Guide Meeting Plans

I often receive emails asking if I will be publishing Guide meeting plans on this website. Here is my response to this question.

 

I was a Guide leader about 15 to 20 years ago, so a lot has changed since I was a Guide leader! I do not have any of my Guide meetings available to share as they were planned on paper and were based on a previous program. I will not be creating Guide plans for the website until I actually run a Guide unit again. It is a lot of work putting together each meeting plan, and I just do not have the time to do that right now.

However, I am a program adviser and can give you some advice.

First, you need to get yourself a copy of the Guides on the Go program book. It is the girl program book. Don't even think about looking at a Guider program book! There isn't one. There is something in memberzone that claims to be a Guider book, but it isn't. Buy a new program book. Don't use anything handed down from a past leader unless they just bought it this year. You want the new one as it includes Cookies Rising, which is now a program requirement.

With Guides there are 4 program areas and, as it is a 3 year program, you do not cover everything in one year! Every year you need to do the You in Guiding program area. This is because you will likely always have new girls each year, and perhaps girls advancing each year. You can then choose one other program area to focus on for the year. Leave the other two for the other two years. If you try to do too many program areas in a year you won't complete them and the girls won't earn their badges. Or you won't complete them with the thoroughness that the girls deserve.

For each program area there are four "challenge" areas. When you complete each challenge area the girls get a small square badge. The requirements for each challenge area are listed in the program book. You do not need to do the exact activities listed in the book. You can make up your own activities that meet the objective of the challenge. So, for example, in the Understand the Promise and Law and Motto challenge, one of the listed activities is to dance to music then make the sign and do the handshake with someone when the music stops. Umm. No. You don't have to do this. You can do some sort of other fun game with the sign and handshake. Make something up or find something online.

When you have completed all four challenges from a program area, you also need to earn some interest badges from that area. They are listed in the book, too. For the You in Guiding area, you need to do Cookies Rising every single year. Yes, every year. There is a 1, 2, and 3 badge. So girls who are in their first year get the 1. Girls in their 2nd year get the 2. Girls in their 3rd year get a 3. Then choose one other interest badge from the list to complete. Since you are doing this section every single year, make sure you choose a different badge (other than Cookies Rising) each year. So one year maybe you will do campfire leading, another year maybe do cultural awareness, and the next year maybe do traveller... or whatever you choose. You can do more than 2 badges from the program area in a year, but remember you need to do interest badges from this section every year.

When you have all four challenges and the required number of interest badges, then the girls get the large square program area badge.  Woo hoo! Just one section of the program and they get a whole whack of badges. As you really only need to do two program areas in a year, make sure you supplement with national or provincial challenges. They tie into the program and earn the girls cool crests to add to their camp blankets or hats.

Now about running a meeting - my unit followed a routine each week, but you can do what works best for you. For our unit, girls arrived and went to their patrol corners. They worked on some sort of activity relating to that week's meeting. We had patrols assigned duties - one patrol was in charge of colours (we did a flag ceremony every week), one patrol was the cleanup patrol - they helped to set up anything needed for the leaders and cleaned up after crafts, one patrol planned some songs for a brief campfire at the end of the meeting, and one patrol chose and led a game. We rotated each week.

After gathering we did the horseshoe. Patrol leaders come forward. Patrol leaders extend. etc. My unit did not sing as they marched into horseshoe but many units sing the Guide Law song. If you look on youtube there is a great horseshoe video http://youtu.be/qANAbPPSjm8

After horseshoe we had the colour party fall out and bring the flags forward, then we would sing O Canada.

After everyone was back in horseshoe, the girls could be "at ease" and we would start our meeting. Similar to how I have my Brownie meeting plans - discussion, active game related to the theme, craft or other quiet activity related to the theme, game (girl's choice), singing (both songs from the patrol who planned it and maybe a new song or two from the leaders), then closing.

I hope it helps. Let me know if you have any questions.