Helping more girls access adventure in 2025 and 2026

From adventure leader badges and new resources to the return of Big Gig and a wide game event across the UK, adventure is everywhere in 2025 and 2026.  

As you know, adventure is close to my heart and it’s at the heart of Girlguiding.  

Firstly, a huge thank you for leading adventure and inspiring so many girls to move into spaces where they feel brave and help them know they can do anything.

We know doing adventure builds resilience, confidence and self-esteem in girls, skills they can take on and develop for the rest of their lives. As well as being great fun and a brilliant way to make friends for life! So much adventure is happening across Girlguiding, and that's thanks to you! 

Our direction for adventure

We have a clear direction on our plans to get more girls experiencing adventure. We’re committed to putting on events, providing resources and working with girls to bring as much adventure as possible to members.  

The money from the sale of the activity centres has gone into a designated fund that will honour the legacy of the properties and enable us to invest in the future of Girlguiding. The new fund will benefit our current and future members – through grants and improved experiences including investing in adventure.  

Last year, the adventure fund enabled 56,000 more girls to experience adventure in 147 events. And over 110,000 members have completed our adventure badges since they launched in 2023. 

What’s coming up 

In 2025 and 2026 we will be bringing more adventure to girls that is accessible, affordable and local, as well as bringing back some member favourites. I’m excited to tell you about the huge range of things we’ve got coming up.

More girls at festivals and large-scale events

Big Gig is back!

We’re thrilled to announce the return of Big Gig in 2026. We’ll be taking over Wembley Arena on Saturday 10 October with 20,000 Guides, Rangers and leaders coming together across 2 shows. They’ll be more details on tickets and lineup to come across the year. But make sure you save the date! 

Adventures… by the Mountains

We’re excited to be working with North West England and providing additional funding to enable more girls to experience adventure via their brilliant event, Adventures… by the Mountains on 4 and 5 October 2025. Currently the event is open only to North West England members, but we’ll potentially be opening this up to girls across the UK, so watch this space. 

Wide Game event

In 2026, we’re excited to be working with countries and regions on a new urban adventure. Based on the model of a ‘wide game’ it will take place across Glasgow, Cardiff, Portsmouth, York and Manchester on the weekend of 21 and 22 March 2026. From Rainbows to Rangers it will be open to all Girlguiding members. Full launch and information coming soon. 

Grants

The accessing adventure fund  

We're working with girls from Pioneer and Amy, our lead adventure volunteer, to distribute adventure grants to countries and regions from the new access adventure fund. These will enable more girls to experience adventure that is accessible and local. This year’s fund is called ‘The accessing adventure fund – breaking barriers’ and it comes in part from the sale of the activity centres. We’ll report back on how these have been used at the end of the year. 

Girl voice

Pioneer 

I’m so excited to introduce our adventure and international youth panel, Pioneer. Made up of 18 girls and young women aged between 12-18 from across all countries and regions, they’re working with us to ensure girl voice is at the heart of everything we do. We’ll be doing a full introduction with them in spring.  

New and improved resources and opportunities

Adventure leader badges

2 years ago we launched our adventure badges and they proved incredibly popular with girls. Since then you told us that you’ve wanted some leader badges too, so this May we’re delighted to launch a new set of adventure leader badges. Keep your eyes peeled for the new designs.

More resources and support 

This summer we’re launching our updated going away with scheme, which will streamline the qualification process to take girls on residentials and overnight stays. We have our pre-filled risk assessments for adventure activities inside and outside the unit, residentials and international trips to make your life easier, which can be found on this page under ‘Pre-filled risk assessments and supporting documents’ > ‘Risk assessments for activities’. Then later this year will be working to improve our adventure pages on the website.

Opportunities

Finally, we're recruiting for new outdoor and adventure specialist volunteers to help shape adventure at Girlguiding.

Thank you 

As you can see there’s so much going on to bring adventure to as many girls as possible, and we couldn’t do it without you. We’re so grateful for all that you do. Thank you.  

As we move into spring we look forward to celebrating 2025 as the year of adventure at Girlguiding!