A Centenary Celebration

This blog isn't 100 years old (who would have thought it?), but this is the 100th post. To celebrate I'm going to pick out some notable and memorable posts from the depths of the archive to share with you. It'll show you a little bit of my inspiration, and also how my writing style, graphics and videos have improved along the way (I hope it has...)

My Queen's Guide Award Days

The first posts back in 2008 were for the community action part of my Queen's Guide Award - the highest award for a young member in Girlguiding. I made 4 videos of issues that young people thought important to talk about. I did one one bullying with a couple of friends, one on drinking responsibly with my Ranger unit, one on international development looking at education and fairtrade with a group from a local school, and this one with a variety of submitted images to encompass the whole theme of '4 Films, 1 Future'.

My First Commission on The Status of Women

I didn't start blogging straight away when I launched Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out in October 2010 unfortunately. The catalyst for picking up the blogging again was being selected for the WAGGGS delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in early 2011. I explored NYC for a few days beforehand as it was my first visit to the US and that prompted this post on my rules for travel.

I had a very factual take on blogging back then, almost like a diary just listing what I did each day. This day was one of the most inspiring/educational/catalytic experiences for what I've subsequently done, but you wouldn't know it from how I wrote back then...

After my return to the UK I didn't really blog for the rest of the year (even though I did some pretty big stuff like a research trip to Kenya, Young Women's World Forum 2011, finishing my Undergrad degree, Camp Out 2011, WAGGGS World Conference, starting my Master's).

My Second Commission on The Status of Women

Then I heard I'd been selected as Event Co-ordinator for the 2012 WAGGGS UN CSW delegation and I picked up the blogging again with this post. That one and the next two are when I starting thinking through the issues, doing research and giving my opinions and emotions. Blogging is about storytelling and stories without emotions are pretty dull I think.

The delegation, and the event in general, talked a lot about violence against women and girls as that was going to be the subsequent year's theme. I had to explore how this subject effected me personally in this post whilst I was there.

The Road To Rio

As I got the news I'd then be in the WAGGGS delegation to Rio+20, I managed to keep the blogging going after I got back to the UK this time. The particularly exciting realisation that not only had I spoke at the UN, but the UN had listened to me in this post was also a great encouragement.

I talked more about violence, topical events and the issues coming up at Rio. Unblogged life events include a lot of work on my master's dissertation (Museums and Gender Based Violence) and the start of my relationship with my, now, civil partner. That's perhaps why the issue of the representation of gender and sexual minorities was one of the things I particular noticed in Rio.

No Longer A Student

Then came October 2012, the second anniversary of Speak Out, Reach Out, Camp Out, the time when I stopped being a student and the end of one of my most lengthy Girlguiding roles - Region Youth Forum Chair for Girlguiding Anglia. At the last meeting of my role I gave an after dinner speech which I then turned into this blog post. The theme was inspiration and I hope it inspired the people who heard or read it.

I spoke to a Soroptimist International conference, attended a High Level Panel meeting, headed to the US and then went to Bali for the UNFPA Global Youth Forum to finish off the year.

Feels Like I'm An Adult Now

2012 closed with my partner and I getting engaged - that's a lovely story I'll tell in the future sometime. Then because being an binational couple there's a tonne of immigration laws to figure out, my UK based job search began well before I returned to the UK. The whole immigration story is one I'm working on a thoroughly researched blog post for, because simply our system is discriminatory in the rules it's using. We can back to the UK, I amalgamated my posts into this site and this marked a turning point in my use of images.

Highlights from my recent post is this one summarising my Master's dissertation as I rewrote it for journal submission (yet to hear if it made the cut though).  Then there's the WAGGGS Post-2015 stuff that I'm now invovled with, and facilitating a workshop in Italy. I read an article about using lists and subheadings to make blogs more readable, so then I wrote a list of the 10 things that inspire me to advocate for equal rights.

A Girlguiding Blogging Community

June saw the new Girlguiding Promise - an event that introduced me to a lot of new young women bloggers out there. My run down of other blogs was one of my most read posts, but was still topped that day by my tips for talking about the Promise with girls.

That was then topped this month with the call to vote in the Speak Out Blog Competition.

Blogging has grown as my platform for speaking out on a weekly basis, and I think I've got better as it as I've gone through those 5 years and 100 posts. But I'm not done yet - I've got plenty more to talk about and want to grow the whole project still further.

So keeping reading please. :)