Thursday - Motions, Voting and Coming Together for Her World

Thursday 

After a fantastic day at Forum workshops sharing experiences and learning's between MOs, on Thursday morning it was back to the governance side of things with voting sessions on the proposed motions and amendments. You can read more about the motions in more detail in Document 6b here: https://www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/governance/world-conference/36th-world-conference/documents/ 

During the opening business of the conference on Monday, (which seems quite a long time ago already!) we voted and passed the first set of 10 motions, including those that affect the constitution of WAGGGS. During today’s session we had a grand total of 23 proposed motions and amendments to get through. Huge thank you and acknowledgement of the Conference Chair Sandra and her team as well of the procedural team led by Helen. They did an outstanding job at explaining the governance points, allowing meaningful debate and still keeping us to time. 

This was even more impressive when you remember that conference voted in favour of allowing motions to be proposed during the conference, with a Tuesday deadline ready for vote on Thursday! 

Some of the key motions that were passed by the World Conference: 

- 🎉 the World Board will conduct an investigation into the barriers preventing young women from applying for WAGGGS governance roles and develops concrete actions to address this 🎉

- Uganda 🇺🇬will host the 37th World Conference in 2020

- WAGGGS to continue ongoing work of cooperation with WOSM through advocacy on global issues affecting Guiding and Scouting📣

- WAGGGS recognises the importance and advantages of a girl-only environment and undertakes to protect this important aspect of girl guiding and girl scouting 🙋

- World Conference fees will continue to offer discount based on under 30 delegates and wealth band💷

- Development of tools around girl guiding and girl scouting educational methods for different age groups👭👫

- Recommendation to host a Girl Guide/ Girl Scout Experienced Forum in the next triennium👭

- Arabic is now the 4th official language of WAGGGS alongside English, French and Spanish 📢

- Kusafiri is continued to be supported with a dedicated programme of events, budgets and scholarships🌍

- Agenda 2030 and Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security is integrated into the 2018-20 Global Strategic Plan ☮️

- Coordination of International Commissioner contact details on an annual basis📝

- the World Board encourages the preparation of MOs for future World Conferences✏️

We were particularly excited about the response to proposed motion 32, which Bekky had written in partnership with Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Austria and co-signed by a further 11 MOs. The motion passed with 103 in favour, one of the largest majority’s of the morning and received a standing ovation from the floor.  

The voting session finished with passionate debates around the final two motions relating to our relationship with WOSM and the importance of girls-only space. As the UK delegation we were really pleased that both motions passed and spoke to support this during the session. As a girls only organisation with a good relationship with our WOSM counterparts, UK Scouting we are strongly in support of a girls only environment but also recognise that co-education is important and other models are of equal value. It is important for each MO to chose a model that is right for their situation and we are confident that WAGGGS can continue to support the girl only environment and to work closely with WOSM on issues affecting Guiding and Scouting.  

“Coming together for Her World” was the fantastic afternoon and opportunity to hear from many of WAGGGS partners and provided us with lots to think about in our own work.  

We hear about the Sustainable Development Goals and how WAGGGS’s expertise and priorities of non formal education, leadership development and advocacy are shaping what we do. 

We also heard from U-Report, TheGoals.org, UPS Foundation, Dove, UN Women and an exciting new fundraising platform set up to support WAGGGS – the World Guide Foundation. 

Wednesday - Forum Day!

Wednesday

Today marks the half way point to the 36th WAGGGS World Conference! We started off the day of course with our delegation morning meeting over breakfast. We are all enjoying the wonderful waffles and pancakes the hotel has on offer. It's was great to spend the morning together as we were all doing different things for the rest of the day.

Today's is a unique day for the conference as it consisted of various forum workshops that were taking place which were on so many different topics, it was hard to decide what to do!

We decided today would be the day we wore our lovely Girls Can t-shirts. We decided early in the morning to take our delegation photograph before we all split up (or spilt something down our nice white t-shirts!). We made some lovely friends from Palestine whilst we were outside in the sunshine, after spending quite a bit of time inside in the cool rooms with air con the heat was a little bit of a surprise to our systems.

Lots of photos on our Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/GuidingWAGGGS36thWorldConference/

We were excited for session two as we hosted our very own forum session on the topic of Social Action. We had 50 attendees to our session who were keen to learn about what Social Action is and how they can get involved themselves. We gave examples of different social Action projects that have already taken place in Girlguiding UK including a project to make Ivybridge in Devon a Fairtrade town and Girlguiding’s Action for Change project.


After hearing a little about what Social Action is the attendees were challenged to come up with their own ideas for Social Action project ideas and shared stories about projects they have done themselves. It was really great to hear the variety of projects that had already happened around the world as well as the inspiring ideas groups came up with.

At the end of our session we gave our attendees their very own Girls Can badge which they were keen to wear proudly on their scarves and conference lanyards.

We all enjoyed greatly all of the other forum sessions that we attended and thank the forum session leaders for all their hard work and inspirational messages.

The majority of the conference delegates spent the evening off on their adventures in either the markets of New Delhi or at a Bollywood evening. Our UK delegation decided to use the night off to spend some quality time together after spending the day apart. We enjoyed a lovely evening meal in the hotel as well as plenty of laughs and giggles.

