News – Essex Scouts

Could you lead the County’s Financial Management Team?

We’re looking to recruit someone to lead the County’s financial management team. As the County Treasurer, you’ll be responsible for the management and monitoring of the financial activities of the County and County Executive Committee (Board of Trustees), working with
the County’s Financial Administrator in administering the day to day finances of the County.
The County Treasurer is supported by the County Finance Administrator in:
 Providing sound financial administration, support and information to the County Executive Committee in accordance with the Policy, Organisation and Rules of The Scout Association.
 Managing and monitoring the financial activities of the County.
 Preparing and presenting financial reports and accounts to the County Executive Committee.
 Leading the County Executive Committee in the creation of budgets and financial planning, and monitoring of these.
 Ensuring that all financial reports, annual statements of accounts and supporting documents (including receipts, cheque books and bank statements) are maintained accurately and in accordance with legal regulations.
 Preparing the Annual Statement of Accounts for independent examination and approval by the County Executive Committee and presenting these at the Annual General Meeting.
 Liaising with our appointed accountants who act as independent examiners.
 Administering the process of Independent Examination of the Annual Statement of Accounts in accordance with Policy, Organisation and Rules.
 Maintaining the County’s Sage accounting system.
 Processing payments to the charity bank accounts, as second signatory.

Ideally, candidates should have experience of Sage line 50, as well as relevant accountancy or bookkeeping experience in either private or public practice.
Primarily, the County Treasurer will be liaising with the County Chairman, County Commissioner and County Executive Committee members, as well as the County Finance Administrator. In addition, you will liaise with other volunteer leaders/administrators, all of whom support the day to day activities of Scouting across the County of Essex.
Essex Scouts operates across the whole of Essex, through c20 local Districts that are separately administered.
The attached document provides more detail on the role.

County Treasurer Role Profile

We are here to fill you in on the details, so if you want to know more please do get in touch
with Paul Stennett, County Chairman on 07759 471639 or email at
chairman@essexscouts.org.uk.

2022-08-03T18:05:00+01:00July 27th, 2022|

The search for the next County Executive secretary begins…

We’re looking to recruit someone to ensure that the Essex Scouts County Executive Committee (Trustee Board) meetings (five per year, plus AGM) and other meetings are properly administered, to work with the County Treasurer to ensure that the list of Trustees is up-to-date and accurate for the Annual Report that goes to the Charity Commissioners, and to ensure that policies are regularly reviewed.
Previous administrative or secretarial experience would help, although having the right attitude and a passion for improving the lives of young people are the most important things!

If you think the person specification below sounds like you, then please get in touch if:
 You are reliable, honest and trustworthy
 You are a good communicator
 You enjoy working as part of a team
 You will be enthusiastic and keen to learn new things

The Secretary volunteer will be organised, methodical and able to keep accurate records.
Knowledge of the Essex Scouts Constitution and Charity Commissioner’s requirements for a charity will be required (not essential at the outset), and be able to give clear and authoritative advice on procedural matters.
Time commitment will be organising the agenda and papers ahead of the five Executive Committee meetings and AGM and producing Minutes as well as undertaking various other administration/secretarial work, as required.
Ideally, the volunteer secretary should:
 Have a good command of spoken and written English.
 Be experienced in taking and producing Minutes (not essential, if you’re willing to learn)
 Have an enthusiasm for supporting and advancing the activities of Scouting within Essex
 Have basic IT knowledge – sending emails, keeping records, formulating documents, taking Minutes of meetings.
 Be able to maintain accurate records of meetings and developments, providing advisory support to fellow members of the Executive Committee who are all Trustees of the charity.
 Be able to drive, to attend face to face meetings in Chelmsford (Note: some meetings will be via Zoom).

The secretary will work closely with the Chairperson on a regular basis.
Essex Scouts operates across the whole of Essex, through c20 local Districts that are
separately administered.
The attached document provides more detail on the role.

County Secretary Role Description

We are here to fill you in on the details, so if you want to know more please do get in touch
with Paul Stennett, County Chairman on 07759 471639 or email at
chairman@essexscouts.org.uk.

