My first meeting back

Last night was my first in-person meeting back at the usual hall in two years and two weeks. We did outdoor meetings on the local field in the summer term last year but it rained pretty much every Monday for the entire term and anyway, there’s only so much you can do outside in a field – crafts and cooking gave way almost entirely to running-around games. We did half-day outdoor meetings in October and November but they’re hard work and I always needed to draft in an extra pair of hands so eventually we gave up on that too and we’ve just been on Zoom ever since.

Now I’ve given in and returned to the hall. I’m probably the last unit in the entire country to do so – every one of my girls goes to a different school, so I was nervous about how much more potential for virus-spreading there was in that, coupled with the fact that the big window doesn’t open and that the risk assessment says we have to keep the main door locked because it opens straight onto the car park. The garden is officially banned to us because it “belongs” to the play group. All in all, a hermetically sealed covid box.

But two years on and I finally got my paperwork sorted. My district commissioner has vanished into the ether, although I see she’s being very active on Facebook, so I had to get my division commissioner to sign off. And we went back!

I was quite excited. I’ve dropped down to four girls during all this, and one of those flatly refuses to do Zoom, so I was delighted to see her return last week (before we had the paperwork signed off, we decided to do a night hike, since it popped up in our ideas meeting and we had the outdoor paperwork signed last year). We’ve also got one new girl started last night and another joining us after Easter and I think another due in September. I started with “WE’RE BACK IN THE HALL AT LAST!!” and that was good.

And then I remembered why I never sleep on Monday evenings.

We started with a game of Captain’s Coming. I admit, it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten half the calls and it does lose a certain amount of chaos when there’s only five girls taking part. Then we tried the ice breaking unit meeting activity, since I know the rest of the girls don’t really know the non-Zoom member and no one knows the new girl. No, that didn’t go terribly well.

You write things that come in pairs and stick them on everyone’s back and the idea is to go and talk to each other to figure out what you’ve got on your back in order to find your partner. My oldest is an absolute fiend, who will cheat in ways it doesn’t occur to you to ban. In this case, with only six players (unit helper made up the odd numbers), she just went round and looked to see what was missing. The two best friends basically didn’t talk to anyone else and Non-Zoom and New Girl are both very shy and it took all UH’s powers to coax them to even talk to each other.

Ok. Fine. Let’s do a puzzle. Let’s do the planets UMA that failed so badly over Zoom. It failed here too. My Laziest just shrugged and repeated “I don’t know what we’re doing” about thirty times before going off to run around. My Oldest yelled about five hundred times how she knew all the planets and she knew the answer and I pointed out that’s great but that’s step six, we’re only on step four, do you know all the clues? Oh yes, she knew all the clues.

The way it works is that you get eight statements and you have to put them in order using the clues. For example, one of the statements is “this is the only planet humans live on” and one of the clues is “the planet we live on is third”. Some of them are harder – the second clue is “the gas giants are all together” but you can’t really put that into practice until later on. Still, it’s all doable – if the group can hold their attention for longer than one and a half minutes and if they can apply themselves even for one minute.

So in the end, we did get them in order but mostly thanks to two girls and the UH while the others ran riot. So fine, we’ll do the fun bit. We’re going to celebrate our first real meeting in over two years with toasted marshmallows! And while we’re at it, we’re going to do the match-lighting UMA. Literally, you light a match. It’s a thing that kids these days are terrified of. We had a jug of water to drop the match in, either in a panic or because it’s less plaguey than blowing the thing out. Laziest flatly refused. Not even in a terrified way. More in a “if I hide behind the chair and make faces, Brown Owl will give me all her attention” way. She refused to strike a dead match on the side of the empty matchbox to practice the motion. She refused to almost even touch the matchbox. Second, her best friend and much less lazy, successfully lit it a few times but then panicked and either dropped the lit match on the table or threw it on the floor. New did great – she does this at her grandparents’ so she lit it successfully and lit her candle from it. Non-Zoom managed although she hasn’t mastered holding the match correctly and singed her finger a little. And Oldest lit the match, failed to light the candle, utterly panicked and gave up.

