Welcome,
Welcome to the Lewisham Scouts Development web page. Here you will see news and updates of all that is happening about the development of Scouting in the London Borough of Lewisham. Share and pick up ideas of what is new in the world of Group Development.
Do you have a new idea about how to make your sections grow? Why not let everyone know about what you did to recruit adults and young members? Reports of recruitment or development ideas and events can be shared and published on this page.
Garry Leach
Lewisham Local Development Officer
Development News Around the Borough:
Beavers Bounce Back!
The 2nd Deptford Opens New Beaver Colony - After an absence of several years, the Group re-opened its Beaver Colony on the 31st March 2008.
GSL Ian Ford, said this is great news for the Group's development.
This is fantastic news for the far north of the Borough where the community is served by just two Scout Groups.
Lewisham North District Recruitment Day:
Lewisham North held a Recruitment Day at the Lee Green Shopping centre on the 29th March. Led by Lorraine Elliott (ADC Beavers) the District descended upon the centre to take part in both a recruitment initiative and a Beaver Bounce!
Lorraine reported that the response could have been better, but they did have 20 or so enquiries with one possible new adult leader. This was another positive way to bring Scouting into the community. The challenge is to provide good quality support for these initiatives and to encourage participation on a much larger scale.
Well done to Lorraine and her team of helpers for working hard to get this event off the ground and to all those Beavers who turned out on the day.
Lewisham College Futures Fair:
At the end of February Lewisham Scouting was represented at the College Fair. There were numerous other stands from various volunteer groups, associations and services such as the Army Cadets, the Navy, the Children's Society and Connexions.
This was the first time the College had laid on this event and no-one was sure what to expect. It soon emerged that the College students do not just reside in Lewisham and some were from as far as Essex!. Some were from other countries even, so English was not their first language!
Nevertheless, there were many enquiries about Scouting. About 30 people expressed an interest and left their names.
Lewisham Development was supported by two HQ Development Officers together with Steve Callan and Bill Compton from Lewisham Manor.
The College invited Scouting back to next year's Futures Fair and have also agreed to a stand-alone Recruitment Day for Scouting in September 2008.
Looking Ahead:
Scouts to open new Co-op Store in Brockley:
On Thursday 17th April, a selection of Beavers, Cubs and Scouts from the 11th Forest Hill will be opening the new Co-op Store in Brockley Road, SE23.
They will be there at 10.00 am to cut the ribbon and pose for the press. The Co-op's PR department will be in attendance with the store manager and will hand over a cheque for Group funds and Development projects.
Lewisham Peoples Day: Saturday 12th July 2008
This is *your* opportunity to get involved with recruiting adults and children and to show off some of those Scouting skills.
Peoples Day takes place in Mountsfield Park and is attended by people from all over the Borough and beyond. An estimated 30,000 people went to the event last year.
The Lewisham Scouts Development Project has booked two pitches for the event this year. Click here for details>>
This is your big chance to get involved in recruiting both adults and young members and to bring Scouting to a wider audience.
The Number 45!
No, it's not another idea for a weird film. For whatever reason (and this is not intended to sound negative) there are some groups that have less than 45 youth members - that's less than 15 in each Beaver, Cub and Scout section.
For some Groups this is because they do not have the full family of Scouting and this may be for a number of reasons.
But just think about this:-
"45 youth members', spanning the lower aged Sections, is the challenge that all Groups should try to achieve."
How? Well, you could just do what Scouting does at its very best and that is:-
"to provide a good quality and well-balanced program"
If you do that, there is no reason why every Section should not have at least 15 members.
This is not intended to be a criticism of the way your Group functions and runs its programme. Small Sections may well offer a good programme of activities, but a shortfall in numbers means you are not always able to offer activities that by their nature need greater numbers.
