World Thinking Day is normally a day of celebration, highlighting the achievements of Girlguiding and the 11 million members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the globe. However, this year it was heavy with grief for those of us in the UK; it is hard to celebrate an organisation who is causing so much harm.
We loved hearing from community members and what they were thinking about this year - you can check out our latest podcast episode for more. We were excited to see our badges travel across the world to Sangam in India, as well as at Pax Lodge here in the UK. One of our members was involved in running events at Pax Lodge, the World Centre in London, and received a lot of amazing enthusiasm and feedback from the adult groups, who were all informed about GATE. There was a lot of interest in our badges too! This also provided a safe discussion space to be opened up as well as groups cheering and applauding the work GATE has done, which is exactly what Girlguiding should be doing.
Because this day caused more sadness than celebration this year, especially with the number of volunteers resigning before the census due date last week, we want to hold our own celebration event on 7th and 8th of March. This is a virtual sleepover with many events and activities over the course of the two days, celebrating all the work GATE has done so far, giving a space to have fun and get to know other GATErs, and enabling more people to join in with our 100 for 100 challenges. Make sure to get your free ticket to join in the fun, for as much or as little as you'd like!
We will be highlighting the challenges with fewer entries and encouraging everyone to take part. Did you know that 15 of our 100 challenges are already complete? That’s amazing! Our three days of action have been brilliant at bringing in responses, but we know there’s more that people haven’t told us about. Please remember to send your efforts in via the website, email or message (either to a GATE account or directly to a lead team member on the WhatsApp community). We can’t count your amazing work towards our totals if we don’t know about it!
Our 100 for 100 challenge will extend far beyond World Thinking Day and we know some units aren’t working on it until next term, but we encourage everyone to get their units involved. If you need help talking to your unit or leadership team about the decision and getting involved, check out our volunteer handbook, Unlocking the GATE. This has lots of helpful information as well as unit activities and how to link this to the programme.
We are also organising our next wave of protests so mark your calendars for Saturday 14th March, with cities across the UK getting involved. If you’d also like to run one in your area, there is lots of support available, just let us know!
Our volunteer onboarding process has taken time to get right, but we’re excited to start welcoming people into our new teams in the upcoming weeks, and we thank everyone for their patience. If you’d like to get involved and help out, send an email to volunteers@guidersagainsttransexclusion.co.uk to find out more.
We are also taking part in other events including Trans Pride Scot and the Together Alliance March. Check out our social media pages for how to get involved.
Remember to check out the event page and book your free ticket for next weekend - it’s going to be a lot of fun! Join us for as much or as little as you like, there’s no pressure to be available the whole time. Why not get your friends and families involved too - this event is open to everyone!
Please be aware that anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied or supervised by a parent/carer/trusted adult for both online and in person events.
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