All posts by : igg

Ballybay Guides and Senior Branchers had a fabulous trip to London. Here Jade and Aoife write about their experience:

We all met at 9am in Ballybay to get our bus where excitement filled the air. We loaded our luggage into the back, took our seats and the journey to London began.

After a small delay to our flight, we boarded the plane. Flying was a new experience for two of our girls. After around an hour in the sky, we landed.

After collecting our suitcases we made our way through the busy airport to the Gatwick Express. All 13 girls and four Leaders were looking forward to the days ahead where we would be spending our time in London.

We got on the Tube after the Gatwick Express, which was a new experience for the majority of us. We got the Tube to Belsize Park and walked to Pax Lodge.

We went out for a delicious meal in a nearby restaurant and then headed off sightseeing. We arrived at Trafalgar Square where we stopped to take photos. Buckingham Palace was our next stop. The flag above the palace was raised, which meant that the Queen was home.

After a long day of travelling and walking, we were all so tired and went to sleep.

At 8am, we had breakfast and then got our lunches. We got the Tube back into the city centre and hopped on an open-top bus tour. We all sat on the top as the weather was very warm and humid. The bus was a good way of taking in the city without having to walk around.

The London Eye was our next stop. After having our lunch, we joined the queue, which thankfully wasn’t too long. The view from the top was amazing. On the way back down, we got a photo of all the Guides, and also one of the ‘exhausted Leaders’.

Dinner was again delicious: we ate in a pizza restaurant not far from Pax Lodge. We returned to Pax Lodge where we participated in international activities with a Canadian and American Leader.

The next morning we attended the flag-raising ceremony where we were given our Pax Lodge pins. The Pax Lodge pin is a pin given to people who have visited Pax Lodge and it cannot be traded or bought.

When we got to the Olympic Village, we went into the swimming pool viewing area and watched people practising in the pool where world famous swimmers had swum during the Olympics in 2012.

We had a walk around the Olympic Village, which was nice and we had our lunch on some picnic benches. We got a group photo under the Olympic Rings.

Then the part we had been eagerly waiting for: shopping! We shopped in Westfield Shopping Centre, which was huge and had many top brand shops.

After eating there, we were ready to go back to Pax Lodge when our Leaders told us that we were going to see Aladdin in the West End. We were all very surprised as none of us had even guessed we would be going to a West End show.

The show was my highlight of the trip and for many others too. We made our way back to Pax Lodge and slept after another busy day.

We packed our bags and left Pax Lodge on Thursday. The trip wasn’t over as we still had to visit the Natural History Museum. The museum was very big and filled with interesting science, history and geography exhibits.

The Tube was very busy but we managed to fit ourselves and all our luggage on and get to the Gatwick Express.

We arrived back in Ballybay late in the evening. The trip was very worthwhile and is something we will remember.

Vera O’Riordan of MacEgan Senior Branch, Macroom, and Helen Moriarty of Bandon Senior Branch were lucky enough to go on a tall ship voyage with Sail Training Ireland. Here Vera writes about the experience:

My name is Vera and I am a Senior Brancher in the South West Region with IGG. This year I had the opportunity to take part in the Tall Ships voyage representing IGG along with Helen from Bandon! Helen and I both agree that the Tall Ships voyage was one of the most exciting events we have ever been involved with through IGG and loved meeting young people from other youth organisations, such as Youth Reach, the Sea Scouts and also from youth organisations based in Liverpool.

As part of the voyage, we stayed on a tall ship with 20 other young people between the ages of 18 and 30 and with a crew of 20-odd volunteers and  crew members, including a chef. Each bunk had six beds in it and we all ate together in the main rest area called the ‘mess’.

During the day we helped out on deck, adjusting the sails by climbing the masts with harnesses (scary, but amazing!), monitoring the direction and steering the ship. We were organised into groups called watches where we rotated monitoring the ship through the night. It was really exciting sailing at two o’clock in the morning!

On day three we had a break where we spent the day on the Isle of Man. It was fab! We went to the beach and relaxed in the local bars while the ship was docked nearby. By day five we had reached Liverpool and had become close friends with both the participants and the crew members. Even after the trip ended we keep in touch and have planned a reunion scuba diving in Dublin!

The tall ships’ experience requires an open mind and a willingness to get stuck into work, just like us Guides do at camp. A lot of the rotas and work ethic from camp translates really well to getting the full benefit of the tall ships, so if you love camping you’ll enjoy the busyness of sailing on a tall ship for sure!

Remember to pack sea-sickness tablets and something for nausea – I found them handy on the first day we set sail!

More than 600 Ladybirds – the youngest members of Irish Girl Guides – took part in a massive celebration on Saturday 15 June to mark their 30^th birthday!

Ladybirds, who are aged five to seven, travelled from all over the country to party at Dublin Zoo and Fota Wildlife Park. More than 300 girls and 100 volunteer Leaders attended each event.

The girls loved meeting up with Ladybirds from other counties to celebrate their milestone birthday.

