Meet the delegation - Ruth

Meet the delegation - Ruth

I'm the Deputy CEO and Strategy Director at Girlguiding. My job is to help Girlguiding's Trustees and senior volunteer set and implement the strategy for Girlguiding across the UK to ensure that we continue to support our volunteers to deliver fantastic experiences for girls and young women.

I've been in post just over a year and so far it's been an amazing experience. The commitment and passion of the UK's 110,000 volunteers is incredible and it's been a privilege to work with such a skilled group of women, not to mention our amazing young members.

I was lucky enough to be a young member myself and guiding gave me some of my first opportunities to travel independently - to an international camp in Switzerland and to Sri Lanka on GOLD project. Both were really significant experiences for me as a young person and I am passionate about enabling other young women to have the same chances.

I am really looking forward to my first WAGGGS Conference particularly the opportunity to learn more about how Guiding operates in other countries and exploring how WAGGGS can make a real difference to the day to day lives and opportunities of girls and young women across the world.

My favourite badge ❤

I don't have a camp blanket and wasn't big on badges as a Guide. However, the one that really sticks in my mind is my first aid badge. I have used the skills and knowledge I got through doing that badge numerous times since I got it aged about 14. The knowledge I gained was invaluable and it sums up the value of guiding for me. It's not just about developing key skills for life but it also giving you the confidence to use them.

Catherine Irwin - World Board Candidate

Catherine Irwin

Greetings WAGGGS Members!

I am Catherine Irwin, Girlguiding UK’s nominated candidate for election to the World Board.

I am currently a Guide and Ranger leader and some of the girls in my unit wanted to participate in my preparations for the election, so they have produced a short introduction interview – it’s not cinema quality, but we had a lot of fun making it!

Why I am standing for election to the World Board

The World Board has overall responsibility for the direction, governance, and control of WAGGGS. Board members need to have skills, experience and personal qualities needed for strategic management.

With a long professional career over 28 years, first as a Chartered Engineer, and now as a Senior Global manufacturing and technology transformation leader, as well as over 40 years as a member of Girlguiding UK and having held several senior leadership positions, I believe that I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge, skills and abilities that are aligned with the required attributes of a World Board member.

Having attended the 35th World Conference in Hong Kong, I was inspired to do some Guiding work outside my Member Organisation, so, after putting my application forward, I was invited to be a member of the WAGGGS Strategy and Planning Committee who have been responsible for preparing the 2018-2020 Strategic Plan. I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience, and learnt a lot about how WAGGGS works. This, coupled with my Guiding and professional experience, has resulted in me humbly presenting myself to you as a suitable candidate for election to the board.

If I were successful...

As an overarching commitment, I pledge that I will carry out all the duties of a Board member with passion, love, diligence and in the interest of enabling all girls and young women to develop to their fullest potential. I will support the 2018-2020 Strategic plan, and the development of the next triennium plan, and will utilise all my experience, skills, knowledge, and abilities to help give our members tools, connections, and the global voice needed to keep us thriving, united and growing.

I will use my years of experience in a Global leadership role to provide focus on enhancing collaboration both with Member Organisations, Regions and external key stakeholders, and to promote sharing of good practices between Member Organisations. I will listen to you closely and work in the interest of the World Association.

Utilizing my knowledge and experience in senior leadership of Global technology transformations, I will provide support on appropriate platforms, tools, and systems that will improve the WAGGGS Global team’s way of working, including the collection, analysis and utilization of data to understand trends and measure if we are truly on-track towards our quantified goals.

From previous marketing positions and in both professional diversity and Guiding leadership roles, I will use my skills to provide advocacy for our Vision, Mission and Goals, relevant to the needs of the day in our fast-changing society.

Please ask me any questions you many have in the comments below and looking forward to meeting you in India!

Meet the delegation - Catherine

Meet the Delegation - Catherine Irwin 

I'm a Guide & Ranger leader in Monea, a rural area in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland and was previously County Commissioner for Fermanagh. And also a current member of the WAGGGS World Board Strategy Committee, whose main responsibility was the development of the next Triennium Strategic Plan. 

I was part of the UK delegation for 35th WAGGGS World Conference in Hong Kong, where I got more involved in WAGGGS work.

