southamptoncityscouts.co.uk 

The web site is now being well used by a substantial amount of our Leaders in the District. The site has also encouraged a number of adults to come forward and offer us some help as a leader.

It is doing what we intended and that is to SHOUT LOUD how good we are in Southampton City. When you hold any event in the future please take a photo and write a few words so we can put this on the web site. If you have any children that cannot have their photo taken please make sure they are not in the picture.

We are working on improving the District Diary in the Member’s area so keep your eye out for those developments.

We would also encourage Groups to use the launch of our District web site as a pointer to reviewing your own Group web sites. It is important that web site information is up to date and live. We would also ask that you send us some Group promotional material so we can develop your pages on the site. We have set up an introductory page but it would be good to develop this more fully.

The Southampton City District Camp

The planning for the District Camp continues and we hope that you are all busy planning your on site activities.  It would be great if we all had lots for the young people to do.

We want this camp to be a huge success for everyone from Beavers to Leaders. That is a huge objective but I am sure we can do it.

For those children wishing to go canoeing at the camp they will need to make sure that they have a District Swimming Certificate. (blue card) If a child does not have a blue card they still have a opportunity to go to Red lodge swimming pool on a Wednesday evening and take the required swimming test. Many thanks to Laura Dyer and Rex Budd for making sure these test evenings continue in Lee Budd’s absence.
If you have any queries regarding the camp could you please either speak to me George or Mike or the following section representatives. Beavers – Lin Johnson. Cubs – Patsy Osborne – Scouts – Andy Clasby – Explorers and Young Leaders and Network – Dave Bowers.

Adult Leader Reviews

Some Adult Leaders are due a review and you may be asked by your GSL or line manager for you to meet with them. Can I remind those GSL that these must be done by the middle of March please.

Leader Training

We have increased the amount of Training Advisers that we have in the District and over the next few months we will be having a big push. Those of you that generally need help you get your Training organised will have a opportunity to attend a Training Breakfast at the 29th HQ on Saturday 3rd March at 8.30am. It will be good to see you.

Those of you that do not have a Training Adviser will be assigned one very soon.

Wilverley

It has now been decided that we will continue to use the same vehicle route via the Wilverley Inclosure car park. We are talking to the forestry about improving the signage to the site so that parents don’t get so lost!!

We continue to raise funds for the electrical supply to the buildings and have been awarded two grants totalling to £2,000 to help us meet our fund raising target.

Group RAG reviews

Veronica Radford, the District Chair, and I have now met with three Groups to help them establish their Group Development Plans. This is a great way of looking at what works well in your Group and forward planning how we could develop and improve our Scouting. Those Groups that have not come back to me with an appointment for us to meet with you please do so. We would like to meet with all the groups before the District AGM at the end of June.

Scout Group HQ Leases

We have held another meeting with the City Council and our fellow Southampton Scout Districts to agree a generic Scout HQ lease which will offer us some long term commitment to scouting in recognition for what we offer the cities young people. Once those leases are concluded we will be presenting them to groups and asking for each group’s approval.

This month has been busy with lots happening!!

Sarah Milstead and I visited St Johns School to attend the school assembly to find us some more Beavers and Cubs for the 25th Sea Scout Group. This was a great success and a very worthwhile exercise. If any other Groups would like me to organise a similar event at your local school please get in touch and I would be pleased to help you.

I had a lovely day joining the Explorers on a Monopoly Run around London. It was a great day and greatly enjoyed by the Explorers and myself. Thanks go to Darren Russell for organising this event.

I attended the County Cluster meeting and from this I would remind everyone that Scouting and Guiding are supposed to join forces to organise an activity to benefit the community. Please start to think how you will do this. If you want to make contact with your local Guide Unit but are not sure how to do that please speak with Sarah Milstead who I am sure will be able to help you.

I visited the 11th Scout Group who were holding a Group camp at Ferny Croft. The £1,000 that was awarded to the Group funded the majority of the cost of this camp. What a super use of that money. That reminds me that those Groups who have not decided how to spend their award please do so before the 2012 District AGM as we will need to report how those awards have benefited Groups.

I also visited the 25th Cubs who were holding a weekend at Foxlease Guide Activity Headquarters. They hired The Barn which is super indoor dormitory accommodation. I would recommend it to you. They were having a great time.

Finally, thank you to everyone who attended the Founders Day Service at Highfield Church. Thanks go to Chris Davis our District Chaplain and to Russell Andrews and the 29th Scouts for helping us with the service. I thoroughly enjoyed the event.

Please don’t forget if you need to speak to me with anything your concerned about just give me a call and I am sure I can help you.

