Chief Scout Award Presentations (October 2023)

Group photo of award recipients with the Mayor of Basingstoke, Lady Louisa Portal and Peter Byrne

Congratulations to the 22 amazing young people from Basingstoke West District Scouts who were awarded their Chief Scouts Silver, Gold, and Diamond Awards on Monday evening. They were celebrated in a formal ceremony headed by the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, along with Lady Louisa Portal, District President, and Peter Byrne, District Commissioner.

Among the recipients was Harry Dood who received his Chief Scout Diamond Award (equivalent to DofE Silver) and was given the opportunity to share his experiences with the other young people present. He provided an inspiring account of the adventure and growth he experienced completing his award, before hearing a citation from The Warren Youth Club thanking him for his impeccable volunteering service.

Harry Dood accepting his Chief Scout Diamond Award

We are very grateful to the Mayor, who hosts these events, and our Top Award recipients in the Council Chamber twice a year. It creates a special moment in these young people's lives and we hope it's something they remember for a long time.

The Chief Scout's Awards are the pinnacle of the scouting journey for each section; it is an amazing achievement to have earned them. All the recipients demonstrated their tenacity and commitment while learning skills for life.

Lilly Help 24th Basingstoke Scout Group

Thanks to the generosity of 25 Lilly employees, who volunteered their time through Employee Volunteering, 24th Scout Group has had a much needed facelift.

The team removed nearly a ton of earth to rejuvenate the car park, removed foliage, sanded and painted windows, doors, and benches and disposed of plenty of rubbish and unwanted materials.

One of the volunteers enjoyed their day so much, that they have enquired about providing ongoing maintenance support to the Group!

24th Scout Group is our most in need Group, sitting in an area ranked in the bottom 20% most deprived in the country.

Establishing relationships like this is essential to ensuring the ongoing growth of the District, allowing potential volunteers the chance to try their hand. We are also thankful to Mike Webb for grasping the opportunity with both hands.

The 25th World Scout Jamboree

By Naomi Bailey (ADC International)

Well, where to start!

I can give you an insight into the trip from the perspective of Unit 62 (my unit), each UK unit will have had different experiences although they will all be similar.

So this experience started for me 2 years ago with the Adult selection weekend back in September 2021, where we were all put through our paces by the group of assessing adults and young people. Those leaders selected then had to put on / run a sub camp during the young peoples selection weekend in October before spending an agonizing 6 hours selecting who would be offered a place to attend the Jamboree (400 down to 144 is no easy task), I think this was possibly one of the hardest elements of the Jamboree experience.

Unit 62 was a joint unit with South West England Guides, a bitterly cold November saw us helping to run and select the 9 members of Guiding that would make up our unit.

December 2021 and we finally had our complete unit, let the fun begin with training weekends to cover a wide range of topics – team bonding / creating a unit identity / how to handwash clothes / cooking with limited kit / how can we make more areas of shade / first aid / hiking & navigation / cultural do’s & don’ts / what unit kit they wanted etc. the list goes on.

The next year seemed to fly by and where leaders had been able to answer queries we didn’t have the answers for with “that’s a next year problem” we suddenly found ourselves at the beginning of 2023, so now they were this years problems!

Our young people had bonded as a unit and patrols, it was great to see them all together as 1 unit (we defied anyone to tell which were the guides & which the scouts), we had an excited well trained / prepared group ready to embark on the Jamboree trip. UK kit started to arrive, and the excitement / reality started to increase, and then it was departure day! Meeting up at a central location gave us chance to run some final checks on paperwork / kit / passports etc. and despite a late coach pick up (which did nothing good for my sanity) we were checked in at Heathrow and on our way leaving at 6.30am.

First stop Warsaw, despite having a couple of hours layover time, we just about got through security checks and to the gate before being called for boarding.

Then it was the long haul to Incheon, S. Korea arriving at 6.20am the following day (local time), we found time to sing happy birthday to one of our unit in the airport before starting to sort out sim cards and the metro.