During this year's conference I'm looking forward to sharing: Being our Best – our plan for 2020, renewal of the Ranger program, Peer Education experience.

I'm looking forward to hearing how MOs have felt they were engaged in the development of the next triennium strategic plan and in helping facilitate the Regional and MO tactical plans against this. Also in sharing Good Practice - there is so much that MOs can learn from each other, particularly in areas of membership growth, advocacy and volunteer recruitment.

My favourite badges on my camp blanket ❤

Hostess badge as it is the first badge I gained as a Guide! 

Mexico badge as I bought it to support my daughter's first international adventure with Girlguiding Ulster to Our Cabana!

Meet the Delegation - Leah

Introducing Leah Parsons!

Hi I'm Leah! I'm Senior Section member and a Guide leader for 1st Ivybridge Guides in Devon. My leader name at Guides is Chiff, can you work out why?

I have been a member of Guiding all of my life and have loved every single moment of it and have been extremely lucky with the opportunities I have been able to take up. 

Previously I have volunteered at Our Chalet for 5 seasons spread over 3 years and absolutely love meeting other Guiding members from all over the world! I have also represented Girlguiding UK and WAGGGS at two United Nations Climate Change Conferences. 

I'm looking forward to making more international Guiding friends and being part of making a difference to Guiding at the highest level. I'm also looking forward to learning how different Guiding is in other countries and share with others what Guiding is like in the UK. After the conference I'm also looking forward to visiting Sangam and ticking another WAGGGS World Centre off the list!

My favourite badges on my camp blanket ❤

Sadly when taking my camp blanket out of the box ready for camp this year I have found it has been eaten by moths!! 😞 My favourite badge however is of course my Our Chalet pin. 

My very first international adventure was to Our Chalet as a Guide at 12 years old, I later returned as a Ranger on another international trip which only cemented my love for Our Chalet and as soon as I was 18 years old I returned to volunteer for 6 months. Since then I have volunteered at Our Chalet two more times and led three international trips taking my own Guides and Senior Section members. 

Meet the delegation - Bekky

Introducing Bekky Ashmore!

I'm the Assistant Region Commissioner for North West England and a Brownie leader but not currently with a unit at the moment. I lead on our youth participation work within the Region and I'm really passionate about getting more young women into leadership roles within Girlguiding. 

I'm in charge of Communications for the team so will be responsible for keeping the blog updated with what the UK delegation gets up to in the build up and at the conference.

During the conference Leah and I will be in charge of our Forum 2017 event on Social Action and I'm really looking forward to sharing some of the incredible work that our members in the UK have been up to. I'm hoping to learn more about how other MOs support young women to take on senior leadership roles and local commissioners.

My favourite badges on my camp blanket ❤

My first favourite badge is from 2014 when we broke the world record for the largest ever sleepover! Over 3,500 Brownies slept over at Chester Zoo over the weekend for Safari Slumbers with even more coming for Wild Encounters day events.
I've been privileged to experience some incredible Guiding moments but 2,000 sleeping Brownies in one gigantic tent will take some beating!

My second badge is from another Region event when we headed to Copenhagen last summer to celebrate 100 years of Senior Section. I was running our tug of war base in one of the main beautiful parks in the city and we experienced every type of weather imaginable from beautiful sunshine to torrential rain! It was made an even more special event by a mini Juliette Low Seminar 2015 reunion.

Meet the delegation - Della

Introducing Della Salway!

 I'm a Ranger leader and assistant Guide leader in Portishead, Somerset North county, a trainer and a Girlguiding Trustee.My Guiding name “Pumbaa”…friends can explain the many similarities…plus I’m a Disney freak

Previously  I was Treasurer and member of the World Board of WAGGGS, and UK International Commissioner.

I'll be looking after money at the conference – both from a WAGGGS policy perspective…and as keeper of the spreadsheet for delegation expenses.  “I have been known at previous conferences for my money bags and notebook, but this time we are going digital with an app!”

We will also be coordinating the gathering of Commonwealth Chief Commissioners, which aims to share good practice, and help each other find solutions to challenges.

