Reflecting on the WAGGGS Europe Conference

Five days after we arrived in Berlin, the UK delegation - bleary-eyed but still smiling - can feel pleased that we've achieved what we set out to do at the WAGGGS Europe Conference.

Amanda Medler, our UK candidate, has been elected to the Europe Committee and appointed Vice Chair. Members of the UK delegation did a brilliant job lobbying other Member Organisations in advance of the election, highlighting Amanda's impressive skills and experience, and I'm thrilled we got the result we wanted. We have a fantastic Committee, led by Switzerland's Corinna Hauri, to support the development and growth of Guiding in Europe over the next three years.

We've acted on the steer we received from Girlguiding UK Trustees, gaining support from many other Member Organisations in our request for clarity over how WAGGGS Regions are funded at World level.

And we've built all sorts of connections with other Member Organisations, sharing what we've been up to in Girlguiding and learning from our European colleagues. We also have a good understanding of the priorities of WAGGGS in the lead-up to the World Conference next year - in particular, the work they are doing on governance and the membership development strategy they are producing.

Proceedings can feel unwieldy. At 11.30pm on Sunday when Laura and I were several hours into discussions with the Procedural Team about the finer wording of the motion we were proposing, we felt like very small cogs in a massive machine. On the occasions when votes needed to be counted more than once, as we raised pink rectangles of cardboard, the process felt rather clunky.

But the Conference has a special role in acting as a common voice. There are a diverse range of Member Organisations across Europe - those which are girl-only like Girlguiding UK, those in which Scouts and Guides are together in one national organisation and a number of WAGGGS organisations that admit boys as members, following a pilot some years ago. Across these organisations, there are different perspectives on the route to take, but there is a common destination. All of us aim to make girls feel valued and support them to fulfil their potential.

As Lara Tonna said in her closing speech as outgoing Chair of the Europe Committee, Guiding and Scouting does not happen at European level. It is in villages and cities, in the mountains and countryside across Europe that volunteers provide opportunities for girls and young women to experience Guiding. The Europe Conference is a great motivator, demonstrating that we are part of a strong network and reminding us that our weekly meetings with young members contribute to the amazing worldwide patchwork of Guiding.

Speaking to Katerina, the International Commissioner of Greece, was particularly inspiring. Facing serious financial challenges, the Greek Guiding Association reached out to Girlguiding UK several months ago and we were delighted to be able to offer support via the Guide Friendship Fund. Katerina said the impact of us extending the hand of friendship was more than financial. She was able to demonstrate to her Board the importance of WAGGGS in knitting together members across the world. There's a common bond shared by all Guides and in times of challenge we help each other.

In closing, I'd like to say a huge thank you to all members of the UK delegation for their energy, enthusiasm and clear thinking. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing the Conference with Gill, Pip, Laura, Amy and Jo, who has diligently been keeping readers of this blog updated. We were a great team and had a lot of fun - I wish everyone safe journeys home and a well-deserved rest.

The end of the road

And so the conference comes to a close and Craig and Lara, the chairs of the WOSM and WAGGGS committees respectively, share their reflections of their time working together, and presenting the two new chairs, Andrea and Corinna.

It's been a fabulous few days and an amazing opportunity to meet with friends, old and new, from across the region and across both WAGGGS and WOSM. Here's to the next three years and the next time we all come together in Norway in 2016.

Down to business

So the final day of conference is voting day. Before confeence we had a number of motions sent through. Over the past few days delegations have huddling in corners and lobbying others to support their motion or amendment. This is the serious bit.

Each country gets one vote, no matter what size they are. Some votes are only for full members and others are full and associate members. Everyone has to vote, there is an abstention option, so there were a few hiccups and repeated votes when the count wasn't high enough, but we got there in the end.

We started off voting for the membership development strategy, which we have been discussing in detail over the past two days. And then onto the money  ...
The 2014 budget went through smoothly. We agreed to change the name of the 'voluntary' contribution to 'European' contribution. This is to reflect that whilst it was the choice of the Region to make an extra payment for extra services in Region, particularly in relation to joint activities with WOSM and the unique political European context. To deliver the services the contribution is needed so changing the name helps to reinforce the important nature of this contribution.

We agreed the budget for 2015-17, including the level of European Contribution. Our delegation submitted a new motion regarding the finances that WAGGGS World contributes to the core costs of the Region. We asked for greater transparency, a clear definition of the role of the Regions in delivering WAGGGS world global strategy and to consider the way that all Regions are funded to ensure that the core offer is fully covered across the globe. Switzerland spoke passionately in support of our motion and it was carried by conference. We will now work closely with the Region and WAGGGS World, offering our support in this task.