“All the girls had a fabulous day in Dublin Zoo and Fota with singing and dancing and a big cake at each event,” said Monica McDonnell, Chair of Ladybird Branch. “There was a brilliant atmosphere and the girls in Dublin were particularly excited to be joined by award-winning space explorer and science communicator Dr Niamh Shaw who told them about her space adventures.”

A pilot Ladybird Unit in Ballybrack, Dublin, in the 1980s was such a success that in 1989 Ladybirds was officially launched by then Minister for Education Mary O’Rourke. Within a year there were 33 Ladybird units operating throughout the country. Today there are more than 2,000 Ladybirds throughout the 26 counties.

“The Ladybird programme encourages girls to care and share, to think of others and to contribute to their local communities,” said Monica, who is Leader of Cúchulainn Ladybirds in Drogheda. “Each girl is encouraged to try her best and learn new skills and is rewarded for doing the best she can.

“The girls can earn badges for all kinds of things, like Road Safety, Healthy Mind, Performing Arts, Environmental Awareness, Voting and STEM. During their time with us, we see the Ladybirds grow in confidence and independence while making new friends and having a lot of fun.”

IGG Chief Commissioner Helen Concannon said: “Irish Girl Guides excels at being relevant and in touch with the needs of each new generation of girls. Thousands of girls have benefited from their involvement as Ladybirds in IGG and have progressed to Brownies (aged 7-10) and Guides (aged 10-14) where they continue to grow in independence, develop essential life-skills and are introduced to the international aspects of the Guiding movement. On behalf of the girls, I thank all the women who have volunteered as Ladybird Leaders over the last 30 years and look forward to the next 30!”

Monica concluded, “The parties wouldn’t have been possible without our sponsors – Impression Design and Print, The Galway Bay, Tayto, Fyffes and the staff of Deloitte. All of these have donated to us, which has been a massive help. Also, thanks to Dublin Zoo and Fota for allowing us to celebrate the birthday in their venues. Everyone had a fantastic time!”

Twenty-one Guides and Senior Branch members successfully completed a mission to blast off ‘Into Orbit’ at a LEGO Robotics Summer Academy in Dublin City University’s LEGO Education Innovation Studio.

The girls, who were aged between 12 and 17 and came from all around Ireland, were selected from dozens of aspiring IGG space explorers who applied to take part in the project. Through a series of hands-on, engaging workshops, the girls discovered programming concepts, experienced elements of computational thinking and developed an understanding of a range of mechanical engineering procedures.

They worked in teams of four researching topics as varied as radiation to depression and loneliness in space.

At the end of the four-day academy, each group gave a presentation on their research project at a special ceremony in DCU, which many of the girls’ parents attended. Each team also participated in a robotics challenge using the robots they had designed and programmed.

Dara Callanan, an IGG Leader from Drogheda who has recently qualified as a Science teacher from DCU, said the Guides had enjoyed exploring STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). “It’s been great to see them engage with STEM challenges in a fun and interesting way,” she said. “It’s great too to see them being collaborative thinkers and resilient problem-solvers.

“Each group had to be determined to fix every problem they encountered, even when their robot seemed to have a mind of its own and wasn’t quite doing what they wanted it to,” she said. “Taking part in the academy reminded the girls that it’s OK not to be perfect first time around and that making mistakes and working hard on something can actually make it better than it ever could be with just a perfect first try.”

She continued, “The whole project has been fantastic – the girls have learned about maths, physics, engineering, communication, teamwork and so much more – and they had a great time while doing it. As a Science teacher myself, I love to see young people actively engaging in STEM and having the opportunity to really love doing it. Hopefully, it will encourage the girls to think about studying STEM and see the value STEM skills add to all aspects of their lives.”

At the special ceremony at the close of the Academy, each girl was presented with a certificate and a medal by IGG Chief Commissioner Helen Concannon and Prof Deirdre Butler of DCU’s STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies department.

“The girls have developed their STEM skills through the Academy and learned how to harness each person’s individual skills so as to create amazing group projects,” said Ms Concannon. “Working together, they have valued each person’s contribution and impressed us with their ingenuity. They are excellent role models for our younger members and prove the relevance of STEM to all – both boys and girls.”

Daire Keogh, Deputy President of DCU, said he was delighted to attend the ceremony. “It is hugely important for DCU to partner with the Irish Girl Guides as we share a vision of transformation and the empowerment of women and girls,” he said. “We’re in total agreement with Guides when they say, ‘Girls With Dreams Become Women With Vision’.”

Our #PledgeAgainstPlastic garden at Bloom has proved a huge success!

The ‘postcard garden’, which was created almost entirely out of recycled materials, was Highly Commended by the Bloom judges and attracted much attention and praise. An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar spent some time admiring it and even tried out the sofa, which was made entirely out of eco-bricks (two litre plastic bottles filled with soft plastics).

Peter Donegan, a Royal Horticultural Society Silver Medal awardee, said the girls’ hard work and creativity had made him “smile very much” and climate campaigner and author, Lorna Gold, said it was her favourite garden because “It has the most heart in it”.

The garden was the brainchild of Sarah Blake, who has recently founded a sustainability consultancy called Earthology and who is Leader of Rathgar Zion Brownies. Once she came up with the design, she reached out to Zion Guides to help out too and we then put out word to IGG’s 12,000 members around the country to help collect plastic bottle tops and make eco-bricks.

In the end 1,500 plastic bottle tops were used in the creation of the garden – hundreds of blue tops were used to represent the ocean on a giant globe while other coloured bottle tops were used to decorate planters. The planters themselves were reused plastic tubs and bunting was made with crisp packets. A bug hotel was made by the girls by filling plastic containers with twigs and leaves and beautiful badges and crocheted ladybirds were made with leftover wool and scraps of material.

Sarah said the aim of the garden was to encourage people to focus on the ways in which they could reduce their use of plastic and focus on the 5 Rs – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot. “You can Refuse by growing your own vegetables and fruits, thereby avoiding the need for buying them in plastic,” she said. “You can Reduce by using bees wrap instead of clingfilm to wrap your lunch (it can be bought in health food shops), you can Reuse by using plastic containers as planters and Recycle by sending, for example, soft plastics, like crisp packets, to Terracycle. And you can Rot by using a compost bin or brown bin for your food waste.”

The back of the garden featured a wall on which Rathgar Brownies and Guides signed their pledges to reduce their use of plastic and visitors to the garden were encouraged to make their own #PledgeAgainstPlastic.

We enjoyed hundreds of conversations with members of the public over the weekend about sustainability and how we can each make a difference to help combat climate change. A member of Whitechurch Ladybirds even talked to President Michael D Higgins about the importance of bees!

We are thrilled to have received our 6^th Gold Health Quality Mark from the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) in recognition of our work on health promotion for young people.

Presenting the award at our National Programme and Training Committee at National Office on 18 May 2019, Lisa Harold from the NYCI National Youth Health Programme, said, “This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of all at Irish Girl Guides. They are committed to the highest quality standards in health promotion and it is clear that ensuring a healthy and safe place for young people and staff is a key priority here.”

IGG’s wide-ranging programme for girls and young women aged 5-30 includes a number of health-promoting activities and badges, including Active Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Friendship, Drug Awareness, Personal Safety and a Good Health and Well-being badge based on the third Sustainable Development Goal. These badges and activities incorporate such topics as healthy eating, physical health, relationships, self-esteem, bullying and stress management. Guides aged 10+ can also earn Skin Care and Independent Living Skills badges.

IGG members regularly take part in a variety of indoor and outdoor challenges, which help them develop teamwork and leadership skills, resilience and self-confidence – all of which contribute to a healthy body and mind. A five-week body confidence programme called Free Being Me also helps girls develop body confidence from an early age.

Ms Harold added: “Congratulations are in order to the staff, volunteers and young people of the service, especially those who have guided the organisation through the process to ensure that their work is in line with national and international best practice in the area of youth health promotion. The great work carried out here supports the national Healthy Ireland campaign, which is about increasing our focus on prevention and supporting young people to improve their own health and well-being.”

IGG National Programme and Training Commissioner, Jenny Gannon, said she was delighted that the organisation’s ongoing health-promoting work was being recognised in this way. “We take great pride in the high quality youth work our 12,000 members are involved in across the country and welcome this acknowledgement of that work,” she said.

“Irish Girl Guides has successfully maintained the Gold Standard in Health Promotion since the award was launched in 2001. We continue to incorporate health-focused approaches in our programmes, events and weekly meetings because we believe that they form the basis of good quality youth work relevant to today’s young people. This involves training for leaders, staff, support and resources for our youth members in fun, participative and educational ways.”

Well done, well done, VERY well done to Clogherhead Brownies, Co Louth, on being crowned Ireland’s Top Brownie Engineers!

Following a call out by Engineers Ireland earlier this year to find Ireland’s top Brownie engineers, Clogherhead Brownies got to work to come up with an innovative engineering project that could be commercially produced.

They submitted an engineer’s design drawing and a description of the project as well as an investment amount required to develop their project. They also supported this with evidence that the water conservation project they devised would be beneficial to their community.

The girls were delighted to be awarded the title of Top Brownie Engineers on 16 May at a special event at Walshestown National School where most of them are pupils and to be presented with a prize of a STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) voucher for a professional workshop for their entire Unit.

Speaking about their project entry, Brownie Team Leader Aoife McGovern, said: “I’m really happy to have won! I’ve learned a lot more about saving water and realise how saving water is so important. I am happy to have been a part of it and I liked working with the team on the Lego project, which gave me the idea for the entry.”

Congratulating Aoife and Clogherhead Brownies, Caroline Spillane, Director General of Engineers Ireland, said: “I’d like to offer my congratulations to Aoife and her Brownie Unit for their innovative entry. Engineering is about working collaboratively, being creative and finding new ways to solve problems and each team member displayed these qualities in abundance.”