We had our Tmoney cards in hand and we were off, 40 members with rucksacks and 43 kit bags in tow, we navigated the metro with a 1 ½ hour journey to arrive in the Meyongdong area of Seoul and had our first taste of the outside temperature, Wow it was hot & sticky! Fortunately, a short walk saw us locating our hotel for the night and some very welcome air con & cold water.

Seoul Metro

Then it was back out into the streets to explore and do some last bits of shopping in preparation for the Jamboree site. As we headed out for our evening meal we got the news that our departure to the Jamboree site was being delayed by a day or 2.

Day 1 saw us waking up to our first morning in Seoul, only to discover that we would need to re-trace our steps back to the airport for that nights accommodation. We decided to spend the day in the local area enjoying a paddle in the cool water of the Cheonggyecheon stream before splitting into patrols and allowing them to explore a bit on their own. Who knew what fun leaders would get from Selfie check ins! (where’s your sun hat?!) that evening it was time to head to our accommodation for the night, even at 10.30pm it was still quite hot and very humid!

We had it confirmed at around 11pm that our unit would be departing for site the next day, we managed to acquire some food for breakfast & lunch the next day at a couple of local convenience shops, I don’t think the staff knew what had hit them when so many UK units descended on their small shops looking for food & drink for the next days meals.

Day 2 we left Seoul at around 11am for the 3-4 hour coach journey to the campsite, we had a few interesting google translate conversations with our driver about where he was going to drop us off, but eventually with the aid of a digitally drawn line on a map we got to our sub camp, now just to find our pitch!!

We used some insider advice from IST and made sure all our tents would benefit from the sea breeze (if it should appear), by the time we had positioned the crates to set out where the tents would go and had managed to pitch 5 tents, we had to throw all the kit bags in these tents and hurriedly get to the muster point ready to head off to the Opening ceremony. I think around 2 hours later we made it to the security check to enter the arena, we found somewhere to sit and settled in for the show. Lots of speeches and the parading of the flags later it was time for the K Pop show (but it was after 10pm and we still had 35 tents to pitch before we could go to sleep, let alone grab some food for the night) so regrettably we had to make a move and head back to camp. We managed to see the drone show from a reverse angle just as we finished with all our tents. It was still so ridiculously hot and we had well & truly been eaten by all the bugs that we gave up on the idea of cooking and headed for bed.

Opening Ceremony

Day 3, I got to see the sunrise over the site as my patrol was up before 5am to go and collect the food boxes, then it was back to camp and get cooking the interesting breakfast meal we had (chicken breast tomato stew). So our first full day on camp had us finding out where everything was and working on setting up our camp properly with a kitchen area, camp gateway, additional shade and decorations, this was slow work due to the soaring temperatures & humidity. The young people managed to do a bit of wandering around and talking to other units, doing some swaps and generally meeting others.

Sunrise over site

We started to get the national emergency notifications pinging up on our phones frequently – most of which were to inform us of the Heat wave, with advice to stay indoors out of the sun, drink plenty of water etc.   Back on the site we had an impromptu air show as we presume the Korean airforce was using the area for practicing their display flying, buzzing the campsite and setting off plumes of coloured smoke and a whole host of other flying acrobatics.

We felt like we were starting to get into our stride and our site was getting there with additional areas of shade and our all-important paddling pools, we had our schedule of activities for the remainder of the camp and we had an off site day of activities to look forward to the next day.

Day 4 I think the day started hotter than the day before, our phones were already buzzing with Heat wave warnings and we hadn’t even eaten breakfast! We trudged off with our day bags to the Car park to await our coach to the off site activities, I think by the time we got there we had already polished off 1 bottle of water each! But we were lucky, our activities were not cancelled due to the heat so we were off to the beach and forest area to have a go at some Eco activities and a high rope tree walk. We found out from others back on site that the activities there had been cancelled due to the heat. We arrived back on camp just in time to collect our food boxes for the evening meal. Then there was the notification to Unit leaders that they needed to attend a meeting, so off I set on the hour walk to get to the main building for the meeting as the sun was setting.    And that’s when we got hit with the bomb shell that despite everyone’s best efforts in the IST teams and the constant pushing of the organising body the UK Contingent had made the difficult decision to remove us from the Jamboree site back to Seoul. This was crushing news for us all but we fully understood their decision and respected their bravery in doing so.