Time for bed to get some very important sleep ready for tomorrow!

~ Leah

Tuesday - discussions, markets and networking

Tuesday

Another jam packed day at Conference!

Morning business was all about the proposed motions and amendments submitted prior to the Conference. Whoever has proposed the Motion has the opportunity to give a short introductory speech about the background and rationale behind the motion before the discussions are opened up to everyone. Every MO is only allowed to speak once on each motion for 3 minutes and we had a morning of lively debates and in depth discussions about the finer points of the proposed motions.

You can read more about the Motions that we will be voting on the WAGGGS website here: https://www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/governance/world-conference/36th-world-conference/documents/

Depending on the type of action or change being put forward either Full or Full and Associate Members can vote. For example, a change that affects the WAGGGS Constitution can only be voted on by Full members and needs 75% for the motion to be passed.

We discussed a wide range of motions - from approving a name change for Luxembourg Scouts from Bureau de Liaison des Associations des Guides du Luxembourg to Letzebuerger Guiden a Scouten, Membership Fees and how they are decided, to who should host the next World Conference!

After lunch it was time for the Market of Ideas - an opportunity to share some of the fantastic work happening in Girlguiding and learn from others around the world. We'll share some of the really interesting ideas and projects we heard about later in the week!
We also had the opportunity to participate in Networking meetings including MOs running the Free Being Me programme, the largest girl-only MOs and learning about mentoring new countries.

The rest of the evening provided an opportunity to go speed dating with the World Board candidates! It was a great chance to talk to each candidate more in depth about their skills and what they will bring to the board.

Monday - new members, strategy and opening ceremony

Monday 

The first official day of Conference with a Extra-ordinary General Meeting to tidy up some business from the 35th World Conference that took place in Hong Kong 3 years ago. This was related to a change in where and how WAGGGS is registered as a UK Charity - a very technical way of getting Conference started but an important part of our governance.

After this we were able to get started with the opening of the 36th World Conference and moved quickly on to the first votes; appointing the Chair of the Conference, Tellers and some interesting constitutional amendments. The conference voted in favour of a series of motions proposed by the World Board that now allow for both motions and amendments to be proposed during the Conference itself, this will allow much greater opportunity to Member Organisations (MOs) during the week to raise and act upon important issues that arise from discussions.

Our electronic voting pad for the week!

This also means the Procedural Team (who make sure everything we vote on fits within the rules and regulations of WAGGGS) and team of translators have a very busy time on Tuesday evening getting all new motions and amendments prepared for distribution in time for discussion and voting on Thursday!

Several of the blog readers will know about the incredible team of interpreters and translators that work very hard throughout the conference and we're really proud that Jo, from Cheshire Border, North West England is the Chief Interpreter and doing an excellent job.

One of the most amazing and important voting sessions of the conference also happens on the first day, and that's voting in of new associate and full members so they can fully participate throughout the rest of the conference. Excitingly the conference voted and passed a motion that now allows a prospective MO to go straight from no membership to Full Members without needing to go through the Associate membership step.

Albania and Niger both became Associate Members, Aruba and Syria changed from Associate to Full Member and Azerbaijan and Palestine, with the new motion passed, became Full Members.

We are lucky to be sharing our conference table with Azerbaijan and share in their joy of becoming full members. Aruba has been a UK GOLD project since 2016 so them becoming a full member was a bittersweet moment, as unable to attend the conference at the last minute due to circumstances outside of their control. 

During the membership session we heard from the World Board and Region Committees about some of the outstanding work that has happened in the last trienium. Some highlights:

quadrupled membership tripled to has reached m .m in 2017 and ambition of million by 2020 in Africa

Asia Pacific Region on becoming the biggest Region at .million members and well on target for million by 2020

After a quick sugar boost of chai and biscuits we were ready for the World Board nominee presentations. Catherine did an excellent presentation (watch it here!) and it was great to hear from all 9 candidates about their skills and passion for Guiding.

Catherine with her special Candidate scarf from the World Board

The day finished with the Opening Ceremony, it's hard to describe just what it was like so I hope our pictures help!

First day of conference

The UK delegation all arrived safely in Delhi by Saturday evening and greeted at the airport by the Bahrat Scouts and Guides who had lots of selfie requests!

A couple of us arrived in enough time to head out into Delhi for some sightseeing in the 36 degree heat - a nice change from UK drizzle!

Sunday

The day started with an exciting meeting for Charlotte and Bekky with the Sri Lanka delegation about some future plans, followed quickly by registration for the delegation to receive our official name badges and conference bags.

Della had a very busy day at the Commonwealth Chief Commissioners Conference with plenty of ideas sharing and discussions between different countries taking place.

First official business for the delegation was the Europe Region EGM - meaning our first voting of the conference! It was a packed meeting with lots of lively discussion between organisations and all motions passed.

Finally Bekky and Leah were invited to join a networking session for all the World Conference delegates under 35. It was a great evening and opportunity to talk about the hot topics for the conference and share our thoughts.

Early start tomorrow for the first official day of conference with a 7am team breakfast!