There was much leaning across the candles. There was much “can I do it again?” followed by not succeeding in doing it again. But they toasted their marshmallows and had biscuits and then we ran out of biscuits and they just had toasted marshmallows and then they finished the packet raw. We got cleaned up, I managed to wipe the tables down as they tried to grab them from around me and in the last less-than-seven minutes, it all went to pieces.

I asked them to get into a “reasonably quiet” circle so I could either tell them stuff or start a very short game. Not happening. Oldest went into full-on obnoxious mode and just yelled in my face because it’s so hilarious and the others… well, I guess they weren’t so bad but they weren’t making a circle and they weren’t “reasonably” quiet. I lost my temper, stormed off to the side and counted to ten as loudly and angrily as I could, although also in that level and calm “I’m not yelling” voice. In Russian. If I’d done it in English, they’d have all joined in and mocked and got to fifty before I got to ten and screeched with laughter as they did it. French, probably same. Russian is fresh in my mind because in a fit of bad timing, I was on week six of a twelve-week beginners course the day Putin invaded Ukraine. Now, I know it’s very easy to make Russian sound angry but in that tone of voice, merely counting to ten sounded like I was summoning evil forces from hell and it even caught Oldest by surprise – by the time I got to восемь! I heard “what is that?” and in hindsight, I almost expected a huge wind to start swirling around the hall and my eyes to turn red and for a haunting silence to fall when I reached ten. Seriously.

I returned to the failed circle to not much better. Now we just had time to explain about the badges I’ll be handing out next week and to do Brownie Bells. We do Brownie Bells quite blithely and it occurred to me to explain to New that we’re pulling the ropes of the church bells and not milking cows. Of course, that led to Oldest bellowing “DONG DONG DONG DONG!” instead of singing.

And I came home going “why do I do this?” I rush straight off after work. I haven’t eaten since lunchtime and I won’t eat until I get back well after 8pm. I plan activities and all they’re interested in doing is running around and screaming with the same person they run around and scream with outside Brownies. I do fun outdoors stuff and the parents won’t let their princesses come in case they get cold. I lie awake wondering who’s going to complain because they don’t approve of the activities that came directly from Girlguiding via their UMA cards, which I planned and carried out while you sat at home going “isn’t it nice to have the house to ourselves for an hour and a half for only £3”.

Yep. I write a blog teaching people about how to be a Brown Owl and all the good things and how I’m capable and competent and then the moment I see the kids in person, I’m despairing of why I do it. We all despair. I’m in many Guiding Facebook groups and there are always posts asking “why do I do this, my girls are entitled selfish brats and it’s making me miserable”. Why indeed? Because next week maybe they won’t be brats. Maybe you’ll connect with one of them and feel like it was all worth it for that moment. Maybe you’ll do a fun activity one day that you’ll enjoy. Maybe your pig-headedness over expanding your CV and your personal growth makes it worth putting up with all the bad days.

Let me finish with a story of a day that can still bring tears to my eyes. We had a lady in to teach first aid in my old pack. She was intense. She got everyone in a circle and ordered most of them to sit down and announced “in the event of an emergency, without a first aider, all of you sitting down are dead.” It was terrifying! It was too intense for adults, let alone seven-year-olds. One of them started crying. Her dad had died quite recently and this was severely not helping. We took her out into the corridor and calmed her down and told her she didn’t have to go back in, we’d find something to do out here while everyone else did the first aid.

And this child sniffed and nodded and said “I want to go back in and do it. I think my daddy would want me to learn this”. I can’t even remember this child’s name. Tabitha? Emma? Something else entirely? But I remember “I think my daddy would want me to learn this” as if it’s engraved on my heart and it still makes me tear up ten or so years later. After Oldest yelling and Laziest just not doing anything ever, I remember that girl and that’s partly why I keep doing this. I’m making a difference in these kids’ lives.