Day at the beach

So there I was, 9pm at night, walking back to our unit in the evening heat (which was still hot & sweaty) thinking … how on earth am I going to break this news to everyone, there going to be devastated! They were just starting to get into a rhythm and starting to meet people.

Well that has to be one of the worst things I have had to do on a camp, I have to say a huge thank you and well done to my unit who despite being upset at the news of our imminent departure rallied round and comforted each other and came to terms with the sudden about turn to our plans.

Day 5 We woke up to a sweltering hot early morning and an email to confirm we were leaving the site at 11am! Through a hive of activity (goodness knows how we did it in the humidity & heat) we got all the kit bags packed and the kitchen kit tidied up, we left any extra kit in a pile for other units to benefit from and put a message on the sub camp chat so leaders would know. We didn’t get time to drop our tents in the end as we had to get moving for the 1 hour hike with all our kit bags to the car park we were being collected from. A lot of people came to say farewell and wish us well (which was quite emotional as thoughts of abandoning these people ran through my head). Our team worked together to share the load of all the heavy kit bags on the sandy soil, the sun was beating down with no signs of relief as we trudged our way across the site only to finally arrive at the location to discover we had come to the wrong carpark! After cooling off under some shade shelters and lots of bottles of water and electrolytes to re-hydrate us, we figured out where we had to get to and arranged the transporting of our bags. The next carpark location had less shade areas for us so we had to utilise some of the areas set up for activities, and the waiting began! 11am came and went with nothing changing, turns out all the coaches were being held back from entering site because they hadn’t completed the safeguarding training!  Time ticked on, with us melting in the heat, some even needing to take advantage of the cool buses to cool off before passing out and all the while the organisers kept the activity programme going, despite it being hotter and the national heat wave warnings.  Finally at around 2pm the coaches started to arrive, we got our kit loaded as fast as we could and we were on our way back to Seoul – in an air conditioned coach! (bliss)

Day 6 had us waking up in an air conditioned hotel, yes we were rater more cramped in the rooms with higher numbers sharing but we made the best of it and got on with things, Jamboree 2.0 had begun, we took a couple of days to catch up on sleep, and rest staying more local to the hotel, it gave us time to figure out what we were going to do now, how we were going to sort breakfast (2 hours to feed everyone in the local eateries was not working) and what possible opportunities were becoming available to the UK contingent. We had a plan… breakfast was served from our hotel rooms with everyone utilising their camp crockery sets and we were able to get through cereals, fruit & bread rolls in less than an hour, then it was up & out for the day making the most of our time.

View from hotel

The next 6 days saw us discovering different areas of Seoul, completing some of the Seoul Searching activities / challenges visiting some of the tourist attractions – Gyeongbokgung palace & the changing of the guards, N Seoul tower, National museum of Korea, DDP Dongdaemun design plaza, Changgyeonggung Palace, dressing up in the traditional Hanbok clothing, giving the Gangnam dance a go under the crossed hands statue, enjoying a little peace & quiet in the Starfield library and at the Bongeunsa temple, having a guided tour of the National veterans war memorial & museum, we were even gifted a book to each person. We gave the young people periods of free time (in groups) to wander and discover the areas we were in, whether it was the traditional Buckchon Hanok village and their traditional houses on very! steep streets, one of the museums, or perusing the craft shops in Insadong. Our half hourly check in selfies kept us all up to date with where everyone was and if they still had neckers / sun hats on & were drinking enough!

We had fun at the Coex Aquarium and who knew the best way to entertain everyone was just to let them loose in the Colour pool museum (colour ball pools) for a few hours – I think it was the best way for us all to just let off some steam and be silly for a while, although I’m still not sure emptying one of the ball pools to find some missing mobile phones was a good idea! Chaos ensued and it was definitely quicker to empty it than re fill it.

