From the Chief Commissioner
Hi everyone, hope you are having a great month!
Welcome to the new Scout Year.
This month we welcome our new General Manager Mr Trevor O’Hara. Trevor will bring his strong Scouting knowledge of over 30 years to the role, along with his extensive experience externally and in the not-for-profit industry. There is an article below which provides more details. Trevor will commence on 22 April 2025.
As of 31 March 2025, we had 8,061 youth members in Scouts Queensland, which was a small decline over the year of 3%. Retention of members remains a challenge for us.
We have continued to listen to Leaders and youth members about our program. This feedback over 2024 has led to some tweaks to our program and over term two and term three we are implementing these tweaks to our youth program.
There will be a more clear outline on the requirements for Special Interest Areas and the chance to obtain an additional badge for your uniform, camp shirt or camp blanket.
We are supporting a program by District Teams to visit each Unit over term two and term 3, to identify any additional support our Leaders require.
We are developing the concept of “Activity Centres” for the delivery of some specialised activities – making it more accessible for groups and seeking to reduce the training requirement in each of our groups in these disciplines.
Some exciting initiatives that will roll out in the next few weeks, which we hope will add to and improve a youth member’s experience.
Scouts Australia released a New Code of Conduct just prior to Founders Day. This code needs to be completed by all adult members by 1 August 2025. It will become a mandatory module going forward. You can jump into your training record and login to complete. Please make that time as soon as you can.
Further the Resilient Youth Australia survey for youth members is also available and I would really appreciate your support in encouraging your youth member to complete it. This survey it is hoped will provide more data around how being a scout demonstrates resilience compared to non-scouts. Link is here.
Just a reminder about some of the great activities planned for the months ahead:
- LEAP Southern/Northern (Kennedy Region)
- Brisbane Gang Show and Scout Revues
- Kiwi Woggle (Northern Moreton Bay Region)
- Agoonoree
- Nighthawk (Darling Downs Region)
- RAW Weekends (Far North Region)
- ScoutFest (Central Coast Region)
- Banana Bash
- Urban Challenge
- Joey Scout Jaunt
- Cub Scout Day Out
This is just to name a few! So, stay tuned as you hear more about these plus the activities that happen every week in our Units/Groups.
Our new membership fees came into effect from 1 April, so please, as those invoices issue your timely attention to payment would be appreciated.
This year following a review of our fee structure we have made some changes that we think will again make life easier for Groups and families. However, we do need to acknowledge the continuing increases we are seeing in our cost base.
Further we have taken the opportunity to include the Public Liability Insurance cost within the membership fee. That will save Groups on charging this cost or reduce the fundraising requirements to meet this cost in May yearly.
All groups received a memo distributed at the end of last year that outlines our fees which are effective from 1 April 2025.
I also wanted to highlight that the AJ2025 Event Badge that was approved to be worn on the uniform – should now be removed.
Last month we inducted and welcomed Peter Gould ESM as the new Assistant Chief Commissioner Specialist Activities. Peter has reached out to the members of that team and they are all keen to continue to deliver great program outcomes for our youth members. So, stay tuned in this space. They are working on some exciting initiatives over the coming months.
Have a great month and good Scouting!