Become a volunteerAdventure & Challenge
Adapting to online meetings
My Adventure/Challenge came in 2020 as lockdown began. Having to tell my unit members (Rangers) that we would not be able to meet in person for an unknown amount of time was something I never thought I would have to do.
After a couple of weeks passed and the reality of how we were going to be living became clear I decided to take our unit digital. I sat at my laptop and filmed around 50 takes of a ‘Welcome to our virtual challenges’ video. I kept feeling embarrassed and worried about how I looked in the video. Eventually, I bit the bullet and posted a version of the video. To my surprise the Rangers were interested in the activities and challenges we were challenging them to join in with, all to earn badges and have some fun. We would challenge them to something and then they would post a picture in our closed unit Facebook group to share what they did. I would challenge our members to an activity or two for the week and to my delight they were enthusiastic and excited to join in with the challenges. The Rangers painted, drew, did workout routines, baked, decorated their house and various things around them, cleaned, held family games nights and took part in various challenges.
We soon got into the stride of this and a couple of months in, an exciting new way for us to connect was given to us in the form of Zoom. From my experience with the challenge videos I was very nervous to host a video meeting, with no idea how the website worked or how well it would be received by the unit members. The added pressure of being able to see yourself at all times while in the meeting was piled on top of planning and trying to keep our members engaged in what we were doing.
I remember logging into that first zoom call and seeing the Rangers faces excited to be able to talk in real time and connect. From there we played countless silly virtual games, some made up on the spot, some stolen from other units or online forums, all in the name of building spirit and fun. The Rangers earned the highest number of badges I had ever had to order and our unit even went from 4 members to 15 all while just on zoom.
As the meetings were going so well and fun, I decided to create activity packs to give the unit members some physical activities, I then decided to cycle the kits out to the rangers and leave them on their door steps cycling over 5 miles in the very hilly Buxton.
We made seed bombs, learnt knot tying, decorated glass jars and tea lights for Diwali, baked mug cakes, built dens and even took part in the Derbyshire virtual camp-overs all from our own homes.
With this challenge of completely overhauling the way we worked, I learnt that as long as you put your hair in a bobble so it doesn’t look as wild and unkempt and at least tidy your direct background for a zoom meeting, all is good. The most important thing I learnt was the amazing resilience of our young members and their willingness to join in. This would shine the brightest when probed by a crazy and overly enthusiastic leadership team. I learnt that they were just as nervous as us and that an hour a week of silly games and activities is just what we all needed no matter how stressed we all were.
