Independent Guiding
Independent Guides (known as Lones until 2019)
Lones are girls without a local unit who work on the programme by themselves. If a regular Brownie, Guide or Ranger unit isn't an option then Independent Guiding can help you.
There are lots of reasons why a set weekly meeting can be an issue but that shouldn't stop girls joining Guiding. Instead they can join an Independent Guiding Unit and get support to work on the programme. While Lones might be new to you they have always been part of guiding. The first Guides at the Crystal Palace rally were technically Lones!
How does Independent Guiding / Lones work?
Lones (aka Independent Guiding) is for Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers who can’t attend a regular meeting for whatever reason. This may be because there is no local unit, or they have another activity on the same night, or they have health problems that make attending a unit difficult, or there is a long waiting list to join a unit – it doesn’t matter! Lones lets you take part in Girlguiding in a flexible supported way that suits you.
When girls join a Lone unit, they are allocated a leader. The leader posts (through the mail) a newsletter with news, activities and badgework every month. It is then up to the individual what they do. Some find that term-time is too busy to do Guiding stuff, but they then get busy in the holidays, others do a bit every week. To get badges, girls let their leader know what they have done, usually by email, and often with photos or even videos. The leader then posts out the badges.
We get together once a year, at the Lones Gathering. This is a great time, as we finally get to spend time with each other and includes all sections together. We sometimes get together at other times for a day meet up or something bigger. Some Lone Guides and Rangers did a trip to Orkney in 2018, and attended Ayrwaves in 2017. Plus, a group was going to Camp Brave in 2020.
Want to join Lones?
Scottish Lones take Guides from all over Scotland. If you are interested in joining, for more information check out Girlguiding Scotland
When did Lones begin?
Lones as we know it today was established by Agnes Baden-Powell in 1912. This original company had members from across the UK and Europe and was known as Postal Guides. The first Captain was Nesta Ashworth;
“She rang up and said they’d got a lot of girls who wanted to be Guides but lived much too far away in isolated places and what should we do about them, would I write to them?
Well, you know when you are not much more than a teenager you’ll do anything whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’ll take on anything. So, sure I would, oh she thought I’d get a dozen writing to me and they put a notice in the Scout.
Well, I leave you to imagine what happened. There were dozens of girls all over England and Scotland, Ireland and Wales that wanted to be Guides but couldn’t join a proper company. I didn’t mind the letters that came but they sent everything that was applied to their Tenderfoot Tests. Union Jacks you know in all coloured and embroidered and painted and all sorts. They sent me stones and pressed flowers and insects and all, but the worst of all, of course, were the rabbits.
The original 2nd class test in the Boy Scout handbook said you must be able to skin and cook a rabbit; boy did they ever take this seriously. They sent me rabbit skins galore and not cured rabbit skins, just rabbit skins. And they sent me roast rabbits and stewed rabbits and boiled rabbits and it was in August. Some of the rabbits had had long weary journeys from the north of Scotland and all I did was to make a little hole in a suspicious looking brown paper parcel, father, rabbits! Father was very noble, he planted them all at the bottom of a big red rose tree and in 1961 I went past our old home and there was the rose tree still blooming!”
A Scottish Region Postal Company was established in 1919. They changed their name to Lones around 1930. In 2019 we are being renamed again this time to Independent Guiding.
Lones aren’t only found in the UK. There are active units in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.A. (where they are known as Julliettes).
What’s the deal with the Trefoil on the challenge badge?
When the current crop of leaders started working with Lones, we had a special cloth patch that Lones all wore to represent our County. Introduced in 1999, in the style of a patrol emblem, this cloth badge had a blue trefoil with a letter ‘L’ in the centre. This was dropped in 2014 when branding changed.