I did Rangers from September 2007 to March 2020. Then, faced with all the uncertainty that came with the pandemic and finding myself suddenly the only official leader for an entire Brownie pack, I sacrificed my Rangers until such time as I could pick them up again. There were only two of them but it’s the work of an entire unit and under the circumstances, I just couldn’t run two units single-handed. Most leaders wouldn’t run one single-handed. There were 14 or so Brownies and 2 Rangers and numerically, the Rangers lost out. I never picked them up again. By the time I was ready, they were off to university and the Guides had suffered to the point that all their girls were 12 and under, so no new ones for at least two more years.
But then everything fell apart for no apparent reason. In September I joined a new Brownie pack and a new Guide unit, both in new districts and divisions. Brownies is great. I’m the fourth of four leaders which suits me fine. I get to do activities and sit with the girls but not have the bone-deep stress of running anything or dealing with money or parents. Guides… well, I realised all over again very quickly that I don’t like the Guide age group but the plan was to get settled and then open a brand new Ranger unit. So I’ve spent this term sitting at the table with the older girls, who aren’t the least bit interested in the Skills Builder they’re supposed to be doing and not at all interested in the adult who’s suddenly attaching herself to them. Last week, one of them asked what my name is! But we’re getting there.
I went on GO last night to finally clear up who I might be able to steal for my first Rangers. The oldest Guide, who’s been rushing to finish her Guide Gold this term, will be 15 at the end of December. I’ve also more or less been promised the previous oldest Guide who turned 15 in September and is now a Young Leader with the local Brownies. Of the remaining girls, two are already fourteen, four more will turn fourteen before Easter and one more will ten days later. That gives me potentially nine Rangers! Plus the Guides have a Young Leader who can drop in and out as it suits her, although she probably definitely won’t come every week.
I don’t know when we’re going to do this. There’s no point starting with the four who are already old enough and slotting in the other five as we go along. For one thing, the youngest (by ten days!) isn’t going to want to spend a week at Guides on her own. Two of the fourteen-year-olds won’t want to be at Rangers while all their friends are still at Guides. The best thing by far is to start them all at once. After the February half term will probably be best: it gives us half a term to convince them and to hand them over, it gets us past annual subscription (how exactly am I supposed to pay £35 per member on four weeks of subs before the paperwork has gone through to get the bank account open?) but it doesn’t give them so long that they get tired of being old Guides, especially that oldest one.
I suspect we’ll run them as a senior patrol until we’re ready to open. The Guide leader intends for them to do level 5 skills builders which they’ll technically do as Guides but I’ll put on their records as Rangers but the thing is, I don’t want to introduce them to Rangers through the official programme. It’s boring! Oh, of course I’ll give them the option to do it. You want Ranger Gold? Then god help me, we’ll do Skills Builders and UMAs! But we’ll do them my way, which isn’t sitting in a hall four weeks in a row doing a set of activities no one’s really interested in. That doesn’t sell Rangers!
We’re going to do a night hike, an incident hike, during the first few weeks. That’s for Oldest Guide’s Gold activity. I’ll take all the Rangers-to-be. We’ll prowl town in the dark, we’ll do some Morse code, we’ll do some first aid, maybe I’ll introduce some lashing or we’ll do some outdoor cooking – at least, maybe we’ll make some hot chocolate. Some cooking – I once did pizzas and croissants with ready-made dough. It’s far too simple; you just put your toppings on it and bake but it forces them all to join in and they can exercise their imagination a little. That particular one was memorable for the Ranger who asked “can we put the pizza toppings on the croissant and the croissant toppings on the pizza?” and was utterly taken aback when I said “Sure, if you want”. They’ve never been allowed to deliberately do something differently from the instructions but why not? Savoury dough with chocolate, croissants filled with ham and pineapple, why not?
Yes, I’m going to plan a half term full of Ranger activities for the older girls and then after half term, we’ll use their ideas to plan the rest of the term – and then the summer term, which will be exciting! – how they want. I’m really looking forward to this!
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