Inspire blog
Meet the team
December 2024
Joint Inspire coordination lead volunteer
Hi, I’m Erin and I’m so excited to share a bit about myself and my new role as the joint Inspire coordination lead volunteer for Girlguiding Hertfordshire.
For as long as I can remember, Girlguiding has been a constant in my life. I started my journey as a Rainbow, progressing through the sections to become a Brownie, Guide, and Ranger. Today, I’m proud to be an adult leader for Brownies in Sawbridgeworth, in East Hertfordshire division.
My journey with Girlguiding has been deeply influenced by my late mother, a remarkable woman who was a Brownie leader and was awarded the Anglia Brooch for her bravery in continuing her role despite battling cancer. Her dedication to Girlguiding and her unwavering spirit continue to inspire me.
Girlguiding has always been about more than just badges and camps for me. It’s a place where I’ve found friendship, support, and a sense of belonging. It’s a place where I can be myself, learn new skills, and make a difference.
Now, as I embark on this new role, I’m eager to inspire young women aged 18-30 to embrace the opportunities and experiences that Girlguiding offers. I believe that everyone deserves to have a community where they feel valued and empowered and I am passionate about fostering these within an inclusive environment. By incorporating events that celebrate diverse religions, faiths, and disabilities, we can create a more compassionate and understanding Girlguiding community. I believe that embracing our differences enriches our experiences and helps us grow as individuals. As a lover of theatre and musical theatre, I’m keen to introduce creative and expressive elements into our events. Additionally, my personal interests in science, sustainability, and the outdoors align with the values of Girlguiding. I’m excited to explore opportunities to combine these passions with our mission of empowering girls. I’m an adventurous spirit, always seeking new challenges and experiences. I can’t wait to see the Inspire event calendar filled with a variety of cultural, creative, and outdoor activities that inspire and engage girls of all backgrounds.
I’m particularly excited to work with Amy and Chloe on innovative ideas for the Inspire community. Together, we’re committed to creating fun and engaging activities that will inspire and motivate young women. Beyond my role in Girlguiding, I’m passionate about international experiences and cultural exchange. I had the privilege of attending the Essex International Jamboree, where I made lifelong friends from around the world. This experience ignited a passion for travel and cultural exploration.
I volunteered at Pax Lodge, the World Centre for WAGGGS in London where I met incredible young women from diverse backgrounds and formed strong bonds. One such friendship is with Carol from Mexico, who generously gifted me her Mexico Promise badge as a symbol of our friendship and shared values. Visiting all 5 WAGGGS World Centres is my ultimate goal, a journey that will not only expand my horizons but also allow me to contribute to the global sisterhood of Girlguiding. From the vibrant Our Cabaña in Mexico to the serene Our Chalet in Switzerland, each Centre offers a unique cultural experience and the opportunity to connect with girls and young women from all around the world. By immersing myself in different cultures and ways of life, I hope to foster international friendships and strengthen the bonds within the global Girlguiding movement. This adventure will undoubtedly make the world more interconnected, shaping me to be a compassionate and understanding global citizen.
As a passionate advocate for sustainability, I am deeply committed to inspiring young women to take action on climate change. The WAGGGS Climate Change programme, with its focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), provides an excellent framework for empowering girls to become environmental leaders. By incorporating these badges into my role as joint Inspire coordination lead volunteer in Girlguiding Hertfordshire, I aim to equip girls with the knowledge and skills to make a positive impact on our planet. Climate change disproportionately affects women and girls, exacerbating existing inequalities. As a female leader in Guiding, I want to advocate for gender-responsive climate action within our movement, ensuring that girls’ voices are heard and their needs are prioritised in addressing this global crisis.
It has been a busy year so far, as this summer I attended Hautbois Fest, where I met many inspirational volunteers from Anglia region. I’m looking forward to collaborating with them on future projects.
The great opportunities I have mentioned above, have been part of working towards my Queens Guide award, which I am undertaking to expand my skillset and step outside my comfort zone. By tackling new challenges and learning from experienced volunteers, I aim to become a more confident and capable leader. This journey will not only benefit me personally but also allow me to contribute more effectively to my community and inspire young members, like my Brownies, to continue their Girlguiding journey. As a team, we will be promoting the Queens Guide award.