Coex Aquarium

There was a busking performance evening on the streets of Seoul and a Cèilidh dance put on by the Scottish units in the hotel, we even managed to surprise one of our Leaders (Andy) with Hawaiian shirt Sunday, this was a tradition he had on camp but unbeknownst to him we had arranged for us all to have Hawaiian shirts with a pig theme (well we were the Hampshire Hogs!) so come Sunday morning as we all met in the lobby of the hotel ready to head out for the day we were a little disappointed that the only one missing a shirt was Andy, fear not … we had him covered as we had brought a pig themed shirt with us especially for him, so, crisis averted, and many explanations later to the CMS team & other units we were ready to head out for the day, many said we should wear the shirts all the time as they could spot us a mile off. 😊

Hawaiian Shirt Sunday

Meals were varied and held a challenge for dietary needs. I can definitely say by the end of the trip I was chicken & riced out!  I just wanted some fruit & veg.

During this time we heard the news that the rest of the jamboree site was being evacuated to Seoul due to the impending typhoon! Khanun was due to hit the Saemangeum campsite before continuing up the country to Seoul, so on the due date of reaching Seoul we woke up to rain, lots of rain! And our instructions to be back in hotel rooms by 7.30pm with a grab bag ready to go! In the end the typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm and although there was plenty of rain, there were no floods or anything else serious, although the campsite took a battering with tents being blown away and others badly damaged with bent metal poles, so it was fortunate that everyone had been evacuated.

This enabled the organisers to bring us all back together in the Seoul world cup stadium for the closing ceremony and K-pop concert. This was a great sight seeing the stadium fill with everyone and as night fell and the concert started the sight of flickering lights around the stadium was truly impressive and marked the official end of the jamboree.

My units time in Korea continued for a further 5 days with our post jamboree time in Seoul. We were back to our original plans for these days which saw us continue our sightseeing activities including a visit to the DMZ … or sort of, it turns out the day we were due to go was a national holiday so the normal tourist locations at the DMZ were closed, so instead we had a slightly different trip visiting Imjingak Pyeonghwa Nuri Park & Camp Greaves, seeing a variety of statues, an area of ribbons left tied to fencing before experiencing some interesting / thought provoking art installations.

We had some special treats for the unit organised as well, so we took them to see a Nanta show one evening which I think was a resounding success as everyone thoroughly enjoyed this mix of sketch comedy / knife skills /drumming & audience participation, and the freshly made ice cream on the way back rounded off the evening. We also all tried our hand at some traditional craft skills with creating personal dojang chop ink pad stamp, having to carefully file away at a block of soapstone to be left with our name in Hangul lettering carved out. Not easy when you realise you should have perhaps brought your glasses! But a thoroughly enjoyable experience and a unique memento from Korea.

Dojang chop carving

As our time in Korea came to a close, we had visited museums, parks, palaces, temples, the shops and markets, we had gone swimming and indulged in silliness in the ball pools. We had visited many areas of Seoul and had viewed the full 360° of the city from the N Seoul tower observatory, we had listened to the cicadas whilst we dangled our feet in the Cheonggyecheon stream, we had tasted a wide variety of food and tried different teas at a tea house (some of us even sitting on the floor for the experience). We even found a couple of restaurants that could cater for all 40 of us at once, with our dietary requirements, we booked one of these for our final meal before heading home, it was a great meal and the small restaurant setting enabled us to have a bit of a chat with everyone about our experiences and how they had all found the trip, we had asked everyone at the beginning of this journey (a year & a half ago) to write a letter to their future self, about what their hopes and expectations for the Jamboree were, we handed these letters back out to them at this juncture which resulted in some rather emotional young people after reading their letters. But it gave them time to reflect on how far they had come and how much they had experienced. It might not have been the jamboree they expected but they got to experience Korea and probably had more interaction with the local people than they would have otherwise, you couldn’t walk down a street in Seoul without someone asking ‘Jamboree?’ before wishing us well or buying us drinks / ice creams. We benefited from free entry to a lot of places and additional activities that were being put on for jamboree members.

