Role of the Guider - Introduction to your roles and responsibilities

Guider's Responsibilities
Always remember the responsibility for the general running of the Company and the happiness of everyone in it belongs to the Guiders. To fulfil this role she needs to:-

• Get to know and understand each Guide in the company and make her feel that she is needed, welcomed and valued as a member
• Be aware that even in the simplest of activities there are possibilities for the Guides to develop
• Practise good forward planning which is essential to the smooth running of the Company
• Encourage Guiders/Helpers to contribute their own ideas and to work as a team
• Realise that you may not know all the answers. Check with your Unit Leader/Area/District Commissioner regarding training in your Diocese which is always available

Guiding Belongs to the Guide
Guiding is the property of the Guides with their own small group, programme book,meeting place, programme and so on. The Guider facilitates the Company meeting and through the patrol system provides opportunities for Guides to become involved with new and challenging activities.

Leadership
Women from all walks of life are adult leaders in Guiding.Being a Guider provides opportunities for many of them to share in a caring environment encouraging, helping and motivating young girls and women.Now that you have joined our Association you will be encouraged to use your talents, learn new skills, extend existing skills and make many new friends in the Guiding
community. Your time and energy working with enthusiastic young people in Guiding activities will be much appreciated and will be very rewarding and great fun.The Guider is a role model for the Guides in her care providing leadership through:

• Relating with the individual Guides and responding to their needs
• Communicating effectively
• Promoting interaction between Guides and Guiders
• Having vision and thinking outside the box
• Encouraging Guides and Guiders to reach their goals
• Understanding the needs/characteristics of the age group
• Being flexible in her approach
• Motivating, stimulating and delegating
• Offering opportunities for others to learn
• Offering opportunities for international travel

Leadership is effective when each Guider gets the opportunity to use her strengths at Company level and to overcome any weakness through the provision of training.

Styles of Leadership
The Guider provides direct leadership to the Cygnet Guide and Brigin Guide Sections. Indirect leadership is exercised by the Guider with the Guide Section through the Patrol System and the Patrol Leader Council. In the Ranger Guide Section the Guider facilitates and encourages Ranger Guides to make decisions for themselves.

Skills and Qualities
No skills are necessary however, all kinds of qualities are useful for working with young people including:
 

• The ability to organise and delegate; to talk with and listen to young people in order to understand them
• To work in a team
• To have a sense of humour
• To exercise consistency of behaviour
• To be fair, patient and sympathetic
• To have a non-judgemental attitude
• To have a readiness to join in
• To have a willingness and capacity for hard work.
   

The success of everything that happens at Company level depends very much on the Guider who facilitates participative decision-making which will vary according to the different age groups.

The Guider

• Sets the tone for her Company and generates an atmosphere and attitude for Guiding with which the Guides can identify
• Sees that the methods are put into proper use
• Ensures that there is an ample supply of challenging activities
• Understands the aims and goals to be attained in Guiding and works towards their fulfilment
• Leads by example - her religious belief, her standards of personal behaviour, her care for individuals, her enthusiastic disposition entering into every activity, her supply of endless ideas for things to do - which is part of her infectious nature that young people yearn to emulate.