Hi I’m Anna, I’ve worked for Girlguiding Scotland as the CashBack development officer for almost 2 years. I work with Guide and Ranger units in areas of deprivation giving capacity building support, leadership opportunities and funding. You can find out more about CashBack here.

Since I joined this project, over 1000 girls have benefited from CashBack. 67 units from the Borders to the Highlands have been involved.

My goal is to ensure that the units in the project feel supported with whatever they need and make guiding easier for the volunteers. I’m really interested in looking at how guiding is run, identifying the problems and looking at how we can change things to make them more effective. This could be any part of guiding, for example, I’ve produced a resource that can hopefully make budgeting simpler, and my next challenge is looking into how we can help more girls access adventures via public transport.

My favourite part of my job is visiting units and delivering everyday leadership sessions. These sessions are never the same, even if I go with the same session plan! Sessions I’ve run have included sustainable fashion design and decision making, goal planning skills, confidence building and problem solving. I run Girlguiding Scotland challenge packs and have had a lot of fun recently delivering the Own our zone pack and creating ideal feminist towns.

I learn so much from the young people that I meet, and I’m always blown away by their enthusiasm and ideas. I’ve learned is that everything can be a game, and young people tend to engage better when activities are fun. Because I don’t know the young people I’m going to work with I always have a wide range of games up my sleeve so that there’s something for everyone.

This job is so brilliant for me because there’s no such thing as an average day. I might be working from home, visiting my colleagues in the office, spending my evenings chatting to volunteers or travelling around meeting units all over Scotland. I love that I can get involved with wider Girlguiding Scotland activities – I also lead a staff working group which helps us to ensure that we are an inclusive workplace.

If you volunteer with a Guide or Ranger unit in an area of deprivation and would like support with growing the offer of your unit, helping your girls gain leadership skills or would like funding, please get in touch! I’m always happy to chat about CashBack, so please email me on anna@girlguiding-scot.org.uk and we can set up a call.