2022-08-03T18:04:26+01:00July 27th, 2022|

AGM Nominations for County Executive are now open

We’re delighted that the AGM this year will be held as a face to face meeting on Tuesday 13
September 2022. Formal notice and details of this year’s AGM will be shared with members
shortly.
Nominations are now open for the County Executive Committee (the Board of Trustees) and
we’d like your help spreading the word with your local teams to encourage people to stand.

Following a recent skills audit of the current Trustees, we’ve identified that the Board would
especially benefit from recruiting individuals with expertise in the following areas: Legal,
PR/Networking (National and Local Government) and Media. We would also particularly
welcome applications from candidates from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds
and disabled candidates, as these groups are under-represented on our Board.

All Members are encouraged to nominate candidates to assist in reaching a wide pool of
good applicants. To nominate a candidate or apply yourself, please complete the attached
form. The deadline is Friday 26 August 2022. Each candidate will need a proposer and a
seconder, who must be members of the Association.

Attached is a Trustee role description for your information.
In the event that you have any queries, please contact Alastair MacLachlan, County
Secretary at ‘secretary@essexscouts.org.uk’.

Nomination Form

Trustee Role Description

2022-08-03T18:04:22+01:00July 27th, 2022|

WSJ Unit 19 and 21 – Show true Scouting Spirit at Mega Camp

With just over a year until the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea, Essex Scouts Unit’s 19 and 21 offered to show their support to the younger members of Essex Scouts by helping to staff many of the activity bases provided by Mega Camp.

The unit’s offered to provide support for the young people, not only to give back to the Scout County that have given them so many opportunities but also to bond as a group before they head off on their adventure of a lifetime.

On arrival and set up at the event the Unit’s noticed that following the couple of years of lockdown, that the sites treasured Chapel area, a place for private thought and reflection, had become over grown and run down.

Straight away the unit set themselves the task of bringing the area back to its former glory with mowing and weeding, sanding and painting; across the day the young people and their Unit Leaders did themselves proud and demonstrated the true ethos of Scouting.

Essex Scouts and Skreens Park Activity Centre would like to extend the greatest of thanks to all of you for your efforts. We are truly proud of what you have achieved when you work together as a team and we look forward to hearing more about your many adventures on your journey to the World Scout Jamboree in Summer 2023.

2022-06-14T10:55:11+01:00June 14th, 2022|

Announcing Essex Scouts next County Commissioner.

Fellow Scouters and supporters of Essex Scouts,

I am delighted to advise you all that Bob Bye will be our new County Commissioner for Essex, effective 1^st June 2022.

As you know, Bob has been generously holding the Interim CC role since January and, has provided quiet support to many members around the county for a significant time before that. It is great that “Team Essex” is already receiving a high level of support since it’s inception in February this year and, I fervently hope that this continues to go from strength to strength!

I would like to thank everyone who applied for the role, for your collective time and commitment. To have such a high quality field of applicants for this role really shows how important it is. We saw and heard some great presentations and, there were many interesting ideas mentioned, which are worthy of further consideration. I’ll be asking Bob to review these with you.

Finally, I would also like to thank the seven other members of our Search and Selection Team for your own time and commitment to this process. It was a pleasure to work with you all and, it was a fascinating process to lead.

In closing, we had great representation from Team Essex at the recent “Basecamp22” UK leadership event in Manchester recently. We shall soon start planning to transform many aspects of our great movement and, I commend this process and the planned outcomes to you all.

With my congratulations to Bob and, my best wishes to you all for Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend!

Yours,

Graham Wooley

Regional Commissioner

2022-05-31T19:13:20+01:00May 31st, 2022|

Scouts go Green with Gridserve – Leaders Open Evening

Essex Scouts are pleased to announce their first Community Engagement Partnership, with exciting opportunities for your young people. Working in partnership with Essex Scouts GRIDSERVE aims to support the education of young people on the topics of sustainability and renewable energy and are excited to offer active workshops for all of our members.

Time is running out. It is now down to us to change our habits before it is too late. GRIDSERVE’s ethos is based on a single purpose: to #deliver sustainable energy and move the needle on climate change, something truly prevalent within Scouting values.

