The 8th Royal Eltham West Brownies and Guides in Girlguiding London South East were looking for opportunities to grow their membership and spread the word about the magic of Girlguiding. They planned a Bring a Friend event using the Girlguiding LaSER badges and resources.
Helen is a Leader in Training and the Guide Leader at the unit suggested that she could plan a Bring a Friend event to boost their members and to gain experience for her Leadership Qualification.
"As a combined Brownie and Guide unit, we decided to focus strategically on Brownies, who would naturally progress up to Guides. A few weeks before, I set about consulting with the girls about the kinds of activities they wanted to showcase. After collating numerous ideas involving food, science, sport and crafts, we made plans together, and chose Odd Socks, a UMA involving puppet-designing and performing stories, as well as making peppermint creams and cress-head people-pots.
Five Brownies each brought a friend, giving us fourteen excited girls to entertain! After forms given in and introductions made, we played our unit’s favourite ball game. We created a huge mess and despite the trail of destruction (think gloopy peppermint creams and compost trampled across the hall) the visiting girls had a marvellous time! They happily went home with their puppets, cress-head pots, oversized blobs of peppermint creams and an "I am a friend of Girlguiding LaSER" badge! Existing Brownies also received an “I brought a Friend” badge or an “I love Brownies!” badge, so everyone was celebrated and there was definitely a buzz in the air at pick-up time.
As a team, we made sure to speak to each new parent to establish a positive relationship and answer questions. Within an hour of the end of the meeting, two girls had already been registered on GO. We are eagerly awaiting next week’s meeting and the opportunity to welcome more girls to the wonders of Girlguiding."
