I’m Polly and I am the leader of 10th Ely Rainbows (Cardiff), I have two assistant leaders Tia and Rachel. 

We started Virtual Guiding all the way back in April! We didn’t run a full session for our first week but held a ‘let’s check the tech works’ session so the girls could see us and so that we and the parents could get the setting right.  

Over the summer term, we ran 14 sessions and did the challenge badges ‘Tales of Wales-Chwedlau Gymru’ and ‘Magical Kingdoms’. We chose to do these as we didn’t want any of the girls not joining in online to get behind on the programme. Over the summer term, my Rainbows earned 45 badges! 

After the summer holidays, we resumed Virtual Rainbows and this term are working towards our Know Myself and Be Well Themes. This has proven to be a nice mix of both active and reflecting sessions. Sessions over the first half of this Autumn term have included Be A Brownie, we had a virtual visit from a Brownie who told us all her favourite parts of Brownies, we built dens on and tied this in with Sing a Song of Slumber and learnt some fun facts about why sleep is important and how different animals sleep. We have also visited all the world centres (virtually of course) and learnt about where they are and the Rainbows around the world.  

As well as our virtual visit from a Brownie, we were visited by an Archaeologist, Tessa, who joined our unit when we were doing the Paint the Past UMA, she really bought the topic to life and showed us the different paints used, and where she has been around the world with archaeology.  

We are really excited for the next half term, we have lots of fun activities planned and we have two more virtual visits planned one from our member of Welsh Youth Parliament for the If Your Eyes Are Brown Turn Around Skills Builder and another from a Cheer Leading Squad for the Cheer Challenge UMA. 

Comparing our first and most recent Virtual Rainbows I can safely say we’ve all grown in confidence in using the software and how we interact over the internet. The times things haven’t worked have either been to us under- or over-estimating how much time an activity will take or deviating away from the usual structure of the sessions with can throw off how the girls interact for the session 

If you are thinking of starting virtual guiding one of the most important things to consider have a meeting structure. We follow the same structure every week, we always start with news, this allows everyone to contribute something and gets everyone’s voice heard. We then normally do a crafting activity next, or, for example with the Hidden Histories UMA, we read about Mary Seacole first. For the last 10 minutes we do games or songs, Captains Coming and Beans are the two main games we play, and we’ve been singing Bananas of the World, Bananas in the Sky, Little Green Frog, and There Was a Crocodile. We then always finish with our Rainbows Song, early in the Summer term I found sheet music for the Rainbow Song and one of our mum’s recorded us a piano backing track which has been invaluable over Zoom which helps to combat latency issues! 

The thing I am most grateful for while running Virtual Rainbows are my amazing assistant leaders, I could not (and would not want to) run meetings without Tia and Rachel. They are a continuous source of fun, enthusiasm and ideas of how to make things work on virtually. We work together to solve the problems we have faced and have cheered each other on when things are difficult.  

I think the most important thing to remember is that it isn’t going to be the same, some things won’t work, somethings will, and we are all learning. So just keep doing your best x