County Youth Commissioner search continues!

The search continues for the new

COUNTY YOUTH COMMISSIONER for SUFFOLK

Nominations close at midnight 4th November 2020.

As you know Ollie Smith will be standing down as County Youth Commissioner, a role he has held for the past 4.5 years to take on the role of Deputy UK Youth Commissioner for programme. We send him all best wishes for the future.

Although his national role will be his primary role, it is planned that he will continue to head up the County Programme and Youth Shaped workstream.

The search for his successor continues, and names of suitable candidates are being sought for consideration by the County Commissioner to succeed Ollie and to continue to build on the sterling work he has put into the role and the initiatives which he has instigated across the county during his time in post.

How can you help?

We all know that there are some amazing young people out there with talents and skills that would make them ideal candidates for this role; although they may not realise it themselves! (See enclosed SCYC Vacancy pack for details of role).

It is important that nobody gets overlooked to have the opportunity to be considered for this key role in the county and that everyone gets the chance to nominate those they feel could undertake this role and equally to be able to nominate themselves.

We want you to contribute to this search so please have a think about whom you feel should be considered for this important and rewarding role by submitting a nomination, or multiple nominations (including yourself) for consideration.

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Annual General Meeting 2020 - Suffolk Scouts County Council

Annual General Meeting (AGM) - 26th November 2020 19:45

At the County Executive meeting held on 8th October 2020, it was decided that the AGM this year would be held on-line as has happened and continues to happen for many other such meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The meeting will also be limited to County Scout Council Members but will be recorded and made available to the wider membership after the event.  County Scout Council Members will receive an invitation to the on-line event shortly with the Annual report being made available to them by the end of October. The report will be available as a PDF file that can be downloaded and reviewed ahead of the meeting.

County Scout Council Membership is detailed in the Suffolk Constitution.

Carl Gloess

County Secretary

 

Scout Webinars - Events & Recordings

HQ are putting on many information sessions for all members in scouting.  The upcoming events can be found at the events page at HQ Events (use link) and usually a calendar invite is included initially with a 'Join Meeting' link published on the event information page a few days before.

Recordings of the webinars are now stored on the Vimeo platform and can be viewed here - Vimeo-Scout Webinars.  Others exist under the HQ News pages with 'Watch' and then a title (latest titles at top of page).

Other specific event recordings can be found amonst other training sessions where registration needs to be carried before you are sent a link to view it.

Scout Christmas Post 2020

We are sorry to announce that due to the COVID-19 situation and the restrictions required, it has been decided this year’s operation of the Ipswich Scout Christmas Post is cancelled.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but we look forward to serving you again in 2021.

More information about the service can be found at Scout Post Ipswich.

CMAT Programme 20/21 Updated

The CMAT programme has now been updated for planned activities but these will of course be undertaken under COVID rules where possible.  See the CMAT Activities page for details.

COVID-19 News Bulletin #15 - 1st October 2020

Whilst there are many challenges for us all at the present time, Scouting is starting to learn to live with the new normal. Hopefully we will have a mild Autumn allowing us to make the best use of the great outdoors. Thank you for your continued support of Scouting in Suffolk.

Don’t forget you can follow our news and ideas at https://www.suffolkscouts.org.uk/coronovirus. 

Do keep up to date with national events on The Scouts website here.

Risk Assessments

If you are looking to start the process of writing your risk assessments you can access the guidance from headquarters here. 

You can access a template for completing a risk assessment here. It contains some ideas and tips for producing your own document.

Update from HQ

Headquarters have asked Groups who have their own venue to provide a printed 'QR code' so that visitors to the building over the age of 16 who have a phone that is loaded with the NHS Track and Trace App can scan the code to register their presence. We still need to keep registers of all members. You can read about this here. It is really easy to create the code and print it off. You can do this here.

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Hallowtree Activity Centre - Update

We are pleased to announce that following the latest government advice, we have now fully reopened Hallowtree. At the time of writing, this only includes day sessions for scouting groups, but we are all hoping that changes soon. Activities can be booked as normal, provided that they can be carried out with all appropriate safety measures as required by your risk assessment. We will not be providing any Hallowtree instructors at this time, but you can use your own with prior agreement.

For the next few months, before residential Scouting experiences are permitted, we are accepting bookings from Scout leader families who may wish to get away from home for a weekend and dust off the camping gear. We have enough toilet and shower blocks to assign each group their own dedicated set of facilities for their sole use. Plus, there is plenty of space around site to spread-out and ensure safe and easy social distancing for everybody visiting. We have specific Covid-19 guidance which is issued at the time of booking.

If you would like to make a booking, please follow the normal booking process on our website (hallowtree.org.uk) or call 01473 714440. The latest news can be found in the file below.