Finola Dunne, Clogherhead Brownie Leader, commented: “Working towards the Engineering Badge and doing the projects really gave the girls an insight into how engineering impacts almost every aspect of their lives. They used Lego to build, to programme sensors using a tablet, and they invented water conservation prototypes. Engineering is not such an alien concept now! I hope that doing this badge and the Engineers Week Challenge, will empower some of the girls to consider doing some form of engineering later in life.”

Helen Concannon, Irish Girl Guides Chief Commissioner, said: “Irish Girl Guides is a movement that always strives to move with the times and remain relevant to young people while challenging stereotypes. We believe in our girls’ capabilities and want them to develop their STEM skills as well as a wide range of other life-skills. If we want to solve the world’s challenges, we must ensure that both boys and girls can aspire to become engineers.”

Rathfarnham Girl Guides are marking their centenary this year with a number of events, including a special celebration held recently at Irish Girl Guides’ National Memorial Cottage in Enniskerry.

Over 100 Guide Leaders and former Guides and Leaders took part in the celebration, which included afternoon tea, a flag-raising ceremony, a fork supper and a campfire.

Anne Bowen, who was Rathfarnham Guide Captain from 1953-1992, cut the specially crafted cake, which included a tent, a campfire, Guide badges and the words of the Guide promise.

Also in attendance was Anne’s daughter, Heather Bowen, who was Leader in Charge from 1992-2019. Between them, Anne and Heather have 65 years as Rathfarnham Guide Leaders!

Sylvia Richardson, who has been involved in Rathfarnham Guides for many years and is currently an Irish Girl Guides’ Outdoor Advisor, Trainer and Treasurer of the National Programme and Training Committee, was one of the event organisers.

“We were delighted to have our President, Maureen Murphy, as our special guest and everyone enjoyed looking at the memorabilia and a slide show of old photos,” said Sylvia. “The weather smiled on us and we were able to sit outside.”

There were several speeches with Sylvia sharing some of her memories of Guides in Rathfarnham and Heather speaking about Guiding today – the similarities and the differences from Guiding in the early years.

“As it got dark, we adjourned outside for our campfire,” said Sylvia. “We sang our remembered songs and finished up with toasted marshmallows and chocolate biscuits. It was a great day of meeting old friends and lovely food and memories galore.

“One hundred years is a great achievement and I personally have got a huge amount out of Guiding. It has helped me become a confident person in all areas of my life.

“I would like to congratulate Heather and her team of Leaders over the years for keeping Guides in Rathfarnham going through hard times and good times. I hope Guides in Rathfarnham will continue well on into the future.”

We are thrilled that award-winning space explorer and science communicator Dr Niamh Shaw PhD is our new Honorary Ambassador!

Dr Shaw, who describes herself as an engineer, scientist, artist, performer, space explorer and science communicator, has a passion to ignite curiosity about space and the world around us. She was chosen in recognition of the trail she has blazed for girls and women in Ireland.

Speaking at IGG’s National Council Meeting on 6 April, Irish Girl Guides President Maureen Murphy said IGG members were excited to have Dr Niamh Shaw as the organisation’s new Ambassador. “She has stated her wish to ignite people’s curiosity and has a big dream to travel in space,” said Ms Murphy. “Guiding is about providing new experiences and challenges to enable each girl to reach her own potential in today’s world, so Niamh is a very appropriate role model, inspirer and Honorary Ambassador.”

Dr Shaw, who is Dublin-based but regularly travels to Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork where she is artist-in-residence, is particularly interested in encouraging girls and women to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects. This ties in nicely with IGG’s aim to encourage girls and young women to consider STEM careers by inviting them to earn STEM, Engineering, Science Investigator, Online Surfer and Aviation badges.

“What I’m particularly interested in, during my term as Ambassador, is empowering Girl Guides to pursue in life what they are most passionate about, which is usually what they are also most curious about,” said Dr Shaw. “STEM will naturally play its part in that exploration, so rather than promote STEM in isolation, I want to encourage them to see STEM as a suite of tools with which to unearth and explore what they are most passionate about. And they can use this knowledge to enhance this passion directly or indirectly.

“STEM subjects can belong in a creative environment as much as a technical one. If I can achieve success in delivering that message to Girl Guides in the next year, then I will feel that I have made a worthy contribution to Irish Girl Guides. And, since my passion is space, I would also like to explore the creation of a space badge too, if possible.”

Dr Shaw, who was a member of IGG for some of her childhood, has fond memories of her time in the organisation. She was disappointed that it was difficult to stay involved because the family moved location frequently.

“I remember one time we had to collect the leaves of different trees, which led me to read and research more on the topic. And there was no internet then to do a simple Google search! Thankfully, we had the children’s encyclopaedia, so I referred to that a lot, and to other nature books in the house. To this day, I still test myself on tree identification!”

Dr Shaw said she was delighted to be selected as IGG Ambassador. “It’s a huge honour,” she says, “And I’m really looking forward to the year ahead.”

Owenabue Brownies in Carrigaline, Co Cork, were all delighted to earn their Engineering badge in the run up to Engineers’ Week.

Here Frances McCarthy (Snowy Owl) tells us how they got on working on the badge:

Owenabue Brownies turned into structural engineers for three weeks as we tackled our Engineering badge. We met real-life engineer Siobhán Palmer of PM Group, who told us about her work as a structural engineer.

