McKervey with State Commissioner of Girl Guides NSW, ACT & NT, Emily Milton Smith at the Cobar Show on Saturday.
State Commissioner for Girl Guides NSW, ACT & NT, Emily Milton Smith, visited Cobar over the weekend to see what Cobar’s Girl Guides get up to.
Ms Milton Smith said when she first started in her role as a commissioner just over three years ago, she was encouraged to go to Cobar.
“One of the Girl Guide members said ‘You need to go to Cobar, it’s so important, the Commissioner never goes to Cobar’ and so I said ‘Okay I promise’.
A life-long Girl Guide of 25 years (and Guides don’t break a promise), Ms Milton Smith indeed paid a visit on the weekend.
“I came to see all of the great stuff that is happening in the community,” Ms Milton Smith told The Cobar Weekly.
Ms Milton Smith visited the Guide Hall, spoke with leaders and joined the Cobar Guides as they set up and ran the pet show at this year’s Cobar Show.
“I was able to see the girls work together and use their facilitation and negotiation skills.
“All of that learning we do in Guiding.
“We’re all really united by our focus on our community values and our promise to our Guide Law to do our best at serving our community.
“We run a very similar program all around the country. We use the same fundamentals and elements with girls getting involved in leadership learning, citizenship activities and outdoor education.
“It’s the same whether you are in Cobar or in Canberra, Darwin or Dubbo.
“Distance is a challenging thing that we find in a lot of communities, including Cobar.”
As the head of Girl Guides in NSW, ACT and NT, Ms Milton Smith said they see similar challenges when they talk to the teams in Alice Springs or Tennant Creek in terms of the need to foster the community but also the reliance on finding volunteers.
She said there were a lot of activities in the central west region that the Cobar Guides could attend along with a number of state opportunities for the girls.
“There is a big, big camp coming up called Jamboree that our state is going to be running, on the mid north coast.
“We hope to see the Cobar girls there.”
Ms Milton Smith said she’d heard about all the good things the Guides were doing in Cobar, with information about their local community and citizenship awards being shared through their state newsletters.
She said it was nice to be able to come and see all the awards the girls had received.
Ms Milton said while awards are important to recognise achievements, they also demonstrate what the girls are doing for their community.
“When girls participate in our program they’re more likely to be more resilient than their peers and more likely to be confident.
“They’re likely to practice leadership skills, have better communication and better team work skills.
“It has a lifelong impact on girls helping them unlock their potential and participate in their community.
“When we think about communities like Cobar, active participation is so critical to have in the thriving connected communities that we all want,” she said.
“We’ve done a lot of research around that as well.
“It’s not just us talking the talk, we’ve researched that girls who participate in Girl Guides fare better than their peers who aren’t in Girl Guides, but also volunteers that work with Girls Guides have a higher wellbeing outcome as well.”
Ms Milton Smith said being a Girl Guide can take you anywhere.
“I’ve been in this role for the last three or so years and, as the leader of the organization, I’m super proud to be a younger woman doing this as well.
“I’m the youngest Commissioner ever to hold the role across all of Australia and I hope that is both inspirational and aspirational for young girls, to see that they can be whatever they want to be.
“Intergenerational learning and connection is also really important.
“It’s something I’ve learned through the movement and something that I inspire to be able to share with others as well,” Ms Milton Smith said.
