Guide Leadership
One of the best things about Guiding is that the Guide Leaders arent running the show - the Guides are! This page has different resources I have used to encourage Guides to be leaders and help them to plan and run activities. There are also resources we use with patrol leaders, or to help the unit choose patrol leaders.
This sheet was designed for Patrol Leaders, Junior BP Candidates or other Guides running activities to help them in their planning. It gives things to think about when choosing what to do, and then uses the AGP Process to give step-by step tips for each stage of running an activity.
This document contains scripts for 3 very short skits, which allow guides to demonstrate and identify different leadership styles. This docuement is designed to be printed, and then have each script cut out and given to Guides to prepare and preform. Skits roughtly represent
authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire styles of leadership.
When I was working with my 5-7 year old unit, we made a big effort to make sure we implemented the patrol system, albeit in a way which was suited to our Guides developmental stage. For us, this meant that while Guides often did activities in their patrols, there wasn't a set patrol leader. However, we did like to give each Guide to opportunity to be the patrol leader on a rotational basis.
We were also a unit which choose not to wear sashes. Therefore, to identify patrols, we made the Guides laminated & saftey pinned name badges, with their patrol emblem and colour. Each week, we would put the patrol leader stripes behind the name badge of the Guide who's turn it was to be patrol leader. This document is the template for name badges, and patrol leader stripes. Download it, and with any luck you will be able to edit to suit your needs.
This sheet was desinged to acompany the Running Games and Activities Tip Sheet. It uses the AGP process, and takes Guides through the process of preparing to run a game or activity with a group, including listing equiptment, thinking of saftey, planning timing and considering how to give instructions.
This document lists different qualitites for leadership on cards, which may be printed and cut out, to be used for different activities. Some ideas for what they might be used for are for Guides to identify the qualities they hold, ranking qualities in order of importance or to help list qualities partrols want to have in their patrol leader. If you print two copies, you can also play snap!
This Patrol Leaders Handbook was created for leaders in my 7-10 year old unit, and was given to them at their Patrol Leader Training. It outlines the roles of Patrol Leaders, Patrol Seconds and Patrol Members, and gives other information and ideas.
This handbook is best printed in colour, duplex printed (on reasonable quality paper) with short side stapling/flipping. In the file linked is a generic PDF versions which may be used as is, and also a Microsoft Word versions which you can edit to suit your own unit and requirements. Please note this was not created on Word, so formatting is not quite as easy. You will also likely not have the fonts the document was originally made in, which may affect formatting when you first open it. Be sure to go through each page in detail and edit to suit your own unit, as some references were quite specific to mine.