I'm looking forward to sharing some of the many things that are happening at the moment: Being our Best – our plan for 2020, especially how we are trying to measure our success,  our Think Resilient peer education resource and our local planner for membership growth and retention.

I'm also looking forward to hearing how other member organisations are approaching challenges with membership growth – both recruitment and retention  and discuss how we may could add to our own action plans.

My favourite badges on my camp blanket ❤

Finland ribbon: My first international guiding friends were Liisa and Anna-Kaisa, two leaders from Finland, who stayed with me as home hospitality.  The most memorable part of their visit for me was when they asked me to check their translation of some Finnish customs, including the sauna – not a thing that I had experienced at the time.  I thought that they had made a mistake when they said that you hit yourself with birch twigs…and was very surprised to learn that that was exactly what you do when having a sauna in Finland.  I keep in touch with them still, and was delighted to meet up with them (and their sons) at the World Scout Jamboree in 2007.

Westcountry jamboree:  This was my first experience of an international event in this country, and I attended as a leader with Exeter North East Rangers.  I have very happy memories of the event – awful weather to begin, then sun and fun, and international guests from around the world – but also of my first Ranger unit.  This was a large unit of 21 Rangers, aged from 14 – 18, brilliantly led by Fitz and Vealey, where the activities were all planned by the Unit Executive team of Rangers.  Some incriminating pictures of my shaggy perm still remain.

Meet the delegation - Charlotte

Introducing Charlotte Makanga!

I’m International Commissioner and have been since October 1^st 2016 and feel very honoured to hold the role.

I’m a Guide leader for 1^st Felinheli Guides, and currently helping at Felinheli Brownies as Brown Owl has had a baby! I’m called Tylluan Wen (white owl) at Brownies.  I’m a former GOLD Coordinator and had an amazing time whilst doing it! I’m a first language welsh speaker and that is my working language as well.

I am really looking forward to working with other MO’s to make the next 3 years plans for WAGGGS the best they can be. I am looking forward to sharing ideas and practises with other MO’s and hearing great ideas from others, in particular around growth and retention. I am also interested to see if any MO’s have done any research into International events and retention as I know Norway did a few years ago. I’m also looking forward to seeing Aruba (a current GOLD project) gaining full membership, along with all the other new WAGGGS MO’s.

My favourite badges on my camp blanket ❤

Confession time! Here’s the controversial bit, I really dislike badges! It’s a bit of a joke in my unit as they have made my daughter a blanket and keep giving me badges for her to sew on. As a result, I don’t have many at all! 

The Chile logo is from a polo shirt, it was my first international as a girl to Chile as part of a UK team run then from HQ. This was the start of my journey with international guiding that has seen me travel the world and meet so many guiding sisters, amazing. I will always to grateful to my leader Evelyn for starting this for me and lighting the spark that has kept me in guiding and led me to be International Commissioner today.

The second in the Bangladesh Girl Guides Association promise badge. Making your promise is special wherever you do that but this was given to me on my GOLD project and always reminds me of that special promise and experience.

36th WAGGGS World Conference

In September this year 146 Member Organisations will gather in Delhi for the 36th World Conference! 

As the UK we are sending a delegation of 6 lead by Charlotte Makanga, International Commissioner. Catherine Irwin, Della Salway, Leah Parsons, Ruth Marvel and Bekky Ashmore. Over the next few weeks the delegation will introduce themselves and you can find out more about what they are most looking forward to at the World Conference.

(L-R Bekky, Della, Catherine, Leah, Charlotte, Ruth)

The team has already met and started reading through all the important papers, rules of procedure, how we support Catherine in her nomination for the World Board and most importantly our preparations for the International evening!

We will be hosted by the Bharat Scouts and Guides (the Indian National Member Organisation) and send a week discussing the last 3 years of WAGGGS activities and making important decisions for the next 3 years.

This year the World Conference has three different elements: 

• Governance Matters - all the discussions and voting
• Forum 2017 - networking and sharing (we've got a few exciting things planned that we'll share more about soon!)
• Keeper of the Flame - moments throughout the conference to inspire and celebrate everything in WAGGGS

Keep up to date with everything that we get up to at the World Conference by followoing our facebook page: www.facebook.com/GuidingWAGGGS36thWorldConference