Nick's Ramblings

OK, I’m not going to go on about the song sung by The Beatles and Barrett Strong!

Yesterday I got round to finalising the Scout Troop’s money for the last term. Now for reasons too boring to go into here, I look after the Troop’s subs money. Once I’d tallied all the cash up, two things surprised me. First that it balanced first time and second that the Troop had a lot more cash than I thought!

Now when I say I was surprised that it balanced against the accounts I keep, I mean that I normally make a mistake and miscount or miss an item from the accounts themselves! As to the amount, we always try to make sure that any money we have in the section’s own ‘kitties’ is less than £100. Any surplus goes to the Group. This ensures that we don’t have lots of cash around our homes and that it’s in a more secure place – the bank! So I have a trip round to the Group’s Treasurer very soon.

Keeping money for an organisation, even just the weekly subs, is quite a responsibility and you have to be accurate in all that is done and ensure that everything is properly recorded. The ‘fingers in the till’ situation must never happen. This is another reason we keep section money below £100.

With the current economic climate, the availability of jobs is getting less and when a job does become available, competition for the post is often fierce.

Therefore, when companies are looking at candidate’s Curriculum Vitaes, they are not only looking at the person’s suitability and qualifications for the job they’ve applied for, but what they do outside of work. So by being in a volunteer organisation, such as the Scouts, is seen as the person not just sitting at home and watching TV, but making an impact on and helping their their local community. Which is see as the person having character and the willingness to do things for others.

I got a letter in the post this morning from the Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services telling me that they wish to put my Group’s details on a website that promotes volunteering opportunities for young people between the ages of 16 – 25. They have consulted with Staffordshire Scout County and our District and they have virtually filled in all the forms I need to complete for me! Can’t complain there then!

So the forms are now in the post on their way to them. I’ve put down for extra Assistant Beaver, Cub & Scout Leaders, so now we wait to see what will happens.

It will be interesting to see if anyone gets in touch, but if we do get one extra Leader of of it, then we’ve done well.

At the Group Scout Leader’s conference I went to last year, one of the things talked about was a self review form that had been trialled and was likely to be rolled out across the country. I brought it back with me and thought  it was a good idea.

However, I kind of forgot about it and it sat on my ‘to do pile’. Then a month or so ago, it was given out to all the District’s Group Scout Leaders as it is being fully rolled out. Each Group needs to work through it and then we are having a meeting about it in November (I think).

Its official title is the Scout Group Development Planning Traffic Toolkit! There are 15 sections and each has various criteria. If the ideal criteria is met, you score ‘Green’, if you are close to the ideal but need some work, you score ‘Amber’ and if there is a lot of work to do, you score ‘Red’. Once you’ve gone through all the sections, you again score green, amber or red.

Yesterday and today I’ve been working on it, and I must admit I had good idea of what our overall score would be. And I was right – amber.

To be honest, I’m quite happy with this result as it shows that we as a Group are doing a lot of things right and there are some things where we need to improve. So i need to write up my reasons for the scores, this is so I can show my reasoning to the other Leaders and the Group Executive, and write an action plan. The action plan will be a draft version again so the other Leaders and Executive can add their ideas as well.

By doing all this, I hope this will enable us to provide better Scouting for all the young people in the Group. I’m glad of this opportunity to do this as it gives us some idea of where we are and where we need to be. Although I’d like to think we’re perfect(!), this does prove that although we are doing some thing properly, we need to address others.

I’ve put a copy of the form here so if anyone is interested they can read it.

Does anyone else, in the UK or elsewhere, do anything similar?

Last year for our centenary we finally got ourselves a new Troop flag. After the new one was dedicated in Church the old one was taken away and my Mum said she’s do some repairs on it so it wouldn’t deteriorate any more.

Now bearing in mind this flag is well over 60 years old it’s done us proud! At the same time as checking over the Scout flag, the old Cub flag which was replaced around 10 years ago was also taken in for repairs. Again, I think this flag is well over 50 years old, and so needed a bit of tender loving care!

Well, my Mum has done us proud and the flags are now ready to be returned into Church to be officially ‘laid up’. However, we will keep an eye on them as they are important parts of the Group’s history.

The old Cub Flag

The old Scout Flag

The Scouts have just come back from playing a wide game in Bradwell Woods. The idea had been to let off some rockets that the Scouts had made for their Astronautics Badge, but it was raining and there was quite a strong wind. So like NASA, we postponed the launch until another day and played a wide game instead (although I don’t think the people at NASA play wide games when a launch is delayed – or do they??)!

As it’s been raining a lot recently, everyone got muddy and wet and most of us, including me, slipped over and got even more muddy! At one point all the Scouts disappeared when walking through some ferns as they were shorter than the fern bushes!

However, we all had a good time and by the time we’d finished the clouds had nearly gone, the sun was shining and there was a rainbow on the horizon!

A soggy group of Scouts!

More photos of general soggyness are in My Group’s Gallery.

I’ve been meaning to mention more about this, but other things came up.

On Wednesday 15/07/09, St. Swithin’s Day, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers were in London to lobby MPs and OFWAT about the proposed Water Tax (read all about it here – explained better than I could!). Apparently, this was the first time in the Scout Association’s nearly 102 year history that they had actively campaigned and lobbied MPs on a specific issue.

The campaign has been all over the net with its own YouTube Channel (see the link above) and people Tweeting about it with the tag #stoptheraintax.

Everyone who went did a great job to raise this issue and from what I read it was one of the most successful Lobbies of MPs in many years! One bit of feedback I read that really impressed me was –

MPs were amazed at our organisation

And that says a lot I think!

I wrote to my MP to see if he would go along as, although the Rain Tax wouldn’t have a direct affect on my Group, it could on the Church Hall where we meet. I’m waiting for his reply!

The other interesting thing is that due to the power of Twitter, Scott over at InsaneScouter picked up on the story and wrote about it on his blog (and even referenced me ).

So now we wait to see if all the hard work the Cubs, Scouts, Leaders and people from Gilwell put in will get it sorted.

I was saddened to read that Henry Allingham passed away in his sleep early this morning. He was the oldest surviving British World War 1 veteran, the oldest man in the world, the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, the last original member of the Royal Air Force and the world’s oldest Scout!

As I posted last year, he became a member of the 6th Brighton Scout Group 100 years after first trying to join Scouting!

With his passing a little bit more history passes with him and it is very noticeable how the First World War is now virtually gone from living memory.

RIP Mr. Allingham.