Tools for Leaders
Here are some of the things I've created to make my life a little easier as a Guide Leader. Quite a few of these things are Australian-specific, relating to our award system or uniform - others are more general.
This is a rather old checklist I use to use for my 5-7 year olds. When they arrived at Guides, they would hang their Guide Bag, put on their name tag, and then tick off whether they had all the required items on the uniform checklist. I've uploaded a .word version so that you can change the items on the list to suit your own unit.
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After about a term, the girl's got much better at making sure they had all the part of the uniform. Initially we put stickers on the chart for any Guide who had all the items, but after they got a bit better the whole patrol had to have everything to get a sticker.
We've used this as a poster in the hall, and also as an image on an information sheet for parents explaining uniform requirements. If you'd like to adapt this for your own unit, you are welcome to use the Australian Girl Guide Clip Art in the Clip Art Tab.
This is a template our unit used when most Guides shared a Look Wide book with their patrol. It wasn't an ideal arrangement, but this template helped. Rather then writing in the book, each guide would put their badge planning on one of these sheets which were kept in their own file.
These first aid tags an invention from one of my stints as a sub-camp first aider at a major camp. I cut out and laminate the images. The first aid logo is tied, pinned or threaded onto the backpack of the leader who is carrying a first aid kit. It makes it easy to identify who the first aider is when a group of girls might be with different leaders at activities, or when backpacks are in a huge pile!
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I use the Asthma Puffer tags similarly - with girls who carry their own Asthma relievers attaching the tag to the specific zip of their backpack where their puffer is stored, to make it quicker to find in an emergency.
This Diamond Ranking Template is an evaluation tool. I have 6 copes of the colourful base laminated, and then just use the editable template to insert the names (or pictures) of activities I want the Guides to evaluate. You cut out the activities and they place their favourite at the top, and least favourite at the bottom. It works well for a term program as there are 9 spaces (and often we have 9 meetings!)
Every time we do a public event or fundraiser at fetes, markets or shops, I found myself making a new sheet for enquiries. So then I decided to make a template which I can just print out every time!
This is a template we use for our Guides to keep track of their community service hours, so that they can achieve the Service Flash. We found that they often do more service then they think they do, so having a special sheet to write it on, which can go with them to service activities, is useful. It's also similar to how many girls need to collect service hours for highschool
Our Guides made this handbook 'treasure hunt' for Guides new to the 14+ unit, to help them become familiar with the Handbook 5 (the purple one). There are two documents, a question sheet, and an answer sheet. We'd recommend the best way to do it is have a number of Guides to work together with a few copies of the handbook to complete one set of questions - as all 35 can take a surprisingly long time!