COVID-19 News Bulletin #16 - 28th October 2020

With increasing numbers of sections and groups returning to Scouting in Suffolk, the great news is that young people are delighted to be back. The process might appear daunting but the rewards are clear and are providing other opportunities at this challenging time.

Colin Winter, DCC, recently visited 1st and 3rd Stowmarket Cubs who have been meeting outdoors for a few weeks now. They have a total of 24 cubs so are meeting with 12 on alternate weeks. The leaders are enjoying the normality of being back Scouting even though they have had to amend the way they carry out activities. The cubs are keen to embrace all of the opportunities that outside scouting offers. Parents feel confident that their young people are safe, and appreciated the consultation that they had prior to returning, with the opportunity to engage with leaders about the process. Colin is visiting other groups too to hear they stories on returning to face to face.

I recently visited 1st Honington Cubs orienteering, 32nd Ipswich Scouts, 31st / 9th Ipswich Wednesday Cubs at Suffolk ski slopes and 14th Ipswich Cubs. It was great to see young people enjoying their Scouting and a big thank you for all the excellent Covid set ups that you had put in place.

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

Training Updates

All Group and District Executive members now need to undertake the following training as the old executive training module 1EX has been discontinued. The training can be undertaken online and the relevant certificates can be printed off and forwarded to the Group Scout Leader, Training Adviser or Local Training Manager to be updated on Compass.

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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.