Through difficult times over the years, Girlguiding became a beacon of light, providing a supportive environment and opportunities for personal growth. The unwavering belief in me, from my Girlguiding network, helped me overcome those challenges. Today, I’m proud to be a part of this incredible organisation and eager to make my late mother, and my father, proud by achieving the Queen’s Guide award. In the face of personal challenges, including the loss of my mother and struggles with mental health, Girlguiding has been a constant source of strength and solace. It’s a community that understands and supports, offering a safe space to heal and grow.
As I continue my journey with Girlguiding, I’m filled with gratitude for the memories, opportunities and experiences that have shaped me. I’m excited to use my passion and skills to inspire the next generation of young women and girls to know they can do anything.
Thank you for reading.
Erin
Inspire social media volunteer
Hi, I’m Chloe, the county Inspire social media volunteer for Hertfordshire.
Girlguiding has been a huge, impactful, part of my life since I was 5. It has always made me feel part of something bigger than myself, and somewhere I belong. Now, in my twenties, I can’t wait to make a difference and have new experiences, as part of my new role, as well as being an Inspire member myself.
I started off my Girlguiding journey in Herts, when I joined the Rainbows. I was also a Brownie and Guide before becoming a young leader at my Guide unit. Girlguiding has always been a positive thing in my life, especially during the not so good times. It’s incredibly rewarding and I have always wanted to give back and help others like Girlguiding has helped me. If you can help even one person enjoy guiding and benefit from it, it makes it all worthwhile.
Girlguiding, whether it’s in the unit meeting place or from home, has been a safe and supportive place for me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Girlguiding or have met and bonded with friends, who have become sisters to me.
Girlguiding is an amazing adventure in an inclusive environment where girls are free to be themselves, help them learn and grow and discover their confidence and interests. It doesn’t matter when you join Girlguiding, there are always amazing adventures to have and incredible opportunities to take.
The leadership qualification was something I always wanted to do, so it was the perfect step to take as an adult member. I officially qualified from leader in training to leader last year and am currently an assistant leader at a Rainbow unit. I love volunteering with Rainbows especially as they are beginning their guiding journey. I also volunteer with an all sections unit.
I was part of the Girlguiding Anglia and RSPB group who helped develop the Feel Good in Nature badge.
I hope to complete more youth awards related to Inspire members such as the Queens Guide award in the future.
Outside of Girlguiding, I love to read and even have a blog where I talk about all things to do with authors, books and reading. My favourite books are often from genres such as fantasy, romance and mysteries. This includes books such as The Light That Blinds Us by Andy Darcy Theo and The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson. I’ve also been a Swiftie, ever since I discovered Taylor Swift in her Speak Now era, and specifically the song Enchanted. My other favourite eras include The Tortured Poets Department, Folklore and Reputation.
What I hope to get out of Inspire, as a member of the community as well as the team’s social media volunteer, is to help grow and spread awareness of Inspire within Hertfordshire by producing creative and engaging content for Inspire Hertfordshire’s social media platforms. Making the social media channels a safe inclusive, positive, and supportive environment for all Inspire members.
I want to help with other areas of Inspire, especially through social media, to encourage members to take part in Inspire activities and opportunities, build their confidence and make friends within the Inspire community.
There’s so much to come for Inspire and I can’t wait to be a part of it, along with my fellow, amazing team mates, Erin and Amy.
Chloe
October 2023
October 2023
Since its inception in 1945, the Queen’s Guide award has gone through many changes, including most recently a refresh to the programme in March 2023. One of my many reasons of returning to Guiding after my career change was to do something for my inner child. What did I love to do as a child? Badges. With the Queen’s Guide award being the highest award, you can work to in Guiding, 2021 for me seemed like it was the right time to start the challenge.
At the time, I had just turned 24 when I started so I had a fast-approaching deadline of my 26th birthday, which I am very glad to say has now passed and I am due to receive my award very soon. The good news for Inspire aged members is the refresh to the scheme means it can now be completed by members aged between 16-30, within three years of their start date or the deadline of their 31st birthday.
A lot of my peers inside and outside of Girlguiding would say that I am someone who likes to ‘run before they can walk.’ When I started volunteering with my Ranger group, I decided to start my leadership qualification, Commonwealth award and Queen’s Guide award all at the same time. This was overwhelming at the time, and I would recommend not to follow in my footsteps. However, it is possible!
In this blog, I thought it may be nice to share what I did for my Queen’s Guide award as well as what I would do now, if I could do it again. Perhaps it might inspire you to start your own journey. My confidence has grown a lot through all the various activities I have completed as part of the award, I have done a lot of things that I never would have thought were possible for myself. Whilst it has been difficult, I am proud that I pushed myself as my confidence has grown so much since I started.
