It’s half term and since we don’t have the kids this week, let’s talk about the adults! (And also because I said last week that I’d tell you about the Trefoil Guild today)
The Trefoil Guild is a branch of the Guide family for adults. It’s not actually part of Girlguiding; it’s a side branch with a similar ethos which gets mentioned on the website and which shares the shop but which is not actually a member section. They pay a separate (much smaller) subscription and they don’t necessarily have any contact with the parent organisation.
It started officially in 1935 as “Old Guides” – not because they were old but because they were ex-Guides. An Old Girls club. Unofficial groups formed for people to keep in touch with the old Guide friends as far back as 1920. They acquired the name Trefoil Guild in 1943.
And then somewhere along the way, they really did become “old” Guides. I don’t have any demographics on the Trefoil but the majority are over 60 and I’ve heard a woman in her 70s described as “the young one” in her Trefoil. Plenty of them like it like this and will tell “Trefoil Guild is for retired Guiders.”
It’s not true.
The Trefoil Guild is open to anyone over 18. Male or female, ex-Guide or not, retired Leader or not. Any adult who wants to join and is willing to comply with the Guiding ethos of helping people, sharing skills and being sociable, more or less.
In practice, you’re very likely to find your local Trefoil skews to the older end of the scale and does all its most interesting events during the work day. They’re the WI with an optional uniform.
But somewhere around 2017, Girlguiding decided it was getting rid of its 14-26 The Senior Section, which encompassed all roles that could be held by members of that age. The thing that really made a difference to TSS members was that they had to leave Rangers at 18 now instead of staying until 26. At this point, Inspire was still some way off and the best Girlguiding could offer was “old Rangers can still meet up with their friends and do cool stuff unofficially”. Girlguiding have never understood or really appreciated the Senior Section age group. Some of those young women just went. Others made it more official by opening new Trefoil Guilds.
Of course, there were “junior” Trefoils already. They’ve never been 100% over-65s. I had plans to start one back in 2016. I sent the emails out to get it off the ground in 2020 (spoiler: that’s as far as it got). I talked to various local Trefoil folk who were pretty supportive and sometimes described it “more the evening type”.
So what do the Trefoil do?
Whatever their particular members want! My local “daytime” one tends to have speakers and go to gardens and lunches. Some are basically campfire choirs under the Trefoil name or walking clubs or supporters of particular campsites or Guiding properties. Some are just Rangers in a red uniform and do all the camps, adventurous activities and crafts they’d do in their aqua uniforms. It depends what that particular Guild is into. I’m a member of the Internet Guild wherein you basically do what you want and work on whatever badges you want and share it with the Facebook group.
Yes, two things in that paragraph. “Red uniform” and “badges”. The Trefoil Guild is a non-uniformed organisation with a uniform. You don’t have to wear one but lots of us are the Girlguiding type who feel weird in “real” clothes. The current “uniform” is a simple red polo shirt with a Trefoil corporate logo on the sleeve but no trefoil on the front, a lovely soft bright blue jacket, in a fabric softer and lighter than a sweatshirt, with the same logo situation and a red lining to the collar and/or a navy zip fleece with again, the same. There’s a red badge tab if you’re into that. There used to be a couple of silk scarves, which lots of people wore as “uniform” with their own normal clothes but all that seems to be left now is a “snood” which I think is a Buff with a red trefoil on it.
As for badges: first and foremost, there’s the Promise badge. It’s exactly the same as the Promise badge worn by everyone from the littlest Ranger to the oldest Leader and the Trefoil colour for it is… you’ll never guess. It’s red! Second, there’s the Voyage Award. This comes as three stages and for each, you have to complete a challenge you set yourself for Service, Myself, Teamwork, Skills and Explore My World. As you work from Bronze to Gold, these will get bigger. There’s a metal badge for each and you can also order a cloth version because even the Trefoil like something to sew on their camp blanket.
Then there’s STARS, which was introduced somewhere around 2017 or 2018. You have a set of 8 activities for the five themes and to complete each one, you have to do at least five of them and at least one must be with your Guild – for the Internet Guild, this usually just means posting what you did and chatting about it a little in the comments. The five themes are taken from the name – or the name is taken from the themes: Skills, Together, Action, Roam, Self. There are cloth badges for each theme and a metal badge for when the whole thing is completed.
For what it’s worth, I flew through my Bronze Voyage but then did three of my five Silver sections without finding a mentor to sign them off so I stalled. I wear my Bronze Voyage badge on my Girlguiding tab, partly because I don’t wear my Trefoil uniform or tab much and partly as a talking point and a small Trefoil advert. I’ve made some progress on STARS but again, that’s stalled. I really should pick it up again.
Plenty of us are still leaders – the Trefoil is when you get to do the fun stuff or the stuff for yourself without the responsibility of the girls, with a lot less paperwork and where you get to do it rather than watch everyone else do it. I liken Trefoil and Leaders to Rangers and Young Leaders: the latter do the work with the kids, the former are just there for fun and plenty of people do both.
So that’s the Trefoil Guild, Girlguiding for adults. Interested?
The Internet's Brown Owl 
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