There was also an interesting discussion about spiritual development and relationships with specific faith groups. Girlguiding UK absolutely supports spiritual development within guiding and scouting. The events run at Europe level make a space for reflection and celebration together and WAGGGS has a fantastic resource in the spiritual development toolkit. The motion was not carried as it implied additional resources needed from the Region and this contradicted the strategy and budget that had already been agreed.

So a fascinating morning for those of us who were new to conference and a great mandate for a new committee. The next three years are going to be a great opportunity to build on the fantastic work of the outgoing committee to strengthen the region and deliver a greater impact for girls.

Free Being Me

'Free Being Me'

Watch out for this phrase, you're going to hear a lot more about it from WAGGGS next year but with a Teaser activity available on the website  from September 2013. 

Paul Bigmore, Head of Programme for Dove work in WAGGGS, outlined the Dove global project to a small group of conference delegates; we were encouraged to consider the regional and global relevance of body image and self-esteem and to consider how the project could work in our Member Organisations/countries.

A shocking statistic for you: 6 out of 10 girls will stop doing something they love because of their body image and poor self esteem - see the photo image below for more statistics that will bring home to you what our girls and young women are facing in their lives in our society today.

Dove has worked with 11m girls and young women across the world on projects to improve their self esteem and through the partnership with WAGGGS will reach a further 3.5m by 2016.

Is this an issue just facing girls? No! Boys are affected too. We heard from Swedish delegates how male leaders can help to raise girls' self esteem and how their boys need support as well as girls. It's important for our girls to see that this is an issue for boys and men as well as girls and women.

WAGGGS working with Dove - what are the benefits for us? We'll have new programme resources and badges for our sections with aged relevant material carefully devised in consultation with academic experts, delivered by our peer educators and adult leaders. 

This was just a taster session for our conference delegates but one that we agreed would be useful in supporting our existing self esteem programme material and with relevance to boys as well as girls.  

That Monday morning feeling

After the excitement of the elections yesterday and the hard canvassing that had been put in by the UK delegation, that Monday morning feeling kicked in on day 4............

This morning started with the announcement of the Chair and Vice Chair of the WAGGGS Europe Committee.  Corinna Hauri has been elected as Chair and we are very proud to announce that our very own Amanda Medler has been elected as Vice Chair.

The delegation then split up and attended 3 different question and answer sessions on future strategy regional and global.  The 3 sessions were:

-          Membership development strategy

-          Thematic strategies

-          Governance Review

 

After a much appreciated coffee break, the delegation took part in discussion groups that provided an opportunity to broaden the exchanges on the regional strategic themes, from a Membership Organisation and Regional perspective.  

Diversity highlighted the challenges faced from well established to relevantly new organisations.  Common themes emerged around migration, social disadvantage and financial restrictions.  There was a lot of overlap with this session and the session on membership growth.  Both highlighted that visibility of Guiding and Scouting was essential and needed to be developed.  For example, in the UK we are known as a trusted organisation and this has enabled us to campaign on issues such as ‘No more page 3’ with far reaching impact around the UK and globally.  There were discussions around the changing roles of our volunteers and young members in society and the impact this has on our membership.  Some Countries explained how they have trailed ‘Being a Leader for a day’ sessions to allow adults to understand what it means to be a volunteer  and that you do not have to be a lead volunteer but can support the organisation in many other ways.

This morning we spend time in various discussion sessions including Diversity and Membership Growth.  For the Diversity sessions we were split into groups made up of neighbouring countries and discussed what were the barriers and solutions

Congratulations Amanda

We are delighted that Amanda has been reelected to the WAGGGS Europe Committee. Amanda has worked so hard over the past three years and we are looking forward to seeing everything else she can achieve in the next Triennium.  Joining Amanda on the committee are Nina from Sweden, Corinna from Switzerland, Pascale from Belgium, Sharon from Malta and Eri from Greece.

In the picture below Amanda is surrounded by the Girlguiding UK delegation, keynote speaker Bijal and Nicola Grinstead, Girlguiding UK member and vice-chair of the WAGGGS World Board.

Future Strategy

This afternoon we have looked at the future strategy for WAGGGS Europe.  Much of what can be achieved is determined by how much budget there is.  WAGGGS Europe is different to other Regions within WAGGGS in that MOs pay an extra financial contribution to have additional services and an office in Brussels. The economic climate in Europe has been a challenge for many MOs and the extra contribution puts a starain on many countries.  The Committee is recommending no inflationary increase for the next triennium, which means a reduced budget in real terms.

