The Internet’s Brown Owl
Hi, I’m Juliet and I’m the Internet’s Brown Owl. I’ve seen at least three people who refer to themselves as “the Internet’s Big Sister” and that’s not me. But the Internet’s Brown Owl? Yep, that can be me.
I was a Brown Owl. That is, I was Girlguiding volunteer, holding the role of main adult leader with a Brownie unit and although I was generally referred to by my name, I had a Brown Owl badge and I tried to suggest the girls use Brown Owl sometimes. I’m now Snowy Owl, which is an unofficial title for one of the non-main Brownie leaders. Other sections don’t use the owl names. It’s a Brownie thing.
My Guiding credentials go as follows:
I started as a Rainbow in 1990, which I never realised means I was one of the very earliest Rainbows. I graduated to Brownies and then to Guides. As a Guide I was also a Pack Leader, which is a role we now call “Brownie Helper”. When I aged out of Guides, I got shunted up to Young Leader because I wouldn’t leave and when I reached eighteen, I suppose I became a unit helper or occasional helper – I went away to uni but I came back for camps and events and returned whenever my terms mismatched enough that the Guides weren’t on holiday at the same time.
In 2007, I intended to join the Guides as an adult leader but while I was at uni, they’d started a Ranger unit which was running in a back room with no leader, except when the Guide leaders popped their heads in to check they were all still alive. So I took over the Rangers. They’ve been on hiatus since March 2020.
In September 2009, a colleague spied an advert in the local paper – a Brownie unit was about to close, in the centenary year. So she stepped up as its leader and I went with her. I stayed with them for four years, then due to a combination of stuff with the other leader and my job moving its office, I left.
I went back to my usual district to open a new Brownie unit, only the other Guides were about to close because their leader was leaving, so I rescued them and kept that up for about four years. I hated the Guide age group, quite frankly.
As I was starting to feel that, another Brownie unit went into crisis and so I moved from the Guides to rescue that Brownie pack. I was a second leader there until January 2020, when the main leader stepped back to become a unit helper and so I took over just in time to steer the unit through a time of unprecedented uncertainly and three times the admin.
Then that unit very suddenly closed in September 2022, without my knowledge or consent. I advertised on the county Facebook group and joined a new Brownie unit in a new district and division as Snowy Owl and joined a new Guide unit in another new district and division with the intention of turning their older girls into a brand new Ranger unit.
Yes, I’ve spent my Guiding career as the Crisis Leader. The one who swoops in to nurse dying units, the one who’s never really had the opportunity to settle into a thriving unit with a settled team. I’m hoping that time is now. Fifteen years is enough time to spend as the district rescuer.
When I was a Brownie, I was an Imp and then Sixer of the Elves. In Guides, I was a Kingfisher, then a Chaffinch and held both Patrol Second and Patrol Leader. As an adult, I’ve been Bumblebee, Brown Owl and now Snowy Owl. It’s too late to rebrand all this, and besides I’m the internet’s Brown Owl, not my own girls’.
Besides holding three adult leadership qualifications, I’m a county leadership mentor, a member of the Internet Trefoil Guild, an archery instructor and a fencing coach. I think that’s all the hats I have at the moment. I was briefly employed by one of Girlguiding TACs but I never actually worked there. I’ve volunteered at their large scale events a couple of times. I’m the biggest fan there is of the winter survival event Sparkle & Ice.
And now I’m the Internet’s Brown Owl.
The Internet's Brown Owl 