All in all it was still a once in a lifetime experience for participants, and they did get to meet other people from different countries (we still bumped into other scouts around Seoul), they got to take part in a range of activities and visit many cultural / tourist attractions in and around the city.

Everyone will have had a unique experience and from what I could see they all thoroughly enjoyed their time.

Goryeo Hub, Marathon Sub camp, Saemangeum 2023

Watching young people grow and develop on these sorts of International trips is a privilege & pleasure and it always amazes me the change that takes place in them during this time. This jamboree was no exception, the young people continually amazed us in how they coped with the changing situation and excelled when we pushed them out of their comfort zones to what we thought would be their limit if not beyond their limit. They continually surprised us with their spirit and resilience, they kept us going as much as themselves and still had smiling faces throughout.

The Hampshire Hogs

They are an amazing bunch of young adults that exude the best in Scouting and Guiding, as Bear Grylls said in his opening ceremony speech, “ its only when we are pushed, a bit like grapes you squeeze us and you see what we are made of ….. when we are pushed we find strength … we develop our resilience” how true that statement turned out to be, our young people found reserves of strength and resilience that they may not have known they possessed, they grew as individuals and as a group, their self-belief and confidence has soared to new levels, they now know that they won’t break that they can find ways to cope with a wide range of situations and if they work together they can overcome anything.

Roll on the reunion camp and being able to reminisce on all our experiences with this wonderful group of individuals.

All Hampshire Units at the Dragon City Hotels

Chief Scout's Award Presentations (April 2023)

The recipients of the various Chief Scout's Awards with the Mayor
Chief Scout's Award Recipients

Congratulations to these amazing young people who were awarded their Chief Scout's Silver, Gold and Platinum Awards and were generously hosted on Wednesday evening by the Mayor in the Council Chamber. The Chief Scout's Awards are the top awards for each section, it is an amazing achievement to have earnt them. All the recipients demonstrated their tenacity and commitment while learning skills for life.

Well done all!

Basingstoke Scout Leader supports the Queen's lying-in-state

We are very proud of Enver Eng, GSL and Cub leader at Hatch Warren Scout Group, who was selected as one of 120 Scouts to support the Queen's lying-in-state.

BBC News interviewed Enver and Scouts CEO Matt Hyde after he lead the queue to Westminster Hall.

You can see the full article on the BBC News website or watch the interview with BBC Breakfast

Squirrels join the Scouts family

On the 9th of September, the Scouts unveiled our brand new section for 4 and 5 year olds. The introduction of Squirrels follows on from the hugely successful Early Years pilot. Just like our other sections, they are guided through a programme of activities to help them gain those vital skills needed for the rest of their lives. They will have the opportunity to make friends, have fun outdoors, and learn new things.

Each group of Squirrels are known as Dreys. There are already groups across Hampshire with Squirrel Dreys up and running and many more are opening across the country.

Squirrels in uniform playing outside
Squirrels in uniform playing outside
Squirrels jumper and some of the badges and awards they can achieve
Squirrels uniform with badges

Squirrels have a diverse programme with the ability to earn:

  • 12 Activity Badges
  • 4 Challenge Awards
  • a Top Award
  • a Membership Award
  • a Joining In Award
  • a Moving On Award
  • Existing Staged Activity Badges

At the moment, Basingstoke West does not have any Squirrel Dreys. We are investigating how we can bring this exciting new section to our groups. We will update our website with the latest information as we begin the rollout. For more information about this section, please visit the Scout website.

Launching our new website

As you may have noticed, we have unveiled our brand new website providing us with a platform to share the amazing work we do within the local community. This will allow us to attract both new members and volunteers, as well as letting our existing members see the upcoming events and recent news from the district. Read on to learn more about this exciting launch.

With the scale of our existing site, we are still working on getting all our content moved over. Please bear with us as we do so, you'll notice that pages will get updated frequently. You can still access our previous website by using the menu at the top or going to archive.bwds.org.uk.

Please do explore our new website and see what you can learn about the Scouts. If you find something out-of-place, we encourage you to use our feedback system by clicking the button on the right of your screen.