Mob Tel 07770364711 or colin.floyd@ntlworld.com

Yours in Scouting

Colin Floyd
District Commissioner
Southampton City Scout District

Aaron and Steven, working together managed to run indoor activities with the Cubs, planned and ran a cycling camp, as well as the other clauses above.  They have also been active members of the Young Leader Unit, leaving Cubs to rush across Southampton once a month to attend Young Leader training, and more recently, helping me to run the training programme.

We were pleased to welcome a good number of Leaders from the 13th Scout Group and Southampton City District to congratulate them both, as well as the new Assistant County Commissioner (Young Leader Training), who added her congratulations for the awards.

We look forward to welcoming them both to Adult Roles in Scouting as they turn 18.

Iain Redmill – Explorer Scout Leader (Young Leaders); Southampton City District Scout Council

What does the website have that is new?

The new website is designed to enable us to tell everyone our good news immediately so please don’t wait until the end of the month to send us your stories just write a few words and take a good photo and send them to Tony Kench who will put it in the good news section of the site.

Of course we are aiming to increase our scouting operation in our district but this can only be done if we tell everyone that we need more adults to volunteer and that volunteering can be done in a range of different ways. The main message is that some roles can be taken up in a very flexible way to meet the needs of our other commitments. This message is clearly given in the get involved pages and the announcement that even the Duchess of Cambridge has given a commitment to help scouting locally.

The Scouting pages offer some understanding to the prospective parents and also to adult volunteers on the aims of the scouting programme for the various sections and promotes them. This information needs further work so please give us some ideas you now the individual sections better than me.

We have set up Group pages on the site if you have a better photo of your headquarters please send them to Tony and he will put them on the Group introductory page instead of the ones that I took early one morning that are a bit fuzzy. These pages are for each group to develop so send your promotional materials to Tony and he will enter it onto your page. If you have your own Group website we have linked to it but please make sure it is up to date and suitably focussed on getting out the key message of we are good at scouting in Southampton and we are looking to grow but that can only be done if the community help us and more adults come and join in the adventure!!

The site also has up to date information on our district camp site Wilverley and a calendar giving its availability. Could all ADC’s please check that the district events at Wilverley are fully booked on that Calendar?

In the Adventure pages we have information about the District run adventurous activity clubs that we have for you. These are in Archery, Climbing, Hill walking, Shooting and Water activities and the Canoe Club. Take a look at these and please promote them to the young people.

In the members area you will find all the information that you will need if you are going through the training scheme. Nico is working hard to really make a difference to this so keep an eye out for further information. We also have in the member’s area the District Directory and the District Calendar and the District Executive Committee have now entered all the minutes of their meetings over the last three years. They make good reading. In the members area we also have key notices for leaders so use these as a way of finding out the most up to date information.

The Southampton City District Camp

We want this camp to be a huge success for everyone from Beavers to Leaders. That is a huge objective but I am sure we can do it. I have asked a small team to meet with Mike Jackson, George Longhurst and myselfto help shape the Camp and try as best as we can to meet everyone’s requirements.

If you have any key requests I would ask that you tell the following people:

Beavers – Lin Johnson. Cubs – Patsy Osborne – Scouts – Andy Clasby – Explorers and Young Leaders and Network – Dave Bowers.

I am attending all the section meetings to get some understanding of what each section would like organised for you at camp and all those thoughts will be discussed further at our planning meetings and then feed back will be given.

Adult Leader Reviews

As I am sure you will be aware Scouting has a review process that we must uphold. This is a positive way for us to say thank you for all that you do, it is also a opportunity to ask what we can do to support you and do you need further ongoing training for your various roles. The review process is also a vehicle for you to tell us if your happy doing the role you have could you offer more and take a bigger role or is it time to reduce your commitment. GSL‘s and I will be sending out review invites to a few of you over the next few weeks.

Christmas Holidays!!

With Christmas I had a great rest and recharged the batteries. I have attended two main events since Christmas.

I was kindly invited to attend two Chief Scout Award presentations at the 7th Scouts. They gave a presentation to the Troop of activities they completed as part of the Award requirements. Clearly they had found the work challenging but great fun. Well done to them both and I hope they are now looking forward to moving onto Explorer Scouting.

At the last moment I stepped in to drive the mini bus to Gilwell for the Winter Camp. Nemesis Explorers went along with the 7th Scout Troop. The Gilwell Winter Camp is a huge event with over two thousand Scouts and Explorers camping. Gilwell has it very well organised and they offer central cooking which means it is just a case of turn up pitch your tent and enjoy the wide range of fun activities that they have organised. I would thoroughly recommend it to you. Stuart, perhaps the Scouts could go as a district next year?

Please don’t forget if you need to speak to me with anything your concerned about just give me a call and I am sure I can help you.

Mob Tel 07770364711 or colin.floyd@ntlworld.com

Yours in Scouting

Colin Floyd
District Commissioner
Southampton City Scout District