The Committee propose a strategy that covers growth, gendered leadership and diversity. There will be a need to seek additional funding for many proposed projects and there's an important aspect of ensuring that the work is relevant to the whole of the Region, covering WAGGGS-only and Scout and Guide National Organisations. The Committee and staff team have done a lot of work to pull together a strategy proposal and there is lots for Girlguiding UK to think about in terms of how best out of our membership of WAGGGS Europe as well as the skills and resources that we can offer to both the Region and other MOs within Europe Region.

Body image Keynote Speech

So to kick off our Sunday morning we started with an inspiring 3-part keynote speech focusing on a key issue facing girls across Europe - Body Image.  Our first speaker was Sarah Anderson.  Sarah is a volunteer member of the No More Page 3 Team. The ‘No More Page 3’ campaign is a petition calling for The Sun newspaper to stop printing pictures of topless women on page 3, and has gathered over 90,000 signatures. It was started during the Olympics in summer 2012, when a writer called Lucy-Anne Holmes found that the largest female image in The Sun was of a young woman showing her breasts, even though Jessica Ennis had just won her gold Olympic medal.

Sarah talked to us about the representations that we see in the media in the UK and across Europe. Less than a quarter of political representatives across Europe are women and the majority of mainstream sports coverage is for male sport. In the UK only 5% of national newspapers are edited by women. Whilst that more women editors doesn't guarantee better female representation within the pages, it's got to help, right?

Dr Phillippa Diedrichs is a research health psychologist specialising in body image and eating disorder prevention. She has a PhD in health psychology and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England.  She shared her research, and referred to the Girlguiding UK Girls Attitudes research, that shows that how a person thinks about the way they look has a significant impact on their lives.  This is a significant issue for girls but does also affect boys and adults.  When a girl has low body image they are also likely to be impacted by other issues such as poor nutrition and difficulties with their mental wellbeing.

It also impacts on their social interactions and is a huge barrier that girls guiding and girl scouting must tackle as a barrier to empowerment.  Girls who are unhappy with the way they look are less likely to engage in social situations or to take action on social justice issues. Our purpose is to enable girls to fulfil their potential and to be a powerful force for good and so this is an area that we cannot ignore.

The keynote speech was finished off by Bijal Rama from Girlguiding UK's Advocate group. Whilst her family protected her from the kind of images in The Sun they are unavoidable at school and out in the community.  She felt judged by others against the ideal body image that was held up in these papers.  Guiding helped Bijal to develop the confidence to be herself in the safe non-judgemental environment we provide, with strong female role models.

Girlguiding UK signed up to the No More Page 3 campaign after a call from our young members. This was an issue that they felt passionately about and so we got behind the campaign.  Please join us by signing the petition.

The past triennium

This afternoon the Guide conference started with a presentation on the past triennium.  It was great to hear about the  work that the committee has undertaken, along with the staff team at the Europe office.  Volunteers like Amanda Medler, have worked hard to get around 87% of Member Organisations (MOs), helping girl guiding and girl scouting devlop. This has included developing girls as leaders through  the World Leadership Development Programme (WLDP) and supporting the development of the Stop The Violence campaign and programme (which Girlguiding UK is piloting).

It's been a busy three years, especially as there have been changes within the committee and the staff team and to make sure that the Region builds on the succeses and learns from the challenges they also undertook an external evaluation to help forward planning to be more targetted on the needs of the MOs and to ensure that resources (time and money) are applied effectively and efficiently.  A lot of work has also been done to get the finances in order to ensure that the Region knows where the money is going and is starting to look at return on investment.

Strengthening the relationship with MOs and expanding fund development are key activities at the moment.  This will ensure that we as MOs get value for money from our membership of WAGGGS, and in particular WAGGGS Europe, and that these benefits impact on the girls that we support every week.

So alot has happened, but there is still so much more to do to help more girls and young women to fulfill their potential and to be a powerful force for good. Can't wait to get onto future strategy now  ...

Raise your hands for Amanda Medler

The Girlguiding UK delegation are very excited to be supporting Amanda Medler as a candidate for the WAGGGS Europe committee. Amanda has spent the past three years helping WAGGGS Member Organsiations across Europe, finding solutions to problems and lending her hand to otherqs.  She works in partnership with others, the staff and the widere European team, as well as with WOSM.

Voting for Amanada is voting for continuing the great work of  the current committee to get the work of WAGGGS Europe coordinated and driving forward growth and quality in girl guiding and girl scouting in Europe.

Whilst Amanda comes form Girlguiding UK, a WAGGGS-only organisation, she has a strong understanding of the needs of Scout and Guide National Organisations and the benefit that they bring to WAGGGS in Europe.

If you are at conference and want to know more about Amanda just come and find any of the Girlguiding UK delegation. Today we are all in white polo shirts and red, white and blue scarves.

