Ruislip Windmill District is part of the Ruislip-Northwood Division covering Eastcote, Ruislip and Northwood.
4th Ruislip Windmill Brownies: virtual meetings and an exciting visit from the Mayor of Hillingdon written by Rebecca Hynes.
Over the past year we have been virtually meeting weekly with our Brownie unit. I am sure like many leaders we were apprehensive about starting virtual meetings with the uncertainty of how long they would last and whether the Brownies would adapt. However, we have been thrilled with their attendance each week and how involved and positive the girls have been. They have participated in many activities from making origami and puppets to talking about mental health and doing scavenger hunts.
Recently, we were lucky to have the Mayor of Hillingdon, Cllr Teji Barnes join one of our virtual meetings. Before the meeting we asked our Brownies to send us some questions they would like to ask the Mayor, we received a variety of questions some about her experience as a Mayor and how much she enjoys the role. Others included community minded questions such as ‘Are you considering updating any of the parks in Ruislip?’ The Brownie was enquiring about a local park needing more equipment for her age group. The Mayor kindly offered to put us in touch with people who could help. Other equally important questions included ‘What is your favourite chocolate?’. The Mayor answered all the questions happily and informatively and also made an effort to ask the girls questions.
Our activity for the evening focused on resilience, chosen to reflect the resilience shown by a very young group of girls in the last 12 months. All the girls were asked to put 10 random items in a pillowcase prior to the meeting, a story was read out where animals were showing resilience through a weather storm. The story included objects such as earmuffs which the lion used to help with the noise of the storm, the Brownies then had to choose an item out of their pillowcase which most represented earmuffs. The Mayor was amazing during this activity and participated along with the girls. The Brownies and leaders really enjoyed this meeting.
Figure 1: Here the girls and the Mayor are choosing an item which closest resembles binoculars.
Our experience of zoom Brownie meetings has been positive, however, we are really looking forward to getting back to face-to-face meetings.
7th Ruislip Windmill Brownie Unit got the VIP treatment on 3rd March when the Mayor of Hillingdon joined their Zoom meeting written by Imelda O’Halloran.
Brown Owl led the meeting “Girls can do anything” and the Brownies explored the varied roles that women can do. There was a slide show which featured powerful women both past and present and our Brownies had to guess each person’s occupation.
Our wonderful Mayoress then told us all about her role as Mayor and the different tasks she gets involved in and how being Mayor during the pandemic required her to adapt and change to succeed in the role.
We finished by having a Q&A from our Brownies which brought forward some very interesting questions for our Mayor to answer!
Our Brownies loved the fact that every year all the elected Mayor’s get to have “tea” with the Queen…