A Bath student is proving that would-be Girlguiding volunteers don’t need to have bags of spare time to sign up and help empower girls.

Holly Youngs with some Rainbow members | Photo © Girlguiding
As part of National Volunteers’ Week, the UK’s largest organisation dedicated to girls is celebrating the flexible ways that people are finding to sign up and support their 300,000 young members.
Training to be a Norland Nanny, 20-year-old Holly Youngs never quite knows what her days will look like from one week to the next.
One day she could be on placement in a family home and asked to do the children’s bath and bed routine, while the next she might be in lectures or training on the other side of the city.
When she moved to Bath to study at Norland – famous for training the world’s most elite nannies – Holly was eager to volunteer at a local Girlguiding unit but apprehensive about fitting it around her studies.
She said: “Girlguiding has always been my happy place. I have been a member for years, so I was keen to be involved when I left home.”
Holly, who is originally from Worcester, was delighted to be able to set up 88th Bath City Rainbows, who meet once a month on a Saturday morning for three hours instead of the traditional shorter weekly meetings.
She said: “I find it much easier to commit to volunteering this way. The meeting dates are decided three months in advance so I can put them in my calendar and commit that time to guiding.
“It fits well around my studies and gives me much more freedom in terms of socialising with my friends in the evening.”
Setting up her own unit has been “a massive confidence boost” for Holly and she says the meetings are the highlight of her month.
“It’s wonderful seeing how much the girls enjoy the meetings. The pride on their face when they earn a new badge or learn a new skill really does make your day and reminds you of the difference you are making in their lives,” she explained.
“We have so much fun and their joy is just contagious. I always find myself leaving meetings happier than I came in.
“Some people think that Girlguiding is all about making paperchains and girly things, but it’s not. They learn so many life skills but have so much fun that they don’t even realise it.”
With almost 80,000 volunteers, Girlguiding has one of the largest volunteer networks in the UK. A recent report found Girlguiding volunteers are four times happier than the average UK adult.
For more information, including flexible volunteering options, visit girlguiding.org.uk.