Opening the joint conference

And so the conference proper is underway.  After sorting out who can vote and getting the right channel on our translation headsets the conference is officially opened.  We started with a speech from two German former youth delegates to the UN General Assemby to talk about young people influencing youth policy worldwide. It is so important to start a conference like this remembering that we are youth organsiations and our focus must be on the impact we have on young people across Europe.

Their recommendation is to act local and think global, and to do this by seeking partners for your organsiation.  Girlguiding has a great example of this in the Girls in Action project. We are working in partnership with five charities to focus on issues that affect girls and young women in the UK and across the globe and helping girls to take action for other girls.  It is a fantastic project with some amazing charity partners.  You can find out more on our website or if you are at the conference visit our exhibition stand.

They also gave us a call to action to help more young people discover Scouting and Guiding.  Whilst we reach many young people across Europe there are so many more whwo don't get the opportunities that we offer.  We have a responsibility to reach out and engage more children and young people to give help them develop to fulfill their potential and to be a powerful force for change.

And let's be proud to be be Guides and Scouts!

What a first day!

The conference git off to a flying start today with an opening ceremony outside the Reichstag - what a setting! It was a great opportunity to start the dialogue about building Europe together. It ended with some fantastic stars decorated by German Guides and Scouts that came together to form the European flag, followed by scarves decorated by each delegation showing how Guides and Scouts can build Europe.

All followed by a bbq, quick drink and networking, and an early night ready for a full-on day tomorrow!

We've arrived!

After an interesting flight (with a few different stag dos!) we've arrived in Berlin! We were greeted with a big smile and a conference smile - the hosts are doing a fine job!

Meet the delegation - Laura

Hi,
I'm Laura from the UK Delegation! I am really excited about attending the European conference in Berlin. I have been involved in WAGGGS Europe as part of the advocacy and external relations working group for the last 6 years and have had a fantastic time. I have learnt so much from these experiences and I am really keen to attend the conference and be involved.

I am looking forward to meeting scouts and guides from all over Europe and working together over the next five days. See you in Berlin!

Meet the delegation - Gill

Hello, I'm Gill and am so looking forward to this conference. It will
be my 2nd and I know how much fun it will be. It's such a great opportunity to share practice and ideas with other MOs as well as to meet up with friends again!

WAGGGS means a lot to us in the UK and we very much appreciate all the support and networking that being part if it enables us to benefit from.

Wow!

Have just seen the photos from the Africa Region conference that has recently finished - can Germany beat this for entertainment?

Amanda Medler for Europe Committee

Before we get to conference we want to take this opportunity to tell you why we're supporting Amanda Medler who is standing for WAGGGS Europe Committee.  Amanda is passionate about guiding and has dedicated herself to enabling more girls and young women to gain from thebamazing opportunities it brings. In the UK she has sat on the national board and been the lead volunteer for our programme development, as well as continuing to run her own Guide unit.

She has also been active on the intenational scene and has spent the last three years on the WAGGGS Europe Comittee, working closely with many countries to build capacit and to improve the guiding and scouting offer. You can find out more about Amanda and why she's standing here.

So join us and raise your hands for Amanda!

Almost there ...

Only a few days to go and we'll be in Berlin with friends from all across Europe. The Europe conference is an exiting time in the guiding calendar, especially as alojgside the WAGGGS Europe conference there is the European Scout conference. This gives us a great chance to meet and talk European issues with our colleagues from The Scout Association here in the UK.

This is also the first Europe conference wher socail media wil be actively encouraged. In fact is some sessions questions will be taken via twitte, opening the conference to all our members who can't be a part of the delegation. So if you have a twitte account make sure you are following @Girlguiding and @EuropeRegion and hashtag #14egsc.

Meet the delegation - Amy

Hi I’m Amy Binley and I am really looking forward to attending the WAGGGS Europe Conference in about two weeks time.  I am so grateful to get this opportunity and plan to make the most out of my time there.

I am the Coordinator of the South West Inspired Young Guiders – aka SWIYG.  I am the Young Guider adviser for Bristol and South Glos and am a Guide Leader and run an annual Guide Pantomime.  I also run a day long simulation event for Guides and Scouts to help build up their resilience, leadership and team work skills. 

I have been in Guiding for 20 years now and have loved every minute of it.    Guiding has made me the woman I am today and it is great to know now I am a Leader, I can give back to a new generation.

When I am not Guiding, I am busy working for the British Red Cross teaching first aid to Year 6 students in a fun and interactive way and run a Youth Leadership course for 14 – 26 year olds.

I cannot wait for the Conference and meeting members from other Countries and finding out how they run Guiding and the projects they have going on.  I am looking forward to coming back inspired and full of enthusiasm which I can hopefully bring to my roles here.