2024 brings some changes for Scouting and loads of new opportunities.

Let’s make 2024 the best year yet for Scouts in Leeds

Matt Jackson – District Lead Volunteer

Fresh Faces and New Volunteers

2024 will bring with it the chance to provide skills for life and Scouting to whole bunch of new people from Squirrels to Network. However without our amazing volunteers, Scouting wouldn’t be possible.

Because of this we will be putting a focus on bring in new volunteers to help in the sections where volunteers are needed most. We know that many of our sections run solely because of parent rotas and this isn’t sustainable – it leads to stress and feeling burnt out. So we’re looking at ways to get

Squirrels

Squirrels was launched at the end of 2021 for 4-5 year olds, influenced by Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s Brownsea Island camp having a thriving Red Squirrel Drey. We will be working on sustainably expanding Squirrels in Leeds Templars but are listening to feedback and concerns.

Squirrels opens up amazing opportunities to the early years of children and provides another way that young people can engage with Scouting and gain skills for life. As Squirrels focuses on those that are really young, we ask for a lot of parent help and input which is another way we can try to get the community excited about scouting and recruit new volunteers.

Explorers, Young Leaders and Network

We are looking at revitalising aspects of our 14-24 Team to engage with even more young people after Scouts. We will be looking at how we can expand the explorer teams we already have, attract more young people to the Young Leaders programme and re-energise our Leeds Templars Network.

There’s a lot of enthusiasm and some amazing people at work in the new 14-24 team so keep an eye open for what they’ve got in the works.

Digitalisation

As Scouts, we believe in creating Skills for Life for our Young people, and the Scouts digital Strategy applies as much here at Leeds Templars as it does across the country.

Being digital isn’t just about technology, not about being digital-only or digital for the sake of it. Its about transforming the processes, technology and techniques we use to work together in a different way. Bringing together the new website, our social media and communication methods will allow us to work better as a team and better coordinate to support our young people and volunteers.

As we wait for the rollout of the new Scouts compass replacement, we are updating how we work here at district to be ready for it and able to make use of it and it’s new features as soon as we can.

Team-work and the new Volunteer experience

The Scouts experience is transforming this year to help us to:

  • Recruit more volunteers and retain current ones
  • Make volunteering at Scouts feel rewarding for everyone
  • Consistently and safely deliver a better programme
  • Make sure that more young people are gaining skills for life

Like many others across the country, we hard at work preparing for the transition to help our young people and volunteers learn what this means, how it helps them and what may change going forward.

Read more

Events and Camps

The new Programme team has been doing an amazing job doing their initial meetings with each section to introduce themselves, the new district and the new way of working. We have some well loved events lined up like Barry’s Bowling and Adventure District Camp but lots of ideas are brewing away in the team to think of new ways we can engage with our young people and give them skills for life in ways they’ll enjoy.

Events