“They design buildings and stuff like that,” says one of the Brownies, Róisín.

We then got busy planning and making spaghetti towers and the next week we took a trip to space and had a go making a moon shelter model. Lots of teamwork in action!

“We designed mini-buildings with jellies and cocktail sticks and that was our favourite bit,” say Freya and Evie.

The teams then drew plans for their spaghetti – marshmallow towers before making them. Well done to the six with the tallest building! “We were working as a team,” say the Gnomes.

On our third meeting we took a trip to the moon and designed and made a moon shelter from newspaper. “I liked rolling up the newspaper,” says one Brownie and everyone enjoyed going into the shelter.

Try it with your Brownies too! You can find instructions at NASA’s Space Place and for the mini buildings at Science Foundation Ireland’s Primary Science.

Thousands of girls throughout Ireland are set to take steps to combat climate change following the launch of our new Climate Action badge, which we developed in partnership with Trócaire.

The badge was inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 13 – ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.’

Ladybirds (age 5-7) and Brownies (age 7-10) will learn through a series of activities how important it is to care for the environment and how they can take steps to combat climate change.

Guides (age 10-14) and Senior Branch members (age 14-30) will learn how climate change has resulted from human activities and will discover how climate change is affecting communities in Trócaire’s partner countries e.g. drought and food insecurity in Ethiopia, migration in Kenya and extreme flooding and sea level rise in Honduras.

All girls will be encouraged to make the link between human rights and climate justice and to consider how Ireland overall, and their own actions, are contributing to climate change. Through a series of activities, they will then be supported to consider what actions they can take to address climate change.

 Sinéad Crilly, Chair of IGG’s Membership, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and a Guide Leader in Drogheda, said IGG was delighted to partner with Trócaire to launch the Climate Action badge and she looked forward to seeing many girls earning the badge.

“We all need clean food, water and air,” she says. “There is enough for everyone but some of us are using more than our fair share by wasting resources. We cannot continue as we are and we encourage our members to play their part in helping look after the environment.

“We already have an Environmental Awareness badge, which encourages girls to recycle, conserve water and save electricity. Working on the new Climate Action badge will reinforce this message and, rather than feeling helpless in the face of climate change, girls will discover how they can play their part to protect the world.”

Aine O’Driscoll, Trócaire’s Development Education Officer Youth, says climate change is the greatest injustice of our time. “Those who are contributing least to climate change are suffering the most, while those with the most power are failing to address the issue,” she says.

“Families that depend on rainfall to grow crops are particularly vulnerable, as an increase in drought and floods makes it more difficult to produce enough food to feed themselves. Out of necessity, people may resort to activities such as deforestation, sand harvesting and charcoal-making, which further impacts on the environment. Individuals and whole families are migrating from rural areas to urban areas in search of work.

“Trócaire is supporting communities affected by climate change in different parts of the world. It is also raising awareness of the urgent need to address climate justice and is calling for action by our government at national and international levels.”

It is with great sadness that we share the news with you that our Managing Director, Suzanne Smith, has died after a relatively short illness. Suzanne only joined IGG a year ago and yet she had a huge impact on the organisation, the volunteers and staff in that short time.

She was a vibrant woman, bursting with energy, enthusiasm and ideas, and has been taken from her family and friends far too soon. We extend our sympathies to her loved ones at this time.

Her funeral service will be held at Newland’s Cross Crematorium on Friday 18 January at 2pm.

National Office will be closed on Friday as a mark of respect.

Did you know school holidays are the perfect time for girls to work on badges individually? Just because Units take a break for a couple of weeks over Christmas doesn’t mean girls have to stop doing badge work.

Take Kate of Millmount Girl Guides, Drogheda, for example. Kate is currently working towards her Trail Blazer National Guide Award. She enjoys working on Guide badges so much that she earned five during the summer holidays! Here she writes about her experience:

During the summer of 2018 I worked on five badges for Girl Guides. I decided to do this because the summer can be very long and I knew this could fill some of the time. I chose these badges because I worked out that I could do them without leaving the house or without anybody else’s help.

The first badge I worked on was the Care of the Elderly badge. This involved learning about an organisation for elderly people in my town, knowing how to summon help for an elderly person who has fallen or is unwell and, finally, knowing ways to help the elderly in the community.

The second badge I selected was the Disability Awareness badge and, to complete this badge, I had to know some disabilities people might face and to research a famous person who had a disability or condition. The person I researched was Stephen Hawking who had a rare disability known as ALS (motor neurone disease) that gradually paralysed him.

Badge number three was the Pet Care badge. The fact that I have a dog helped with the completion of this particular badge.

The Science Investigator badge came next and this led me to the wonderful work of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie – two world famous and inspirational scientists. I really enjoyed this badge because I also got to learn about the fascinating world of Crime Scene Investigation (CSI).

Finally, I did the Farmer badge where I had to research three types of farming machinery and I also had to list the most common livestock and crops found in Ireland.

I enjoyed completing these badges because I got to learn about things I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t decided to do these tasks.

Well done Kate! You’re a true Trail Blazer!

We are delighted that our Chief Commissioner Helen Concannon was named Trustee of the Year at The Wheel’s Charity Impact Awards in Dublin’s Mansion House on 11 December!

The Wheel – the national association of charities, community and voluntary organisations and social enterprises – established the Charity Impact Awards to celebrate the positive impact made in communities throughout Ireland by the country’s 29,000 non-profit organisations.

104 organisations and volunteers were nominated for this year’s awards and over 19,000 people voted for their favourite nominees.

“For all of us in Irish Girl Guides Helen is an inspiration,” says IGG President Maureen Murphy. “She has worked tirelessly to provide new, exciting opportunities for our members and volunteers enabling everyone to meet their full potential.

“She has overseen the implementation of policy changes making our organisation stronger and up to date with all our compliance obligations. She is a team leader, good at networking inside and outside Guiding, and promotes Irish Girl Guides at every opportunity. Helen is a volunteer and we are very proud that she has received this much deserved award.”

Helen says it was an honour to be nominated and shortlisted “and an absolute privilege” to be selected. “Being a trustee has been a wonderful experience and an opportunity to give something back to the organisation that I joined as an eight-year-old Brownie,” she says.

“I would also like to pay tribute to my fellow volunteers and staff who make my job easy by being such a wonderful team. As a girl-led organisation, it is important that trustees listen to their members and respond to their needs.”

Helen, who has been Chief Commissioner of IGG since April 2013, has worked hard to ensure the organisation remains current and relevant for the youth of today. She has ensured IGG’s full compliance with the Governance Code for the community, voluntary and charitable sector, has overseen the development of a new award-winning website and has overseen the review and updating of all Leader resource books.

She has spearheaded a campaign to encourage girls to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects and careers with over 500 IGG members participating in a Lego robotics initiative developed in partnership with Dublin City University. She has also overseen the development of a #FutureCEOs Cookie Project, which fosters business and entrepreneurial skills in girls from age five plus as they sell packets of cookies in their local communities. She developed this initiative in partnership with Dragon’s Den investor Alison Cowzer, who co-founded East Coast Bakehouse where the Irish Girl Guides cookies are made.

In 2016 Helen also came up with the innovative idea of a North to South Pole Trek to see if IGG members could walk 20,000 kilometres – the equivalent of walking from the North Pole to the South Pole. Girls and Leaders embraced this challenge so wholeheartedly that they succeeded in hiking a total of 40,000 kilometres, so it ended up as a Global Trek!

We are thrilled to have been selected by the Ulster Bank Skills & Opportunities Fund to receive €8,500 to develop our Cookie Project next year!

The funding will be used to broaden our product range and create packaging for the new cookies, made by Alison Cowzer’s East Coast Bakehouse, for the girls to sell at local level.

The newly-designed marketing materials will enable our members to reach a broader audience to sell their products. In doing so, they will increase their financial skills and earn their Cookie Badge.

“We’re very excited to win the Skills and Opportunities Fund,” says IGG Chief Commissioner Helen Concannon. “We can’t wait to begin designing our new promotional materials and further grow the IGG Cookie Project.”

The Cookie Project is designed to create entrepreneur opportunities for girls and women in IGG and provide them with a chance to develop their financial skills while also raising funds for their unit’s educational activities.

“It is a youth-led initiative and girls develop four key business skills – teamwork, goal-setting, money management, communication – earning a badge for their efforts, as well as a share of the profits for their Unit,” says Helen.

The International Committee is inviting all IGG members to enter its International Postcard Competition!

Ladybirds, Brownies, Guides, Senior Branchers and Leaders are all welcome to enter by designing a World Thinking Day 2019 postcard.

The winning postcards will be used to send greetings to our Sister Guides across the world for World Thinking Day.

The theme for next year’s World Thinking Day is #LEADERSHIP and your design should reflect this. Leaders of younger girls may like to discuss the concept of leadership to help with the design process.

Entries can be made using pencil, crayons, felt tip or paint only (no glitter glue please)!

Prizes will be awarded at Ladybird, Brownie, Guide, Senior Branch and Leader age groups and the winning designs will be printed to send out with our Thinking Day greetings.

Entries should be submitted using this form and Units are asked to select their best 5 entries to submit for consideration addressed to Postcard Competition, National Office, 27 Pembroke Park, Dublin 4, to arrive on or before 18 January 2019.

Good luck!

Hundreds of Ladybirds are working on the new Ladybird STEM badge to mark Science Week (November 11-18).

The badge aims to encourage girls from as young as five to develop an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) through a series of fun science experiments and engineering projects.

By building towers, making telephones using string, using magnets and experimenting with playdough and slime, the girls learn about balance, stability and planning, how sound travels, magnetism etc. It is hoped that doing this will spark an interest in STEM subjects that they will pursue inside and outside of school.

