On Friday evening we spent time getting to know each other and taking part in a variety of games. Sylwia Kiro Żabińska, Katie Erskine, Malaika Rose and other Guiders ran a series of team-building challenges. There was a lot of laughter as the groups speeded up to pass the cards in a row, experimented with moving a pile of five hands from one sheet of paper to another and then

 stretched their creativity by building a house of their dreams (in some casesbearing a striking resemblance to an enchanted tower, a spa or...uhm...a pink submarine). One of the participants, Hazel Leeper, told everyone about her trip to a Guiding International Camp in December and presented a gorgeous badge which all guiding members can earn by completing the challenge!

 

On Saturday morning the participants were divided into two groups and attended sessions on Additional Needs and General Inclusion and Ethnicity, led by Hazel McPake and Sylwia Kiro Żabinska respectively. During Hazel’s session, the participants visited the area of hidden additional needs, exploring speech, communication and language difficulties and the impact these can have. At Sylwia’s session the girls were experimenting with what it is like to be included or excluded because of factors beyond their control (in this case, their height). They also focused on migration processes by ‘finding a home in the world’: marking on a huge world map the places where they had Scottish/British family members or friends (blue dots), where their current neighbours/friends came from (green dots) and places which they or their families had visited (pink dots). Janet Ballinghall’s activity also took them for a short visit to a refugee camp. Finally the participants explored some hopes and fears of their peers born outside the UK and coming to live in Scotland. After an hour and a half the groups swapped venues, to enable the girls to participate in both sessions.

 

A yummy lunch, prepared by Agnes Haggart, our invaluable Quartermaster, was much appreciated by everybody and sustained the girls enough to face an environmental challenge run by Janice Spence – to rescue the Great Mother Octopus during a Wide Game. The teams, named after the inhabitants of a maritime realm, had to visit five bases and complete a variety of tasks which included making more ink to offer and collecting food to feed the starving octopus. All teams did a really good job and the Great Mother Octopus heaved in delight after receiving all the offerings.

 

Later in the afternoon everybody got back in groups for two shorter sessions and worked on finding practical solutions on how to include people with additional needs and from various ethnic groups. The girls also tried first-hand the activities which they can do in their own Units or in the Units where they are Young Leaders. There was a lot of laughter as the girls tried the activities (including the lip-reading) brought by Hazel McPake and Malaika Rose. The girls also shared Inclusion experiences from their own Units.

 

At the Ethnicity session they were discussing how to make others feel welcome. They also discussed what activities they can do during a Brownie or Guide weekend if some of the members of their unit were born outside Britain to make them feel more at home. The girls showed a deep level of understanding of the potential issues and some of their ideas surprised even the facilitators! Towards the end of the session, the participants indulged in a ‘fair food’ exercise, unofficially also known as ‘the Smarties game’, during which a number of sweets were distributed among the participants according to the country of origin which they had picked up at random before. The participants discussed how they felt having just a little (or a lot!) of their ‘wealth’ and how they felt when, in course of the activity, their resources grew or diminished.

 

After a dinner with a Mexican twist (tasty fajitas with ingredients and condiments to suit every taste), Janet invited everybody to pick up some nice second-hand items from The Boutique. All the clothes, handbags and accessories had been donated by the participants and the clothes left at the end of the day were given to a charity shop after the event.

 

The evening was spent on deciphering the codes and looking for clues to a murder-mystery game run by Morven Clark and Christina Monigatti. The tasks proved to be rather difficult and the villains were very elusive, trying even to take on the identity of some unfortunate Senior Section members who had lost their badges earlier on the day! However, due to honed detective skills of the participants, by the end of the evening the villains were identified, unmasked and put to justice.

 

As most of the participants were still on high energy levels on Sunday morning and wanted more outdoor challenges, they got to enjoy a few sunny hours outside, playing games led by Christina Monigatti, Hazel Leeper, Lucy Wakefield, Ruth Gallacher and Morag McLintock, our Leader-in-Charge. Around lunchtime all the flags and trophies were captured, challenges completed, fruit juice drunk and songs sung. We even had a morning bonfire to finish the event.

 

A few initiatives have stemmed out of this year’s Diffusion. A number of participants have asked us for Inclusion and Diversity activities, so they can try them in their Units. Thank you to everyone for your initiative, the activities have now been sent to you. Please do contact us and let us know how they worked. And if you have any photos or feedback on them, even better! 

 

Christina is planning to lead a group of Senior Section members to work on Inclusion and Diversity challenge (focusing at the moment on Additional Needs and Ethnicity areas), to provide the Units with attractive activities and tasks to work on. Hazelhave sent the participants information on opportunities available to Senior Section members and Sylwia and Malaika are looking forward to continue promoting Inclusion and Diversity in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

 

We would definitely welcome more volunteers to join those initiatives, so if you’re a Senior Section member and would like to contribute to any of the above, even if you did not attend Diffusion, do get in touch!