Being A Young Leader


Hello everybody! Welcome to or back to Guiding at Home. It's Wednesday again so I'm going to talk more about an aspect of GirlGuiding. This time I'm going to talk about being a Young Leader seeing as I have some experience in it and you could to.

First of all what is a Young Leader? Well a Young Leader is a Guide or Ranger that volunteers at another unit. You go to a younger unit to help the leaders with the meetings, you run activities and help the girls. I have helped at two Guide units in the last few years but you can also volunteer at Rainbow and Brownies.

When you are 14 you can start working towards a qualification in being a Young Leader. You can do this until you are 18. This starts your journey to being a leader. You learn skills in leadership and get pushed out of your comfort zone. It can go on your CV as well. If you do want to be a Leader, completing the Young Leader Qualification ticks of a lot of the clauses in the Leader Qualification.

So how do you become a Young Leader? To become a Young Leader you need to find a unit requiring one, the best way to find this out is to talk to your Leader. They are connected in the Guiding community and will help you find a unit looking for a Young Leader.

Being a Young Leader isn't the easiest thing in the world but it is very rewarding and so much fun. You need to be reliable, the Leader needs to know if you are going to turn up and if you aren't they need to be told. You need to be willing to take control and help. You should get used to being out of your comfort zone and partake in the unit. Nobody wants a Young Leader that just sits by the side lines. It does take a while to get use to some of the responsibility and you won't be perfect from the start, you just have to find your feet and your leadership style. But you will have so much fun along the way, you find yourself laughing so much and are given loads of opportunities.

Now I'm going to talk about my experience as a Young Leader. As I have said I've helped out at two different Guiding units. The first one I helped out at was my old Guide unit. I use to go there. I liked it to start of with but I didn't have much confidence so I didn't push myself forward enough. I knew most the girls as well and they didn't really register my new authority so they never properly listened to me. I thought by being in a known environment I would be able to shine but all it did was bring me down. I think you have to know your own limits and I knew I would never be able to make the progress I wanted to there. So I decided to move to another Guide unit to help out. If you are reading this I most likely help out at your unit as this blog is directed at you! I find that I fit here more and I can push myself. I'm still nowhere near perfect and nobody can ever be. I still lack confidence so bear with me but everyone is so kind and supportive. I enjoy helping out every week, you all make me laugh and I've really pushed myself. For example before I would have never been able to make this blog. Being in GirlGuiding is all about learning and having fun, if you don't feel right in a situation talk to someone because changing what isn't right will make you a lot happier.

I hope this helped a few of you and if you want more information on being a Young Leader or to look at the clause for the qualification check out the GirlGuiding website:

Please comment below if you have any questions and if there is anything else you would like me to talk about.

Thank you for reading and make sure you keep safe and keep on Guiding! 






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