#GoodForYou campaign launched to recruit volunteers to build back better

Today the Scouts have launched the #GoodForYou campaign. We know our volunteers have just as much fun as our Scouts, so this campaign is all about telling others about how volunteering can help you.

After a year of being alone, we are now starting to reconnect with each other and begin again the work of building our young people's skills for life and supporting their wellbeing. The last year has seen many pressures and disruptions. Family lives and routines were upended and remote schooling brought new pressures.

Because of these unique challenges, the number of Scouts in Hampshire fell 18% (from 19,000 to 15,600). The number of volunteers also dropped from 6,600 to 6,000. We had grown by over 9,000 people since 2006 and this has set us back from our purpose. It highlights clearly the impact on so many families this year, especially in communities disproportionately hit by coronavirus.

Volunteering: it's #GoodForYou

The good news is that young people are coming back to Scouts in droves. We need to have the volunteers ready to greet them and empower the Covid generation. To do this, we need more adults to step up and volunteer to lead young people and support our adults. In Hampshire, we're targeting a thousand new adults and nationally at least ten thousand.

Volunteering is good for your health, makes you happier, lets you learn new skills and can boost your family life. It helps our young people, makes the world of difference and improves our community. Together we are more resilient to whatever comes next.

Martin Mackey, lead volunteer for Hampshire said:

"Despite Scouting shifting to online, this could not replace the fantastic adventure and challenge that young people gain from meeting up both indoors and outdoors. Added to that are the many pressures that people have and continue to experience as we emerge from this pandemic. It has meant young people have lost out on so much in the past year and our membership numbers show how many were unable to continue with Scouts due to lockdown.

Now that we have returned to proper scouting, although with some Covid-19 restrictions still in place, the good news is that we are seeing young people coming back and in large numbers, so we need more people to help us ensure young people can meet friends, have fun and fulfil their potential by learning skills for life. That’s why today we’re calling on people to volunteer with us. Volunteering is good for communities, good for young people and good for you."

What we're doing about it:

The #GoodForYou campaign is being run across the country to encourage new adults to volunteer. Nationally, the Scouts are running this over the next six months with a local focus. We want those who drifted away during the pandemic to come back to us and we want new Scout groups in areas of the greatest need.

We've not been idle. Since the first lockdown, Scout volunteers in Hampshire have provided thousands of hours of Zoom sessions. We've supported young people with at-home challenges like the Great Indoors and Hike to the Moon. And when restrictions have allowed, have run socially-distanced meet ups. Our Scouts have met with astronaut Tim Peakecooked together in twenty different kitchens and sewn home-made face coverings for their vulnerable neighbours.

Don't take our word for it:

James, a 9 year old Cub Scout from Gosport said:

“Our Scout group has been fantastic in helping me get off my Xbox and keep doing our fun challenges and helping people. We did so many worthwhile things during the pandemic like making 'keep smiling' bunting for our local care home. We did the Tim Peake and Bear Grylls ‘Hike To The Moon’ challenge and made loads of money for people affected by the virus. We've made pizza's and had a really funny magician on Zoom. I'm really proud of our achievements”

Amy Robinson, a parent from Gosport said:

“Cubs has been a magical lifeline for both my son and as parent, especially throughout lockdown - provided some much needed structure and routine and sense of community in quite an isolating time for these young people. Even the badge work became a focus and structure for home schooling! Amazing leaders that give up their valuable time - thank you so so much.” 

Steven Osborn, a Scout Volunteer from Totton said:

“Taking part in activities with Scouts has been a mental health lifeline for so many of our young people. It's helped them stay resilient during the pandemic. Our young people and their parents value the hard work of our volunteers - they can see the difference it makes. We’re starting to see more young people coming back to Scouting so we’ve got to be prepared with more volunteers ready to welcome them back. It makes all the difference and is great fun too.”

