The following is the text of my speech to the County AGM this year which some people have suggested may be worth sharing with members who did not manage to attend the meeting.
Mr President, honoured guests, brother & sister Scouts.
I hope you will have read the annual report or if not you will take the opportunity to read it when you get home. And while I think of it may I thank all those who have contributed to this year’s report and particularly to Colin Steward who has put our words and figures into such an eye catching document.
Joan has already referred to the work undertaken on the administrative side over the last year and I would like to record my thanks to her, to Louise our Administrator and the members of the County Executive Committee and sub-committees for their work as we have sought to ensure that Gloucestershire Scouting is established on the sounded possible footing both financially and organisationally. One of my priorities over the last year or so has been to enhance, clarify and demonstrate the role of executive committee members as trustees both at County level and elsewhere in the Movement. This is an issue that I suspect I will keep coming back to as we try to ensure Scouting continues to be managed efficiently, lawfully and safely.
One of the most difficult and important jobs that someone in my position has is to recruit the right people to a wide number of varying roles. Nothing happens in a voluntary organisation without people and having the right people in the right jobs is absolutely crucial. I am pleased that during the last year we appointed Chris Duckworth as ACC Cub Scouts. If you have met Chris you will have spotted he is considerably younger than many of the county team and we expect his youthful enthusiasm to provide just the right sort of leadership for the Cub section. I was also sorry to lose Andy Cole as District Commissioner for Cotswold Vale. Andy was very well respected in the District and beyond and I do thank him for the great strides he made to develop the District. After a wide-ranging search led by Alan Bell, to whom I am most grateful, I was very pleased to appoint Carole O’Donnell to the role and she is now working on her plan to take the District forward.
Just as District Commissioners must take their Districts forward, it is my role to take the County forward. This is why Development is such a critical issue for all of us. It would be great if we could repeat what we have always successfully done in the past and expect it to be just as successful in the future. Unfortunately that is not going to work. They say that the only constant is change itself. The economy has changed significantly over the last five years – there is simply less money about. As a result the amount of money people are prepared to spend on their and their children’s leisure activities has reduced. Equally people are having to work harder and longer to support their standard of living and therefore the amount of time people have to work voluntarily is often less.
Technology has got faster and smaller which you would think would make it easier to for us to communicate with one another the and general public but our and their expectations have increased accordingly and it is no longer acceptable to communicate in the ways we did 10 or 20 years ago. Parents are no longer willing to rely on their child’s memory to find out what is happening at Cubs or Scouts next week. It is no longer sufficient to hand out a scrap of paper at the end of a meeting about this year’s camp or expedition as we did not so many years ago. Now parents expect programmes to be published on line, leaders’ contact details to be available and up to date and activities to be properly planned and marketed to members well in advance.
And young people have changed too. The way they communicate, they way they learn, the way they dress and eat have all changed considerably in the last 20 years and we need to ensure that Scouting changes too. And in many ways it has, with its focus on “adventure” in the widest sense, for the widest age range, its emphasis on diversity and inclusion, its focus on flexible volunteering and its adoption of new technology and styles of communication.
So development is not just about increasing numbers. It is about improving the quality of the programmes we offer, the care we demonstrate and the speed and quality of our communications that mean that Scouting will continue to be attractive to young people and their parents and thereby increase in membership.
To that end I intend to use our County Team Day on Saturday 19 October at Millbrook Academy, Brockworth, to start the review of our County Development Plan, looking at those objectives we have achieved, those we have yet to complete and new ideas that are worthy of inclusion in our plans. I will be circulating a more detailed programme for the day but if you haven’t yet signed up I’d be grateful if you could please do so.
Turning to the programme side of the business, last summer the County supported a contingent of Explorer Scouts from Cheltenham and the Forest who came together to attend the Danish National Jamboree which was a great success for the young people and their leaders.
In the autumn of 2012 we again took a considerable part in organising and participating in Operation Bald Eagle, a weekend of Scouting activities held in daylight and darkness which we jointly host with colleagues from Hereford & Worcester Scout County and our third Beast camp for Explorer Scouts, entitled “Beast of the Night” which was held near Coleford and was modelled on the Gilwell 24 event. The Beast camp will be repeated in a few weeks time and I would urge all of you to promote it.
The year continued with the usual range of county courses and activities which attract a good range of participants and which are listed in greater detail towards the back of the annual report.
Our greatest concern as a county has of course been the Explorer Belt expedition to Madagascar. Although this was open to members from across the South West Region it was very much led and inspired by Gloucestershire leaders, with 22 of the 59 participants and 7 of the 12 leaders coming from the county and the County providing administrative and financial support. We shall be hearing shortly from one of the young explorers, but I would like to pay tribute to the leadership team who put an enormous amount of work into the expedition which was planned in incredible detail and to Chris White in particular who was the inspiration for the whole thing and led it with great skill and good nature throughout. Chris tells me he is already planning something for his next expedition and I look forward to hearing about that.
Finally, I should just like to thank my colleagues in the county team for all their encouragement and enthusiasm during the last year, to the county executive for their support and guidance, and to the DCs and their teams for all you do in your areas of responsibility.
Thank you.