Queens Guide Award in Ballarat

Kaitlyn is Ballarat’s newest Queen’s Guide

It was a special night at Guides this week as the 1st Sebastopol Girl Guides recognised their very first Queen’s Guide awardee – Kaitlyn Brown.  This is Kaitlyn’s 3rd peak achievement award, having previously earned both the Junior BP Award and BP Award.  Kaitlyn will attend a formal event next year at Government House, along with the 12 other Queen’s Guides from across Victoria, where they will be presented with a certificate by The Governor of Victoria, Linda Dessau.

The local celebration incorporated a range of activities that were enjoyed by guests of family, friends, peer unit members and Guide Leaders. There were quizzes, miming, decoding morse code, balancing, Chinese whispers and nibbling logos in biscuits. A ladder was used as a prop throughout the night to indicate that the Queen’s Guide Award is the achievement at the top of the ladder.

Unit Leader Dawn Fischer presented the badge and certificate, and Pam Schafer attended to present a gift from the Queen’s Guide Association of Victoria.

Kaitlyn has been a member of  Guiding since the age of 5 and completed the syllabus for the Queen’s Guide Award just before her 18th birthday earlier this year. Since then, Kaitlyn has been volunteering in her unit as a leader.

Queen’s Guide Award

The Queen’s Guide Award is the peak achievement award for youth members of Girl Guides Australia. It provides an opportunity for personal development, self-awareness and attaining knowledge and and skills.  The Award requires significant determination, initiative, self-motivation, resilience and commitment and is pursued only by a small number of  Guides.

Guides are required to accomplish tasks in leadership, community service (volunteer work), outdoor skills, cultural awareness, working with peers, and to advance their own personal development in areas of their choice in the form of a ‘focus’ and an ‘interest’.  Kaitlyn’s challenges were completed over the last 3 years and included:

• Focus – ARTS – completed calisthenics skill exams, participated in a theatre pantomime of Peter and the Wolf, enjoyed acro dance classes as skill development and as a major project studied drama and performed in the school production of High School Musical.
• Interest – PARKOUR – attended parkour sessions and learnt various movements including an aerial
• Guiding Traditions – learned all about Australian Brownie Guides, added the information to the Girl Guide website and spent several nights teaching the Junior Guides about Brownies.
• Service – worked with Lions Clubs International to organise for Guides to collect used glasses to donate to the Recycle for Sight program to benefit third world countries. The aim was to collect 2018 pairs of glasses in the year 2018. With the help of  the public and other Guide units, the collection reached in excess of 4510 pair.
• Outdoors – achieved the Outdoor Trefoil 3 (Air Activities) badge and flew a plane
• Leadership – attended several Leadership camps including a Fun Leadership for Youth event
• Patrol System – participated fully in the Guiding patrol system
• World Guiding – researched Japan, Japanese customs and Guiding in Japan. Spent time with the Japenese Guides when they visitied Ballarat and taught activities and games to the Junior Guides.
• Promise and Law– discussed and documented her understanding of the Guide Promise and Law and how it has developed over the years. Kaitlyn first made her Promise as a 5 year old and was witness to the change of Promise in 2012.

All tasks were documented in a bound book, peer assessed, and approved by Guides Victoria.

We congratulate Kaitlyn on this enormous achievement.