Yes! Growing Up Wild is for everyone! There are lots of open natural spaces to be found in our towns and cities. Did you know that London is one of the greenest capitals in the world? At the last count, there were more than 3,000 parks and open spaces in the city!
FAQs
Yes please! Don’t forget to tell us all about it and ask the Marketing and Communications team for guidelines on branding your event, contact them on info@girlguidinglaser.org.uk.
Girlguiding LaSER Trefoil members are already involved. They have provided us with invaluable information in their local areas and will continue to support us and local guiding groups with Growing Up Wild. Trefoil members are very welcome to take part too.
Yes! The initiative is to encourage our young members to connect with nature but we know that our volunteers will have great fun with Growing Up Wild too and may well want to collect Paw Print badges for their own camp blankets.
There needn’t be. The Paw Prints contain suggestions for activities that can be done in and around any meeting place with little in the way of equipment, or you can extend the ideas and go much further afield. It’s very much up to you and your girls to choose.
Each badge costs £1
Paw Prints can be ordered through our online shop
No, Growing Up Wild is something that we hope families will take up too and will enjoy doing together. Connecting with nature and sharing experiences is for everyone! We hope that parents and carers will be keen to support Growing Up Wild and will discuss their family Growing Up Wild activities with leaders in order that girls may earn their Paw Print badges.
Yes, members will have worked to achieve this Region initiative badge so it may be worn on their uniform top as appropriate or displayed elsewhere such as on a camp blanket. We think it will look fun to see Paw Print badges ‘walking’ all over a top or camp blanket!
There is no set syllabus for each themed badge. We recognise that every girl will have a different connection with nature and so we suggest that Leaders and the girls themselves (perhaps through Look Wider groups, Patrol Leaders’ Council, Brownie Pow-Wow and Rainbow Chat) decide when a badge can be awarded. This may be after one activity or possibly a greater commitment of engagement.
We’ll build upon the experience of our volunteer Leaders, offering them additional training and support through networking with national and regional organisations such as the RSPB, local Wildlife Trusts and the Wild Network. We haven’t forgotten the wealth of experience of many of our volunteers and hope that you will share that knowledge and passion for nature in your local areas.
No, this is not another challenge! The initiative will use existing Girlguiding programme and badges as starting points; we’ve developed several themes around which Girlguiding LaSER’s members will be Growing Up Wild. Our first Paw Prints include Growing Up Wild: At the Seashore, In the Mud, In the Autumn Wild, In the Spring, With Insects & Mini Beasts, All About Farming, In an Emergency and In the Woods.
We aim to encourage our Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers to engage with nature, get excited about being outside, and to explore and investigate in different natural environments. Our members will also discover their own impact on the world around them, through a range of possible ‘Paw Print’ activities from beach combing to woodland discovery walks.
The National Trust’s ‘Natural Childhood’ report, published in March 2012, highlighted ‘how a generation of kids were losing touch with nature’. Girlguiding LaSER is committed to offering our members opportunities to connect with nature; something that guiding has been doing for over 100 years.
Growing Up Wild is Girlguiding LaSER’s latest initiative designed to connect our young members (5-25 years) with their natural environment.