I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and a very happy new year to you all,
2023 is going to be a really exciting time for our scouting. We have the opportunity to really make a difference.
The merge of our two old districts has been hard work but well worth it to bring us together. Arrow district is aiming high and will hit our targets. Now is the year to ensure we come together for the benefit of our young people.
The new district executive is fully functioning under the Chairmanship of Dick Whittington who must be thanked for his time and due diligence to get us in a strong position.
We will be inviting 150 of our membership together at the Hilt Community Centre on Saturday 11th March. This will be a great opportunity to get everyone to buy into the way forward for Arrow district and hear from them what they would like us to do to support your groups.
We are also planning for our first district camp on the 28th April to 1st May 2023. This district camp will be taking place at Lyons Copse which we have booked and paid the deposit. This camp will be a fantastic opportunity to get the young people together and just importantly our leaders to meet up and get to know each other better. At the camp we will also be celebrating St George’s day together. I really hope all our groups join in the fun. That is so important.
All compass records of group adults and district members are now moved across and reassigned to Arrow district. This gives us a total adult membership of 500 volunteers supporting 1300 young people. These figures give us some focus on the support we need to manage. A big thank you to Margaret Patrick and Jeff and Claire Deacon for ensuring that the transfers have been completed so efficiently.
The only members with a role in the old districts are the most senior of officers who still have work to do to complete the financial closures.
The work of supporting our groups has already started with Rob Whittington as our District Explorer Scout Commissioner who has been in discussions with the Explorer unit leaders to reshape the Explorer scout provision. Also Matthew Warren as my Deputy District Commissioner is already supporting groups that are in need and James Elliott is starting to ensure our young people have a voice and help us shape our district to meet what they want and need.
We have a new district Website and facebook page that has been designed. It is still work in practice but we plan to launch it fully very soon. We need to shout load about our scouting and the website and face book page will help us. Each month I will be writing an update so please look out for them.
I have visited all the groups and we have some wonderful strong scouting happening but we do have some group’s that need a helping hand. I will be visiting all groups again and would ask that I am invited to any leadership or executive meetings so I can say hello and offer our help.
The annual census will need to be carried out soon and I will be forwarding your group Chairs the information so we can carry out the census swiftly and accurately.
Don’t forget everywhere you go to ask for more adult volunteers, we need many more adults to join our association. We have plans to help group recruit more adults and together I am sure we can help you grow your groups and make it stronger.
We still have much work to do and alongside the work of supporting groups now we will be focused on how we can go forward this year. That will include the support of the camp site and scout shop which are vital to our scouting.
Final thing from me, please do get in touch if you have any queries or you just want to say hello and have a chat. I am really looking forward to Arrow district helping your groups in the coming year.
Yours in Scouting,
Colin Floyd, District Commissioner.
Mob Tel 07770364711 or colin.floyd@arrowscouts.org.uk
Please visit our district web site: https://www.arrowscouts.org.uk