Bear Grylls, Chief Scout:

“The past year has been so tough for so many. And it’s also shown just how important it is for us to work together to help those in need. Scouts plays a fundamental role in the lives of thousands of young people and our goal is to build back our membership by welcoming thousands of new volunteers across the movement. As an adult volunteer you can help us continue to make an incredible contribution towards helping young people learn new skills for life. You’ll gain some great new skills, new friends and be part of empowering young people to be prepared for their future.”

Volunteer with us today or find your local group to help out on the Scout website.

This article was written by Hampshire Scouts, to view this article click here.

Our plan to #BounceBack from the past year

As Scouts we've been prepared for more than 100 years for whatever life throws at us, ready with a plan B.

Last weekend, Hampshire Scouts looked to the future and unveiled our plan to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. We want to continue to give as many young people skills for life as possible and to do that we need to make sure our local volunteers are supported to do this.

How was Hampshire Scouts impacted by the pandemic?

A year ago, Scouts up and down the county had to leave the great outdoors behind and began Scouting indoors to keep each other safe. They couldn't see their friends and some couldn't access Scout activities because of a lack of digital devices.

For nearly all of our volunteers, they faced new uncertainty with their jobs or their lives. Many carried on delivering activities and trying all they could. Plenty were working as key heroes and saw their hours increase dramatically - Scouting took a back seat.

Many had to stop Scouting for the time being. Newer Beaver Scouts, who would be raring to start learning new skills and making new friends at age 6, couldn't start or wanted to wait until life returned to normal. As a result, we lost about 3,200 Scouts and 900 adults, around 15% of our members.

What we're going to do about it.

We're doing all we can to get all of our Scout groups back to face-to-face activities as quickly as possible. We've made a resource for Scout leaders to help them do this, we're mobilising our reserves to support groups locally and we're trying new things like continuing the pilot Scouts for 4 and 5 year olds.

We're supporting our volunteer leaders directly through new digital tools, training online to help them do their role well and exploring new ways to develop our local trustees. Our local managers are key to this so we're launching a Step Up campaign to fill any vacancies and amalgamating smaller districts so local volunteers are part of larger, well resourced teams.

We can't do this alone, so we're also going to create links with Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth City Council and Southampton City Council to forge connections across the youth sector where we live.

We're determined to grow back to where we were. Thousands of parents have been able to experience first hand what Scouting activities look like; we're sure many will want to help us to keep giving those experiences. Just as many girls and boys are eager to join us again and our team are doing all they can to create as many spaces for them as possible.

We're ready and have got the vision but do you? We've all learned again the importance of being outside so get involved to help our young people appreciate it themselves. Find out about joining or volunteering with us.

This article was written by Hampshire Scouts, to view this article click here.

Engaging with our community to tell them our story

Across Hampshire we're at the heart of more than 100 communities, delivering skills for life to thousands of young people. But our impact is much wider than just our young people and our 6,000 adult volunteers.

In the past year along, Scouts in Hampshire have spread the love for our local care homes by showing them we care and made meals to feed families during half term. Our young people have raised a smile for their neighbours and our volunteers stepped up to serve our communities.

Now volunteers are sharing our story with community groups like Rotary and Probus whose members remember fondly of their days as Scouts and want to be brought up to date with what we're doing.

Volunteer Steven, who has led one of these talks to Alresford Probus, described the talk as:

Lots of people in our communities have fond experiences of being a Scout in their youth and the skills they learned. But what they know of us isn't the full story these days. It's been great to tell them our stories, how we've gone from humble beginnings to where we are now; serving our community, giving young people a voice and growing to include more people.

Steven Osborn, Volunteer.

As well as covering the story of Scouts so far, he also looked at our plan for the future, the challenges we face in light of the pandemic and how we're rising to the opportunity.

The talks have been a big success with the understanding and appreciation of those listening for what we do today greatly improved. Reaction has been positive and they've been more likely to recommend others helping us.

[It was] very professional, clear and interesting, and [they] answered questions well. We could not have asked for better.

Glenn Gilbertson, Alresford Probus.

Want to invite us to your community group? Let us know at [email protected].

Can you help us rise to the challenge of the future? Volunteer today and see what vacancies we're looking to fill.

This article was written by Hampshire Scouts, to view this article click here.