IGG Programme and Training Commissioner Jenny Gannon says: “We are delighted to launch our new STEM badge for Ladybirds during Science Week. It complements the Science Investigator and Engineering badges we already have for Brownies (aged seven to 10) and Guides (aged 10-14).

“Girls aren’t always encouraged to pursue STEM subjects in school and we want to rectify that by introducing girls from a young age to STEM activities. Women are under-represented in STEM careers but we believe that, by encouraging an interest in these areas in a non-formal setting, girls will be more likely to pursue these subjects as they get older. In doing this, we hope to help address the gender imbalance in these fields.

“Taking part in STEM activities, like doing all Guiding projects and challenges, is also a great way for girls to develop problem-solving, teamwork and other life-skills while also growing in confidence,” Jenny added.

Some girls, including Bray Ladybirds, have been so keen to earn the new badge that they have already completed all the activities!

Sinead Bayliss, a Leader with Bray Ladybirds, says: “The STEM badge is a unique opportunity to cover a wide range of topics in a fun, creative and informative way. Doing the STEM activities is a great excuse for girls to get messy with slime or oobleck, investigate with magnets and slopes, experiment with water and food colouring, play with numbers and stack or build with anything.

“There was a great excitement in the air as they set about the tasks, fascination as girls stuck pencils into bags of water and they didn’t leak everywhere and infectious laughter as they mixed various concoctions from cornflour and made a terrible mess. This is the most fun badge we have ever worked on because the girls were so enthusiastic and the possibilities were endless!”

The girls of Merlin Woods Unit, Galway, won a trip to East Coast Bakehouse – where Irish Girl Guides’ cookies are made – by selling the most packets of cookies during last year’s National Cookie Month! 1,560 packets!!

Here Merlin Woods Leader, Sheenagh McLaverty, writes about their experience:

November 2017 was an unexpectedly exciting experience for the Ladybirds, Brownies and Guides of Merlin Woods in Galway City.  When the concept of cookie-selling was introduced at the Regional Conference that September, we the Leaders thought this would be a good opportunity to raise some much-needed funds for our Units.

IGGNITE had been a big success for the Guides but most of the Unit funds were exhausted and the need to build up some good camping equipment for future camps was a priority.  We placed an initial order for 25 boxes between the girls and were very anxious that we might not be able to sell that many … how wrong we were!

The girls were super enthusiastic going home with their order forms, which we got from the Cookie team. They were to come back a week later with their orders and we were dumbstruck at the volume of orders … we had nowhere near enough to satisfy all the orders! Some girls sold more than a full box each; Ladybirds were surprise successful sellers – clearly it’s very difficult to say no to a cute Ladybird bearing cookies!

We placed an order for more cookies, and even a third order! The final order was a little more challenging to sell as it looked like the girls had exhausted all the familiar customers of family and friends. We had to put our thinking caps on as to new selling strategies. The Brownies and Guides set up pop-up shops in the local community centre and local Tesco and we also went into a couple of local businesses (Deloitte and EA) where we were allowed to sell to staff going in or out of work. In the end we sold 1,560 packets (65 boxes) which meant a massive €1,560 euro for our Units and also money for Irish Girl Guides.

As a reward for this selling venture, the girls were invited to visit the East Coast Bakehouse factory in Drogheda. The timing of the visit was perfect – mid-term 2018 – just as we get ready to launch into cookie selling part deux and try to earn the Cookie Seller Year Two badge. We had an absolutely amazing workshop with Alison Cowzer, owner of East Coast Bakehouse (and a Dragon from the Den!) who told the girls in detail how the cookies are made, listened to the girls’ ideas for how to sell and did some taste tests. One photo shoot and 22 goodie bags with lots of cookies inside later, we hit the road for Dublin City Centre to visit Deloitte headquarters for a Cookie Selling Strategy workshop!

The 22 Guides, Brownies (and one Ladybird!) were treated to an invaluable workshop on the 5 Ws of a project like this …What, Who, Why, When and Where. This was right after they were treated to some lovely pizzas and treats! They broke into groups and, with the help of an analyst per small group, they started to tackle the Ws … the highlight for everyone was being able to write all over the walls with no consequences (not to be tried at home)! It was amazing to see the girls present their ideas at the end without inhibition or fear in front of their peers, their Leaders and some new friends.  In line with the IGG tagline, this adventure truly gave the girls confidence!

All in all, it was an awe-inspiring day. Our Brownies and Guides were so lucky to be given the opportunity to visit two very diverse business entities – an introduction to entrepreneurial activities as we launch into National Cookie Month 2018. We are beyond grateful to both East Coast Bakehouse and Deloitte for the marvellous opportunity this day gave our girls.

We can’t recommend cookie-selling highly enough… with a little commitment and some hard work, real rewards for your Units can be achieved.

Thousands of members of Irish Girl Guides are aiming to address gender imbalance in Ireland’s boardrooms by selling 30,000 packets of cookies as part of our National Cookie Month (November).

Last year almost 4,000 Ladybirds, Brownies, Guides and Senior Branchers raised €44,000 by selling 30,000 packets of cookies … and the girls are all set to do the same this year! The money raised is used to fund camps and day trips and to buy equipment for the girls to use at their weekly meetings.

