welcome and valued. If we achieve this, there’s a good chance they will stay.
  • What next? On the CHQ website is some information about the scheme and some tips for organizing it. Have a look there or talk to one of the Recruitment team.
  • Just a thought - Do you know someone who is retiring at age 60 who might have some time on their hands? Could they help at Rainbows? Or Brownies? Or Guides?
• Newly Qualified Leaders
  • Congratulations to the following new Leaders who have completed their training since April 2008. Well done completing your modules and many thanks to all the Mentors (in brackets), you do a great job.
  • Downs Heath - Angela Chapman (Brownies, Linda Taylor), Nicola Tyte (Brownies, Pat Price)
  • Godstone - Tracey James (Brownies, Suzanne Stephens), Rebecca Marjoram (Brownies, Julia Bennett)
  • Leatherhead - Katie Barke (Rainbows, Bookham Group), Sarah Baxter (Brownies, Group Mentoring)
  • Roo Harmer - County Leadership Assessor
• Girls in the Lead
  • We’re an adult Leader short for our Brownies and Guides so we pull together to run both meetings. It’s good fun, a little tiring and certainly makes for an action packed Monday evening!
  • It was our last meeting before the half term break. The much hoped for sun was indeed making a rare appearance, and it was one of those beautiful evenings that make you breathe deeper. After a quick talk about safety, the Brownies donned high visibility vests and we headed across the village green to our local nature reserve.
  • While our Guide volunteers hid a giant game of home made of pairs around the woodland, the Brownies captured CDs hanging from shrubs near the meadow.
  • “I’ve lost my money” announced the newest Brownie. “How much?” I asked. “£50” said the little Brownie. ”£50” I exclaimed in horror.
  • I thought of my Guides, confidently carrying forms, subs, census, camp money and receipts to and fro. I looked down at the tear-filled Brownie, getting smaller before my eyes. And then it occurred to me, I knelt down beside her and asked “Was it paper money or silver and shiny with funny edges?”, “I don’t know” she replied in a tiny voice. As the Brownies frantically searched the long grass and I wished l had my purse with me as well as the First Aid kit.
  • Then excited Sixes chased around the woodland and the money seemed to get forgotten about. Chattering and rosy cheeked, the Brownies headed back for a well earned cookie and some squash.
  • Later, the Guides were picking litter on the village green. One of them picked up a small pink envelope; ‘To Dad’. Intrigued, the others urged her to open it. “It’s got 50p in it” they exclaimed. So, £50 was actually 50p and we should have been searching for a pink envelope! Brownie & money have since been reunited!
  • The Brownies have named me ‘Fluffy Owl’ but l am still a Guide Leader at heart, and l can see some fantastic girls coming up in a few years time.
  • Julie Ely - 1st Warlingham Guides
• Have you visited the Girlguiding Surrey East website yet? Why should you?
  • Well, as with most websites, ours is quite unlike more traditional methods of ‘information provision’. NewsSheets, flyers, emails etc all give you the news as it was at publication time. A website however can give you the news as it is now – it can be updated and available to you in minutes as things change. Same information as with other media, but delivered faster.
  • Some of you may have already seen how First Response courses can now be booked on line – with instant confirmation of booking. No more waiting for days to see if there were any spaces left, or whether your application got lost in the post. And, of course, you can now book right up until the day before the course.
  • We are also working towards making the site a 'reference point' for information you know must be 'out there' somewhere, but can't recall where you saw it, or maybe just want the latest version. Advisers etc can now keep their entries on the County Calendar right up to date, and changes to reference documents can be updated as soon as changes are decided – we will also be building up an archive of County newsletters for you to read or download.
  • A few of the pages are protected by an access key - this is sufficient to stop these pages being indexed by the likes of Google and thus easily read by anyone.
  • And for prospective members the site provides the who, what, where and why of Surrey East, as well as the 'how' for the ‘JoinUs’ initiative..
  • Robin Gould - webmaster@girlguidingsurreyeast.org.uk - www.girlguidingsurreyeast.org.uk
• Forms
  • Do you just love filling in forms? In case you have not discovered the wonders of Foxit, here is the information to help save you some of that form-filling-in time.
  • The following is an extract which came out with a Region weekly news from a while ago, which we thought may be worth sending out again.
  • “Please note that whether you are able to save changes made to a PDF form will depend on the version of Adobe Acrobat that you have. If you are not able to save changes you could install some additional/different software such as Foxit. Once downloaded on to your machine you can use it to save forms from the Girlguiding UK website.”
  • It's great – you can save all that repetitive information and save yourself time.
  • Jackie Broadhurst - Chairman, P and T.
• Programme & Training - Mailshot
  • Watch out for the new Mailshot coming out at the beginning of September. It will contain all the information for applying for a section training – vital for all new Leaders doing their Adult Leadership Qualification - details of the forthcoming First Response courses and also the details of the October Leaders’ Training Day – lots of exciting things coming up here!
  • If by any chance you do not get one, please contact me and I will get one to you.
  • Jackie Broadhurst - Chairman, P and T.
• Equipment
  • P and T have some equipment to dispose of. Do you have use of an Overhead Projector or a video monitor - suitable for playing videos on? If so please contact me.
  • Jackie Broadhurst - Chairman, P and T.

The additional information is protected by an access key as it contains personal data - if you do not have this already, please email the webmaster to request it. Our site search does not include such pages.