Category: Guiding

A year as County Commissioner

I can’t believe it is nearly a year since I have been in post as county commissioner.  As you would expect, I have been very busy learning new things, meeting new people and attending lots of meetings.  I have really enjoyed meeting with leaders, commissioners and advisers within the county, their skills and enthusiasm are wonderful to see.  Meeting with the girls and seeing how much fun they have at meetings and events is so lovely and really motivates me, although this is one aspect that I have really missed during the period that we have not been able to meet face to face.  

Girlguiding in Leeds already provides so many opportunities for its members and we look forward to opening up many more.  The county team is always evolving to ensure we have the people in place to provide these opportunities.  Of course, looking after our members is also very important and I am pleased that we have started to advertise for wellbeing and safeguarding advisers.  We have renamed our Special Needs Team to Inclusion Team.   Between them they will help leaders to look after their young people, but they can also assist our amazing volunteers so please do get in touch with them if you feel you need any support.  We want to reach more members with news of events and would welcome any ideas about how to do this.  We are looking to form a team to help with website content and communication and we would love to involve younger members in this.  The next few months will see the county strategy develop which we look forward to sharing with you. 

Please do get in touch to share ideas but most of all get involved. Together we can make a difference. I look forward to returning back to normal!

A thank you to all

The last few months have been tough on all of us and I want to say a personal thank you for everything you’ve done.

Your hard work has enabled us to build some resilience into our membership, which will be an important strength as we move through the second half of 2020.  And, although we continue to face many unknowns about the virus and new challenges it could present, we should find confidence in the fact that Girlguiding Leeds is here to stay!

Central to our success in Leeds has been the digital innovation that we have seen in our units, with many of the County executive believing that it will be increasingly important after the COVID-19 crisis in ensuring that both girls and our volunteers are able to stay involved.  I believe that a blended approach may be adopted by more units – especially in winter months.

To enable our COVID-19 recovery, the County Commissioner team have recognised the need to take a fresh look at where we stand based on all we’ve achieved and endured in the last few months.

With this in mind, we will be spending some time reviewing and reprioritising our strategy, identifying a few areas that we think will bring most benefit.We’ll be sharing more about our “Build Back Better” plan over the coming weeks.  But for now, I want to thank you for the effort you’ve made so far this year and ask for your continued energy and passion as we look to build a bigger, better, more successful future for Girlguiding Leeds.