It’s not all about the money, though! By deciding how many packets to order, how to go about selling the biscuits and how to spend the proceeds of their sales, the girls develop valuable decision-making, goal-setting and business skills.

The choc-chip cookies are made in East Coast Bakehouse in Drogheda. Alison Cowzer, co-founder of East Coast Bakehouse and Dragon’s Den investor, has proved an invaluable mentor for IGG members, generously sharing her insider tips for making sales.

Ms Cowzer is delighted to lend her support to the cookie initiative, given that “it could take centuries to achieve equality without serious efforts to bring women into male-dominated spheres such as business and politics. No other organisation in Ireland is specifically working with girls to tackle the gender imbalance in business and so I am very happy to be a part of this project, which is helping foster a spirit of entrepreneurship among Irish girls and young women.

“The Irish Girl Guides is a proactive and forward-thinking organisation, which gives girls confidence and the opportunity to develop essential life-skills. I have seen my own daughters greatly benefit from their involvement in IGG.”

IGG Chief Commissioner Helen Concannon says, “Last year’s Cookie Month was such a success we decided to do it again this year. We have given the project the hashtag #FutureCEOs, which stands for Creating Entrepreneur Opportunities, and it is hoped that all girls who get involved will develop and strengthen their goal-setting, decision-making, communication and entrepreneurial skills.

“We want to change the imbalance of the number of women in decision-making positions across the various sectors of society such as business, communities, companies and boardrooms all around Ireland and beyond. And this begins by giving girls opportunities to develop confidence.

“We heard numerous stories from Leaders and parents last year saying how their girls started out as shy salespeople unsure of how to even begin and ended up savvy businesswomen. The number of units that came to us to order more cookies to sell is testament to the success of the girls developing their skills.

“As a non-profit organisation, all monies raised are invested in the organisation to help fulfil its mission to help girls and young women reach their fullest potential,” Ms Concannon added.

October is Free Being Me Month and here our new Communications Chair, Vera O’Riordan, writes about her experience of saying good-bye to a decade-long habit of wearing make-up:

The best way to not pollute the earth with chemical products and their plastic containers is simply not to use them at all. It was this simple philosophy, along with the restricted budget of a college student that encouraged me to kiss good-bye to a habit that spanned the breadth of my teenage years.

Fragrance Direct (fragrancedirect.co.uk) has a basic calculator where you can count up your annual spend on make-up. A research commissioned by Superdrug found that the average yearly make-up spend for a female was €332.06. Depending on your tastes, you could be spending far more than that amount. Furthermore, females between 16 and 24 spent the most money on cosmetics … shout out to our Senior Branchers: this is for you!

As a quick experiment, I did an inventory of all the cosmetic products I purchased in the past year –

As you can see – the quick math guessing game came in €50 above the average spending bill of €332.06! One key discovery in my calculation was that the purchase of one make-up item led to another. You need a brush to put foundation on properly, and then to add insult to injury, you need a special make-up remover to take it off properly! With the purchase of nail polish, you need nail polish remover and cotton pads … it can all add up to real money very quickly.

The decision not to wear tan and make-up in the college party scene where I am from in Cork is almost taboo. It took spending a year attending university in California to realise how unusually excessive Irish women’s consumption of beauty products had become. In California the weather was normally too warm to wear make-up and, even on cold days, the females there had no incentive to build up the inventory to have readily available so they went without.

Mornings preparing for college were blissful – I was no longer rushing out the door, trying to catch my reflection, double-checking for an eyebrow mishap (they’re sisters, not twins)! Evenings were even better again: I no longer had nightmare moments of catching my reflection only to see that my make-up had faded or smudged oddly in the daily chaos of classes and projects and I no longer had the embarrassment of waking up after a late night with mascara smudges across my pillow and tan stains along my bed!

Ever since I decided to stop wearing make-up, the benefits of not constantly applying products to my face – only to remove them again – has led to a reduction in redness and spots from dirty make-up clogged pores. Now my everyday routine consists of simply cleansing, toning and moisturising my face and my skin has never felt healthier. So unshackle your bank account, let your skin breathe and join the many women – and nearly all the men – who have the confidence every day to go make-up free!

Bonus Question: What two Guide Laws apply to my decision to go make-up free? Hint: check out the underlined parts!

Huge congratulations to Kate Connolly of Ballyroan Senior Branch, Dublin, who received a Silver Gaisce Award at a special ceremony in The Helix.

This followed many months of hard work by Kate who, as part of her Award preparation, learnt cross-stitch, did swimming and helped with Ballyroan Brownies, which she really enjoyed. Not surprisingly, she felt a great sense of achievement on receiving the Award!

Kate says she gained worthy life-skills while doing her Award preparations and is currently working towards her IGG Silver Moon.

Kate has been a member of IGG since the age of five when she joined Ballyroan Ladybirds and says that, during her time with the organisation, she has gained leadership, co-operation and organisational skills.

“IGG has given me great opportunities,” she says, “The most recent being a participant of Roverway 2018.”