You know, I think it’s time to talk about Inspire!
Inspire was created when the Senior Section was dissolved. It used to go right through until a young member’s 26th birthday but one day Girlguiding decided in their wisdom that it would split the section into Rangers and Young Leaders and that it should expire at 18, leaving a lot of young women suddenly without the section that had provided their fun and support in their early 20s.
So Girlguiding said “ok, well, you can have informal friendly gatherings to feel like you’re still involved”. It wasn’t ideal. It was a long way from ideal. The 20-somethings felt pretty abandoned. Some of them formed junior Trefoil Guilds – I’ll talk more about the Trefoil another week – and some of them became leaders against their will just to stay involved and some of them left the movement altogether. But some of them did indeed start banding together and eventually Girlguiding gave them a name – Inspire.
They’re still not a section. They don’t have a uniform, although I bet an optional one will appear in the next five years. They’re not widely known but they do exist. And they have a programme, of a kind. That is, they have seven pathways and two themes. What that appears to mean is that they’ve grouped all the adult opportunities into little clusters, so the Adventure and Challenge pathway contains “go to Girlguiding Activity Centres”, “plan your own outdoor adventure” and “look at the outdoor training schemes we offer”. Beyond the UK contains GOLD, INTOPS, volunteering and supporting international events and volunteering with WAGGGS or at a World Centre – all things open to any member over 18 but perhaps presented in a more cohesive way. It wouldn’t hurt to do that for all adult members because I think a lot of people have no idea what’s open to them beyond their weekly meetings. I’ll do a post on that too.
So, Inspire.
Girlguiding Inspire is a sort of semi-section for young women aged between eighteen and thirty where they get to do the fun stuff without having responsibility for girls. The majority of them are probably adult leaders of some description as well but there’s no need to be. There are a lot of people who get far more out of Girlguiding personally than they would as a leader and we love and cherish those people equally.
Likewise, I know there are plenty of people in the Trefoil and in Friends groups and in adult support and in behind-the-scenes roles who are worth their weight in gold as members and supporters of Girlguiding who don’t run units. My point is that being a leader is in no way necessary to join and thrive in Inspire.
We have a fairly active county Inspire group in my area, although when I say “county” I mean nominally county but in practical terms, they’re all from the same end of the county and there are no members anywhere else at the moment, as far as I know. They meet up once a month to do various things. There’s a county lead volunteer who kind of acts as their leader but because they’re adults and they’re not a formal section or club, there’s not really an official leader or president or commissioner. There are 126 members of the Facebook group but I know not all of them are members because I’m not one myself (too old!) and I’m pretty sure our county adult support lead volunteer and ex-county commissioner can’t be young enough either, of the names I recognise. It tends to be the admin, who I assume is the lead volunteer, who posts events and links and whatnot but my understanding is that they kind of plan and arrange these things together as a group of friends instead of waiting for the leader to decide things for them.
They’re a pretty active group. I don’t know how well Inspire has been received around the country but I know our county group tries to do something about once a month, even if it’s only something like a badge day or a meal out. That said, I know they’ve done sleepovers, community service weekends, a campfire, activity days (I went and taught them archery in a named storm one weekend) and they’re currently planning a badge day and a group visit to a regional large scale event.
If you don’t have a group nearby and you like the sound of it, set one up! Send a message to your district or division or county headquarters and they can include your group in the next newsletter or mailing and once you’ve got a handful of people together, you can start planning your activities. If you do have a group nearby but you don’t enjoy what they’ve planned, offer your own event. This is the thing about Girlguiding – when they say it’s girl-led, that counts all the way up to Trefoil. Inspire is led by Inspire members and if one member wants to organise a trip to Disneyland and others want to organise a trip to McDonalds, there’s space for all those people and they can exist happily together.
I love Inspire. I wish I was young enough to be part of them. The thing is, they’re such a friendly little community that they’re not particularly bothered about the age boundaries and plenty of them won’t leave when they reach thirty – or at least that’s what seems to be happening in my county group. It’ll become a new Trefoil eventually, but possibly with a tendency to lean towards a different set of activities. Ok, I’ll do the Trefoil next week.
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