Just think about it and see if you can achieve one of the following local recruitment initiatives over the next couple of months:-
- Bring a Friend night
- Make one contact at a local Community Centre
- Put up a poster in a School or College
- Place an advert or article in a local Community Newsletter
- Ask the local Church if they would allow you to place an advert in the PCC magazine or if they would let you run a coffee morning
- Invite Mums and Dads to a "Family Fun Night" - arrange the activities to suit younger siblings and involve the parents in running games. But don't call it an adult recruitment trial! Then see what happens
- Arrange a Beaver fun morning (2 hours maximum) at least 10 miles from your meeting place and encourage parents to stay and play
- Arrange an article and photograph to be placed in a local newspaper of an activity your group has been involved in. Ensure the Group details and meeting times are published
- Have a poster placed on a community board at a local train station
- Set every existing member a challenge to talk to at least 3 people about what they do in Scouting
Send an email to lewishamldo@live.co.uk to report what you have decided to do, what you have managed to achieve or to discuss your ideas.
Good luck.
KIDS OUTDOORS:
www.kidsoutdoors.com
Unfortunately Scouts are sometimes still misrepresented in the media, for example, not demonstrating a true picture of our modern, co-educational youth movement. We need to continue to tackle these out-of- date attitudes.
We don't really engage with the debate on youth issues. For example, it seems that every day there is something in the press about young people - whether it's youth crime, childhood obesity or social inclusion, but Scouting doesn't seem to get involved in the discussion.
We've been doing youth work for over 100 years, so we know a thing or two about it, and we really should be adding our acquired wisdom.
However, if we're not asked; or if we don't take the opportunity when we are asked, it's difficult to really demonstrate that we offer some outstanding solutions to some of the problems young people face today.
So here we go then - this is our chance to get it right!
In order to help continue some of the fantastic achievements we had in 2007, and to continue to grow and develop as a Movement we need to do something.
We need to motivate our current members as well as inspire more people to think about Scouting; we need to engage with young people again and really shout about the fantastic work we do.
And we need to continue to offer the experience of Scouting to even more young people and adults.
KIDS OUTDOORS - Launched in 2008
A full presentation is available through the LDO Project
or contact the HQ Campaign Manager, Matt Mills at
matthew.mills@scout.org.uk
Tel: 020 8433 7121
HQ Development Grants Board and Fundraising Updates:
HQ Applications for Grants:
With the exception of applications for Youth Activity Grants, Headquarters Grant Applications and Loans will not be considered unless the District or Group is running the Gift Aid scheme.
Jack Gilbert at HQ offers support and assistance with Gift Aid queries and applications. For more information contact Jack on 020 8433 7100 or visit www.scoutbase.org.uk/
hq/development/grants/.
Did you know there are league tables of Groups registered for Gift Aid?
Currently GLS is way down with just 36.8% of the 106 Groups in the County running the scheme and only 3 of the 10 Districts.
Some Facts:-
Of the 24 Groups in Lewisham, 9 are applying for Gift Aid which, is a shade under 38%, fairing slightly better than the County figures. Unfortunately at this time, none of the three Districts are part of the scheme at this time.
A Benchmark:-
At 38%, GLS is sitting 8th from bottom in 55th place of all counties but beating Cleveland (35.7%), Gt Manchester North and Shropshire (both on 28.9%) and the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and Gt London Central - which happens to be closed (all on 0%).
Top spot goes to West Sussex with 90.2% of the 112 Groups in the scheme. And 51 of the 59 Scout Counties are all above 50%.
Clearly we have some work to do!
Criteria - February 2006
£100 Start Up Grants
Would you like to receive a £100 Start up Grant?
Do you meet the following criteria?
- You must be one of the five Sections (Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Explorers or Scout Network)
- Your section must be entirely new or have been closed for at least 6 months
- Your Section/Group must not have received any other form of funding from The Development Grants Board
- Your Group should be using the Government's Gift Aid scheme or in the process of setting up the scheme as part of your fundraising
- New Groups must be fully co-educational, except in exceptional circumstances, as per P.O.R.
Grants can be backdated from date of application, but only to a maximum of 6 months.
Application forms are available from the Scout Information Centre 0845 300 1818 or downloadable from here>>
Please return your application form to:
The Administrator
The Scout Association
Development Grants Board
Gilwell Park
Bury Road
Chingford
LONDON E4 7QW
Lewisham Scout Development Project
Supporting all Scout Groups in the London Borough of Lewisham
Send your news and ideas to Garry Leach at lewishamldo@live.co.uk
TEL: (020) 3091 6832
No deadlines -
just send them in -
anytime