Girlguiding Anglia have announced plans for a pyjama party in 2025!
Anglia’s chief commissioner team would love as many of our members as possible to take part in pyjama parties across the region to celebrate World Thinking Day 2025. There are so many party possibilities and it’s up to each unit or even district or division to decide how to host it.
Support
The event team will support you every step to ensure you feel informed with your planning and preparation. To start with, we’ve produced this set of frequently asked questions (FAQ’s). You’ll find lots of information included about the event and hopefully have a clearer idea of how everything will work. Plus if you complete our expression of interest, then you’ll receive a useful timeline of when to complete different elements of your planning and what’s coming from the events team. Timelines will be posted out to all units who have signed up.
There is a pyjama party Facebook page. We hope this helps leaders support each other, share any questions and also gives a platform for sharing pictures and stories over the World Thinking Day weekend.
There are also a variety of flyers to help you advertise your event which can be found here.
The team
The event team includes our deputy chief commissioner, Claire Course, alongside our region outdoor and residential advisors, Pam Lacey and Sarah Crocombe. Hertfordshire assistant county commissioner, Sally Settle has joined the team too with Queen’s Guide candidate, Emily Curtis. Our region opportunity and adventure volunteer team leader, Carolyn Hare is also on the team, as well as members of the region retail team and delivery team.
Everyone is really excited to ensure we can make the event as accessible as possible to as many of our region members as possible. Please get in touch if there is anything you need from us that you can’t find in the FAQ’s or any other event information.
Webinars
We will be running several support webinars in the lead up to the event. These will help with REN forms, risk assessments and any other questions you may have whilst setting up your sleepover.
17 September 2024, webinar 2: support with completing your REN part 1 and risk assessments.
9 January 2025, webinar 3: support with completing your REN part 2.
5 February 2025, webinar 4: open forum for questions and support with things you might have forgotten.
If you’re unable to attend any of the webinars, don’t panic! They’ll be recorded and made available for you to watch below. We’ll also be using the webinars to help continually update our FAQS on the website.
Prices
Unit activity pack, including all activity cards, stories and poster: £2 per pack.
Girl goodie bag, including badge: £2 per girl.
Volunteer goodie bag, including badge: £1 per volunteer.
Bookings
We’re so excited to announce that orders are now open for our pyjama party packs ready for World Thinking Day 2025! Head here to order everything you need for your girls and your unit.
What’s next?
More information will be shared through the region newsletter and our social media platforms as the project progresses. Please spread the word with your networks so we can get as many of our amazing members involved as possible.
Join us for a fabulous day raising money for BBC’s Children in Need!
Girlguiding Anglia and Southend United bring you a fabulous opportunity to raise some pennies for Children in Need.
Girls will get to support a great cause, have some fun and meet members of Southend’s football teams.
Plus Pudsey and Sammy the Shrimp will be there to cheer them on!
When and where?
Come and join us on Saturday 11 November between 11am and 1pm at Garon Park Leisure Centre, Southend.
Southend United’s Community and Educational Trust and Girlguiding Anglia will bring 250 girls the opportunity to take part in a sponsored penalty shoot out competition.
What’s on offer?
Each girl will get to take 5 penalty kicks, as well as cheer on their friends.
We will also be joined by Pudsey and Sammy the Shrimp for lots of photo opportunities.
And our amazing team from Hautbois Activity Centre team will be doing some soft archery and midi fencing.
Every girl attending will receive a certificate and an exclusive event badge, plus a pair of tickets to Southend’s home game on Saturday 16 December!
Bookings!
Bookings are now open! You can book your place here.
Girls can be accompanied by either their unit leaders or parents.
The event costs £1 per girl and 50p per adult.
All proceeds from the event and sponsorship money will be split equally between Children in Need, Southend United Community and Educational Trust and Girlguiding Anglia.
Further information
Sponsorship forms and an FAQ pack full of information for the day will be shared with booking information.
Sponsorship money can be gathered before or after the event. We will open a specific JustGiving page for all monies to be paid in to.
There’s more!
On the 11 November, 12 girls will be chosen to go through to take part in a final penalty shoot out opportunity at half time on match day, 16 December, at Southend United’s home ground.
The girls chosen will be assessed on 3 criteria; goals scored, display of Girlguiding values and sponsor money raised. If a child is chosen who cannot attend match day, then their place will be offered to the next girl on the list.
Come and join us
We currently have a number of exciting opportunities for our members to get involved in region project teams. It would be amazing to hear voices from across our region and give members the opportunity to shape future events and challenges, or get involved in developing an idea or strategy.
You told us, we listened.
You might be aware that we’ve advertised for some of the roles below previously, well we didn’t get much response, so we asked for some feedback. You told us that our application packs were too in depth for a project team and that the reference process was quite off putting.
So here’s what we’ll be doing moving forward:
For non region committee roles:
- We’ll share all region opportunities in one place so you can see what takes your fancy.
- If you’re interested, email us at vacancies@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk and tell us which role interests you and why.
- We’ll email you back with key information on the project and the responsibilities of the role.
- We’ll also ask you permission to approach your local commissioner for a reference.
- If all parties are happy to move forward we’ll invite you to a kick off meeting for the project
For region committee roles:
- All opportunities will be shared in the same place.
- These roles hold more accountability and responsibility, but give a great opportunity for you to really make a difference in how the region is run.
- If you’re interested in taking on a committee role, email us at vacancies@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk and tell us which role interests you and why.
- For these roles there will be an application pack, but we are, following feedback, reviewing the content and looking at ways to make the process easier.
- We will ask for permission to contact your local commissioner or a suitable alternative.
- Once we have received your completed pack and reference, Tracy Foster, Chief Commissioner, will contact you to discuss your application further.
Data Protection Review and Refresh
As we start to return to some level of normality after the pandemic, we thought it was a good time to refresh everyone on some of the key requirements of GDPR so we can ensure we remain compliant against the guidelines.
Data protection is as vital now as it has ever been.
‘The EU GDPR has been written into UK legislation by the Withdrawal Act as the UK GDPR. The EU Exit Regulations applied technical amendments to make the GDPR work in a UK context, but the principles and rules are essentially unchanged. The UK government is committed to maintaining the same high standards of data protection.’- ICO website Jan 2021
The impact of Covid has meant that perhaps GDPR has fallen down our list of priorities, but we must remain compliant and ensure we can always evidence that we have the 7 data principles at the centre of all we do.
The 7 data principles of GDPR – are you following best practise? Can you evidence this? Follow the link to refresh yourself with these key principles of data protection.
Training
Can you remember when you last did your GDPR e-learning? Girlguiding recommend all members and paid staff do this every 2-3 years.
Please encourage all your networks to do the e-learning if they haven’t completed it recently.
Support
A great document from Girlguiding to refresh yourselves with is ‘Resources to support you with GDPR’.
The last bullet point has in depth information on how to report a data breach or a subject access request, which is vital for volunteers to know.
The managing information policy and unit retention schedule documents are also worth a read.
Plus if you need to remind yourself about permissions for photos and sharing them, then please take a look at the sharing photos and videos advice.
If you’re concerned about data protection or need further advice you can contact Girlguiding dataprotection@girlguiding.org.uk or dataprotection@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk