Closure

For almost twenty years, I was a guider, working with Guides (as opposed to Brownies or Rainbows or Senior Section) in what is now Girlguiding UK. Guiding was a big part of my life - until I made the decision to give it up in 2006 for a variety of reasons.

One role I held during that time was that of Association Trainer. Between 1996 and 2004, (at a guess) I ran sessions which helped grass roots guiders run an effective programme for the girls in their units, as well as sessions about aspects of training for trainers-in-training.

It was all a long time ago - but for some reason, I'd kept the folder containing all my session plans and post-session notes and the evidence I'd had to produce when trialling the NVQ Level 3 in Training and Development (I think that's what it was called) to see if it equated to the Association's own requirements for a Training License.

Why on earth had I kept the folder? Because it had been so important to me? Because I'm a closet hoarder? Probably a bit of both, but whatever the reason, today I bit the bullet.

I took that file, and I read through it. Read everything...

There were lots of good memories in there - feedback from trainees which indicated that I had made a difference to their own Guiding experience or that I had encouraged and motivated them (which is a good job, because GirlGuiding relies on these women to give girls and young women the experiences they do), and there were details in post-session notes I'd written detailing some personal achievements too. (Presentation to over 400 women, anyone?!).

There were, of course, some not-so-good memories stirred by the reading (not least the circumstances that led me to step down from the role, which I won't go into) like getting lost on the way to a training and arriving with one minute to set up, dealing with difficult trainees, activities going wrong...

After reading it all, I realised; there really was no reason to keep it all.

So I put the lot in the recycling bin.

I don't need to hoard the paperwork, because I have memories. I have skills. I have the certificate! And what I learned then, I'm still putting to use today, albeit in a different setting. My training in training means I can put together a comprehensive creative writing session for adults or children. I can speak confidently to strangers. I am aware of the different ways people learn. And I'm sure there are lots of other things, too.

The paperwork may end up as toilet paper, but that training experience remains inside me, where it really counts. In recognising that, I am able to close the book on that time and let it go.

And today, that feels really good.

Talking to the 'youth'

Last Thursday, I spent an evening with a church youth group in Sileby, talking about writing.

I'd been invited to go by a friend who helps run teh youth group - I've known J for many years, ever since my brother was in his scout unit and Mr Squidge (still just someone I admired from afar at that stage!) was in J's Venture Scout unit. J was also very good friends with some of my school mates, and we all used to go together to a youth group on a Friday night. In fact, I have hazy memories of putting on a performance and having to rock and roll with J...

Anyway, J had thought the 'youth' in the group might find it interesting to hear about what I'd been up to.

Have to say, it goes down as the first author talk I've given where pizza was on the menu! I think I'm going to request it at every talk I do in the future... *winks*

There weren't many of us in the lovely large social centre: just seven young folk between the ages of maybe 11 and 16, plus three or four adults - one of whom is in the early stages of a PhD to study how older people are portrayed in children's literature. (That led to some interesting conversation!) And would you believe that two of the children, I'd already met at another author talk? They were pupils of St. Crispin's School in Leicester, which I'd visited back in March.

Anyway, we got started and I introduced myself before moving onto a timeline of my writing, using the books I'd been published in as props. I quite impressed myself, actually - there was quite a stack to work through, even without including where I'd been published in a purely digital format.

I also took along some of my notebooks, complete with scribbles and crossings out and maps and castle plans, along with my 'box-a-day-of-writing' plan to show how I create the outline of a story before typing it up. We also had the opportunity for a Q&A session, but the youngsters were all a bit shy, so most of the questions came from the adults.

I set the youngsters off on a writing exercise, using the starter 'The antique glass bottle contained...' As always, I was really pleased that everyone was willing to give it a go, whatever their ability. Mind maps, sketches and notes were used to outline some stories, and some stories were written straight off the cuff. Some of the ideas were absolute corkers - and if I wasn't the writer of integrity that I am, I'd have loved to have pinched a few of them!

Everyone seemed to go home happy - and full of pizza - at the end of the session, and that's all I could have asked for, really.

Roll on the next one!

Library volunteering

I spent today in the school library.

I volunteer there most Friday afternoons, adding books to the computerised system, stickybackplasticking (don't care if that's not a real word - it should be) covers, sorting the Dewey numbers...that kind of thing.

I'm really lucky to be working with the grandma of a couple of the students, who also happens to be a retired librarian. This lady is a godsend. Not only can she tell me - without looking in an index - what number any non-fiction book should be (to three decimal places!), she has taught me so much.

Like; when listing an author, and it looks like they have two surnames - Lynne Reid Banks springs to mind as we've had a bit of fun with her - you list under the second name, ie B, unless it's hyphenated like Dick King-Smith, who's a K.

And how 'space' - the planets, stars, moon - falls in the orange 300 section, but 'space travel' is in...ooh, can't remember! Green 500's or red 600's?

But you get my gist. She's a fount of knowledge and together, we have achieved so much more than I could have on my own. I tended to look at all the numbers and freeze. If I was feeling really yukky about it, I'd concentrate on the fiction, 'cos I liked that more.

We sorted through the fiction today - took out the duplicate copies of books that had been used for guided reading years ago, took out the water marked and torn copies that could not be salvaged, made sure we only had three sets of Narnia books...that kind of thing. We also added two physical shelves to give the books breathing room and be able to shelve everything that the kids have out on loan when the books are recalled at the end of term.

We also put away non-fiction that wasn't in the right place. It felt a bit like painting the Forth Bridge; we're constantly renumbering the non-fiction shelves.

I much prefer ficiton - those books only need a letter. And the alphabet's much easier to keep in order than the numbers... Is that my natural tendency to prefer all things letter-y coming through, I wonder?

Anyway, it was good to get done what we did today. Next week, I reckon we'll have to sort out the 900's...