Girlguilding UK have announced that tens of thousands of girls across the country are now unable to join the Brownies because there aren’t enough volunteers available to lead the sessions.
Up to 70,000 young women are missing out on the chance to make friends, have adventures, and live out all our nineties dreams, according to the charity who’ve launched a national campaign to try and recruit members of the public.
So in a bid to renew enthusiasm for the Brownies, we’ve been getting nostalgic and remembering all our favourite things about the childhood rite of passage.
1. You had to wear the brown culottes.
It’s just a shame yellow and brown look so bad together.
2. You thought your Brownie promise was a bigger deal than any school exam.
The humiliation of messing up your words in front of everyone: “I promise I will do my best.”
3. You never spent so much time in a village hall.
Evenings spent dancing around a toadstool were somehow totally normal. 🍄
4. You had no qualms with calling a group of middle-aged women “owls”.
And secretly hoped that one day you’d be Barn Owl, not Brown Owl because they were terrifying.
5. You never felt as sassy as when you were with your pack in full uniform.
Seven-year-old girls taking over the world in a pair of culottes.
6. You were all for playing nice, until you had to mix with other Brownies.
We’ll help an old lady across the road, but forget being friends with anyone outside of this pack.
7. You were devastated when your best friend became an Imp and you were an Elf.
Friendship over.
8. You treated the Brownie Handbook as your bible.
You spend hours reading it cover to cover working out how you could possibly nail that jester badge.
9. You got a hostess badge just for making your mum a cup of tea.
If only we could be rewarded for such levels of service as adults.
10. You always wanted to be the person with the most badges.
Even though your mum’s fingers were raw from sewing them on.
11. You seemed to lose your woggle on a weekly basis.
Can we all just agree that a necker is not a practical accessory?
12. You truely believed camp was somewhere in the wilderness.
When actually you were just at the leisure centre down the road.
13. You were gutted when you were too old to be a Brownie.
Girl Guides just wasn’t quite the same.