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We are going to the WAGGGS European Conference 2016!

Girlguiding at the WAGGGS European Conference

WAGGGS Europe supports 39 Member Organisations (including the UK). 

The 15th European Guide Conference is taking place in Norway from 17-21 June 2016 and of course, Girlguiding will be there!

The Conference will bring together Member Organisations (MOs) to discuss the strategies and policies for the future development of Girl Guiding and Scouting in Europe.

But it's not just us! The 15th European Guide and Scout Conference is held at the same time 22nd European Scout Conference. These are the general assemblies of the member organisations in the European Region of WOSM and WAGGGS. We are looking forward to working with our Scouting counterparts.

We will bring you more information about our excited delegation soon which consists of:

 Valerie le Vaillant – Chief Guide

 Caroline Davis - International Commissioner 
 Charlotte Makanga – International Commissioner Designate

 Laura West – Candidate for Europe Committee

 Rebecca Cook – Deputy International Commissioner

 Emma Guthrie – Council member and Lead Volunteer for ERW/Girlguiding 

Scotland gendered leadership project.

At the Conference the MOs will elect six volunteers to the Europe Committee. We are excited and proud to support Laura West in her campaign. Find out more about Laura and her campaign here soon!

You can follow us in the run up to and throughout the conference here or on our Facebook page - other social mediums to follow soon!

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