Buzz #7 The Conference and other things

Welcome back to a busy Scouting season. I hope you’ve had a great summer – despite the British weather, which this year has been a little haphazard.

I managed a few days away as a guest at a brilliant (but a bit damp) Troop/Unit Summer camp in August before being called back to work to deal with an urgent issue. Scouting would be so much better if it were not for real life interfering!

We’ve started the year with a bang at the District Conference last Sunday attended by some 140 volunteers including a number of Young Leaders from around the District as well as our District Presidents. We were also pleased to welcome a number of representatives from the County team.

It was fantastic to be able to report how much we’ve achieved in the past 12 months. Remember we asked you for Stop, Start, Continue comments last year? You gave us 216 items. At the Conference I reported that we’ve addressed 59% of the things you asked to be sorted out and that we’re actively working on another 30% as well as a number of other things you didn’t ask for (but wished you had!).

I talked through what’s important for year 2 of our 5 year plan. We’ll be concentrating on our strategy for Growth which means Top Awards, Youth Involvement. We’ll be looking to recruit someone to help run the District’s Media & Communications, as a key person to help with getting Scouting into the community, changing public perception and through that recruiting more members and, particuarly new adults into Scouting.

We’ll also repeating the Quality Programme Checker exercise in November to see if we’re improving our scores – I hope we are!

You can see the Conference presentation slides here

I was pleased that we could acknowledge the fantastic work of adults in Scouting and included a number of Award presentations and also include the District AGM. Robin brought some items from the District archives to peruse and it was great to meet a good number of Jamboree Contingent members as well as some Explorers who went to Sweden this year.

The barbecue was an epic triumph too – thank you and well done to the District catering team (who, incidentally are at it again at the Great River race this coming weekend) and special thanks to 1st Whitton for giving us the use of their hall and grounds.

I’m off on hols, so Tim will be minding the shop for a couple of weeks. I know you’ll treat him kindly!

Thank you everything you do for the Scouts – however much or little, it all adds up.

Phil

District Commissioner