Who we are
1st Holbrook (Suffolk) Scout Group
The Group
The group is made up of three sections
• Beavers (aged 6 – 8) meet on Wednesdays from 5.15pm to 6.30pm in the school hall at Stutton Primary School. Tiffany Sims is the Beaver Scout Leader (BSL).
• Cubs (aged 8 – 10.5) meet on Wednesdays from 6.30pm to 8pm in the school hall at Stutton Primary School.
Jed Stone is the Cub Scout Leader (CSL).
• Scouts (aged 10.5 to 14) meet on Fridays from 7pm to 8.45pm at Freston Village Hall.
Adrian Garnham is the Scout Leader (SL), David Russell is the Assistant Scout Leaders (ASL).
Once scouts are 14 they move on to an Explorer Unit. There are four in the district. They can choose which one to go to but must go to the nearest – in our case this is Cattawade Explorers, who meet at Brantham Scout Hut.
Julia Parish is our Group Scout Leader (GSL).
The GSL is the Line Manager for all the leaders within the group.
The GSL and the leaders are responsible for running scouting activities in line with the requirements of the Scout Association.
The leaders are supported by an Executive Committee, made up of a Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, GSL, Section Leaders, Assistant Section Leaders and willing parents.
The Scout Group is a charity and the members of the committee are its trustees. They are responsible for ensuring that the group has enough money to enable the leaders to carry out the scouting activities they think appropriate, insuring the group’s equipment and making sure relevant accounting procedures are followed.
The Area
We recruit from Holbrook, Tattingstone, Stutton and Chelmondiston, and surrounding areas.
We are one of 15 groups in Wolsey District, which stretches from Claydon to Shotley, taking in the Southern part of Ipswich.
Wolsey is one of eight districts in Suffolk.
A district has a District Commissioner (DC). There should also be an Assistant District Commissioner (ADC) for each of the sections, with District Leaders to help them.
The ADC organises district events for their sections to attend and provides support and advice to local section leaders.
The district is also responsible for providing the Explorer Units.
The district also has an Executive Committee, whose structure and function is similar to the group.
The County has a County Commissioner (CC), who is the line manager for the DC’s and various DCC’s and ACC’s who are each responsible for different aspects of scouting within Suffolk.
The County also has a training team who provide all necessary training to enable leaders to get their Wood Badges, and a very useful directory of all Scouters in Suffolk on its website but you will need to register to use it.
The Scout Programme
Everything that happens in Scouting is governed by Policy, Rules and Organisation (POR), a document which can be found on the Scout website. Chapter 3 is most relevant to the running of a Scout group. The programme of badges and awards that we follow can also be found on the website. Broadly, there is a combination of Challenge badges, which count towards the Chief Scout’s Award, and activity badges, which are more narrowly focused. The Scout group pays an annual membership fee of approximately £41 per child, which is shared between the Scout Association, the county and the district.
Scout groups are given plenty of discretion in the activities they run. The exception is that camping must be offered annually. Our local campsite is Hallowtree at Nacton. We sometimes camp there but more frequently have section meetings there to take advantage of the campfire circles and adventurous activities such as rifle shooting, archery and climbing.
For leaders to run adventurous activities they need to be assessed for a permit. David has his kayaking permit. David and Adrian both have their Nights Away permit.
In addition, all scout leaders are expected to complete 18 modules from the scout training programme within 3 years of their appointment, this gains them their Wood Badge.
Section Assistants need only complete 3 and the Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary just the introductory module.
In September 2014 the Scout Association launched a new online membership system called Compass, which does most of the admin for the group. It has some functions for managing adult membership.
1st Holbrook (Suffolk) uses Online Scout Manager (OSM) to manage youth membership.
Links
District website: http://www.wolsyscouts.org.uk/
Suffolk website: https://suffolkscouts.org.uk/
OSM: https://www.onlinescoutmanager.co.uk/login.php
Escouts (discussion of all things scouting): https://www.escouts.org.uk/
Hallowtree: https://hallowtree.co.uk/