Britain’s first fully Electric Forecourt® based on the outskirts of Braintree is an ideal place to bring your young people to experience the future first hand. Their entire EV charging infrastructure is powered by 100% renewable energy and it’s why they plant 100 trees every time they lease an electric vehicle, it’s why all their solar farms are developed into thriving nature sanctuaries – helping to restore our delicate balance with nature.

Join Essex Scouts and the GRIDSERVE team on Monday 27th June for the chance to experience what they can offer you and your Young People in a Leaders Open Evening, with a formal presentation at 7.00pm.

Electric Forecourt®, Edison Way, Great Notley, Braintree CM77 7AP

See our Flyer for more information

Leaders Open Evening Flyer

2022-08-10T14:06:56+01:00May 25th, 2022|

Introducing Essex’s new Transformation Lead

As we drive forward our Skills for Life Strategy through to 2025, the Scouts are embarking on a positive and engaging period of change. We want to continue offering high quality, safe and engaging programmes to our 16,000+ young people.

In doing that, we must continue to be a vibrant, forward-thinking movement, adapting to the needs of our ever changing society. We want to reach more young people, be more diverse and make it easier than ever to volunteer for Scouts in Essex.

To achieve our strategy, Team Essex are excited to announce James Hopkins as our new Transformation Lead!

In the new role, James is responsible for leading, planning and implementing the Skills for Life strategy in Essex and will be building a transformation team during Summer 2022 to make this happen. With a professional background in change and project management, and prior experience in Scouting as a leader, GSL and DC, James is looking forward to working with the thousands of adult volunteers we have in Essex to make Scouting locally even better.

Our new transformation team will work alongside our existing structures – so we can continue great Scouting whilst starting to deliver one of our key aims – to improve the volunteer experience – so that we can attract and retain more volunteers.

Within this, there are four identified key areas to focus on as a start:

– A warmer welcome for everyone

– Simplifying how we volunteer together

– Digital transformation: more support to help get everyday things done

– A more engaging learning experience

There is more that can be done to improve things further – like better rewards and recognition – but we can’t change everything at once. This is a three year programme delivered in bitesize chunks.

More information will be shared from Autumn 2022 onwards. If you have any questions at any point about the transformation programme, please email transformation@essexscouts.org.uk

2022-05-19T10:29:07+01:00May 19th, 2022|

Energised about change? Consider joining the transformation team!

Are you a change-maker? A dream-maker? Have an interest or experience in delivering change, project management or communications? Or simply want to make Scouting even better than what it already is in Essex?

We’re looking to create a diverse team to support the Transformation Lead in delivering the forthcoming changes within the Scouting movement over the next three years. Currently, we’re putting together a number of new team member descriptions and will formally advertise these in June 2022.

If you’re a naturally positive, self-starter, with a desire to make things better, you can express an interest early by emailing transformation@essexscouts.org.uk

When the roles are advertised, you’ll be messaged directly and have the opportunity to apply for one of a number of roles.

We’re seeking adult volunteers from all walks of life with a range of experience. You don’t even have to currently be involved in Scouting – if you feel you can make a difference and want to support giving young people skills for life, express an interest today!

2022-05-19T09:30:35+01:00May 19th, 2022|

Can you represent The Scout Association around the World?

Are you interested in exploring exciting new International Opportunities and having your voices heard?

The Scout Association are excited to offer an excellent opportunity to all members between the ages of 18 -25.

Thee UK International Rep Pool – A team of 18-25’s who represent The UK Scout Association internationally, both internally and externally to Scouting are currently undertaking our annual recruitment process, where we replace half the team to give other individuals the opportunity to sit on this national team.

We have just launched the volunteer vacancy on the website, where further information on the role can be found, and would love for you to share this with opportunity with anyone relevant. Please feel free to forward this email too. The deadline this year is 31^st May.

https://www.scouts.org.uk/volunteer/join-our-national-volunteer-team/uk-rep-pool/

2022-05-10T11:03:18+01:00May 10th, 2022|