For the Personal development challenge, I decided that I wanted to try ballet. I had never done dancing as a child and learning ballet is a good foundation for other disciplines. Even though I met the hours needed to sign off the section, I am happy to say that I haven’t stopped attending classes. Nothing has improved my fitness like ballet has and, in some ways, I find it quite meditative. You have to be fully focused to control your body so you can’t think about anything else, I leave my worries at the door!
If I went through the process again, I would choose to focus on dressmaking as my skill. I used to do a lot of evening classes making clothes but this stopped when I moved around different jobs. Currently, I am training to become a counsellor, I think dressmaking would be a good hobby to pick up again. As with ballet you have to be fully immersed in the activity which is helpful for taking your mind off work and other worldly worries. Furthermore, if you are not concentrating on the sewing machine, you may sew through your finger, which is something else I have done too!
For Guiding challenge, I involved myself with lots of different things at district, division, and county level as well as being part of an Anglia region trip. Events include volunteering at the Herts county fair, Great Patrol Hunt, Queen’s Jubilee Beacon celebrations, county Youth Opportunities Day, being part of a working group for the training qualification and much more.
The new programme structures this section a little differently to what I did. It is separated out into ‘Girl, Growth and retention, Volunteer, Inclusion.’ For each part, you need to commit to something at differing levels of activity in Girlguiding.
As an example, for the ‘Girl’ section, I would choose to volunteer with Rangers, this is at unit level. For ‘Growth and retention’, I could run county Inspire events that introduce ideas of flexible volunteering opportunities. The next part is the ‘Volunteer’ section, I’d like to work towards the trainer qualification with the view that I could conduct training sessions for the Anglia region. The final section is ‘Inclusions’, an idea I have would be to work at division level and create a support group for leaders who help girls or other adult members with additional needs.
During my Queen’s Guide award, the area that I found most difficult was the Community Action section. The practical element came about easier than the research element for me. I was a business mentor for sixth formers through Young Enterprise. I enjoyed this experience as I did the Young Enterprise programme when I was studying my A Levels so it was nice to return and support like-minded people. With some reflection, I believe I became fatigued of my choice in research topic (How the pandemic affected children and young people’s mental health and employability) and that the focus was too close to home as I lost three jobs as a result of COVID-19.
If I could do the award again, I think a topic that I would be interested to research would be about how/why traditional crafts/craftsmanship are dying out in the UK. For the practical step, I would volunteer with a charity called WorkAid which renovate and give life back to old tools, that are either sent to Africa to upskill groups of people in crafts/trades or sold in the charity shop. Finally, as the Inspire step of the challenge, I would try to organise a tour of the site for my Ranger groups as well as creative activities in Workaid’s Hub space.
Following Community action, is the Lead the way challenge section. As part of my work towards the award, I completed my going away with licence where I took my Ranger unit on a wellbeing retreat at a venue called Windy Sayles in Bedfordshire. Whipsnade Zoo is a short walk away from Windy Sayles so we visited there as part of the trip, as well as playing yoga dominoes, making relaxing bath salts and essential oil rollers, doing mindful colouring as well as starting wellbeing journals that could be continued at home.
Once I had completed my going away with licence, I planned an expedition around the Isle of Wight and my aim was to find all the Eight Wonders of the Isle of Wight. These are as follows: Cowes you cannot milk, Freshwater you cannot drink, Newport you cannot bottle, Needles you cannot thread, Winkle Street where there are no winkles, Ryde where you walk, Lake where there is no water and Newchurch or Newtown which is very old. Also on the trip, we visited the Garlic Farm and the famous Osbourn House where Queen Victoria would visit on her holidays.
For my imaginary Lead the way challenge, I would like to be a part of leading or assisting an adventurous outdoor activity. In particular, I would like to work on gaining my level 2 walking scheme qualification so I could assist with one of many exciting walking team trips. At the time of writing, I am about to embark on a Girlguiding Herts weekend trip to Norfolk for the Marathon Walking Challenge along the coast. There are lots more Herts walking team events in the pipeline so keep your eyes peeled on the Billboard and county Events webpage. Also, you can sign up to the walking team newsletter by emailing [email protected]
Finally, for the Social experience challenge. In November 2022, I attended a sewing retreat in Devon and at that time I had never visited Devon before or signed up to an event like that. It was a lovely creative gathering where, as well as dressmaking and tailoring, we visited amazing restaurants serving very tasty local produce and visited a well-known sewing store (which I have visited since this year). More recently this summer, I was the caterer for a Brownie holiday at Gaddesden Row in Herts. It had an Alice in Wonderland theme and was really lovely as I remember going to a unit holiday trip there when I was a Brownie. A very full circle moment. If I was doing it all again, now I would like to plan and be part of an Inspire county or region level event.
I hope that reading about my experience inspires you to start your own Queen’s Guide award journey, to find out more information or to begin working towards it, please email: [email protected]
Amy
The road to launch #InspireHertfordshire
September 2023
Hello all, my name is Amy and I am the Herts Inspire lead volunteer.
What is Inspire? Firstly, there isn’t an easy quick answer to that question, but I like to think of it as: whatever we want it to be. If you checkout the girlguiding.org.uk page, some of the key words to describe Inspire are ‘fun, flexible and tailored to you.’ Using this as a starting point, it is my mission to build a community with you, 18–30-year-olds of Hertfordshire, where we can try new things and do what we love in guiding. However, our main responsibility as members of Inspire, is making sure we have the best time together and are doing something that we can all reflect back on with a smile.
In Girlguiding I am a Ranger leader in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire counties. Whether or not you are part of a unit, I’m sure we can agree that everything needed to make a unit work doesn’t materialise overnight. It takes time to build a successful group, with trust, teamwork, a bit of trial and error and enthusiasm. I like to think of Inspire being similar. The roadmap graphic gives you an idea of what is happening behind the scenes to make Inspire what we want it to be.
Information gathering
The first part in our roadmap is where I am hoping to get some direction from you. I am only one person and I definitely do not claim to have all the answers about what you may want to do. Over the next few weeks and months, I am hoping to gather lots of ideas about what I can organise that would excite you and make you want to be a part of Inspire Hertfordshire. You can help me by completing the online questionnaire.
Please keep your eyes peeled for other surveys and questionnaire which will be your chance to collaborate with me and work out a fun plan of virtual and in person activities.
Scheduling
Sometimes, I can get very excited about things and then want to do everything at once. When I came back to Girlguiding in 2021 I decided that I would do my Commonwealth award, leadership qualification and Queen’s Guide award all at the same time. This was a challenge, to say the least, but a lesson I learnt is that scheduling is very important. Doing everything all at once is not necessarily the best route to enjoy what you are doing.
After data collection, the next step is working out when we can meet and start having fun. I realise that we’re all at different stages in our lives and have assorted interests fighting for a slot in our busy calendars. Therefore, to make Inspire something for everyone I think there needs to be flexibility. There is no expectation that you will have to attend every meeting, it would be impossible to pick dates we can all be available for. One of my ideas is to have a virtual meeting one month, and then an in-person meeting the next. Part of the 1st questionnaire is establishing best days, times and format for meetings so I can create a list of ‘save the dates’ for Inspire gatherings.
Whilst Hertfordshire is a small county, we have a very dense population. In terms of numbers, we are actually the 2nd largest Girlguiding county. For our in-person meetups, as well as visits outside the county for example to London or Cambridge, I would like to aim to meet in each of our 9 geographical divisions. I’m based in West division so have some local ideas, but please let me know about places near you. A meeting location doesn’t have to be a Guide Hut, it could be adventurous, or it could be calm and cosy.
Marketing
What is Inspire? What could Inspire be? These are questions that float about in my mind a lot and I could imagine the former may have passed through yours too. Inspire did not have the easiest of beginnings, originally it was due to launch during early 2020, but we all know what happened then. The marketing section of the roadmap exists to ensure everyone hears about the planned exciting schedule of activities. Part of the Inspire Hertfordshire journey is creating a memorable brand that is exciting. Towards the end of the 1st questionnaire, you should see some sections asking about what sort of Inspire merchandise you would like. I’m sure you’ll agree it wouldn’t be a Girlguiding group if there weren’t any badges. It is part of my plan to have consistency across any virtual, printed or media content. Please share any ideas that you have, collaboration is key to build something that you want.
Launching
At the end of the road, or the light at the end of the tunnel, is launching Inspire Hertfordshire. As it stands this is planned for early 2024. Something to look forward to. I hope this summary of what is happening behind the scenes has made you curious and excited about what Inspire Hertfordshire could be. If you have any ideas or would like to have a chat about Inspire, feel free to send me a message on [email protected]
Thank you.
Amy