This Wednesday (18th of October) every Scouts QLD Adult Leader and Helper will be invited to participate in a survey of an important research project. Participating in this research is invaluable for Scouts QLD, moreover you can win prizes to do fun activities with your Scouts Group.

THE RESEARCH PROJECT

Scouts Branches across Australia have partnered up with a research team from the University of Western Australia to find ways to attract and retain more adult volunteers to deliver Scouts youth programs. As you no doubt already know, bringing in new and retaining current volunteers is essential for Scouts to continue to deliver quality youth programs. It is, however, challenging for Scouts to attract and retain a sufficient number of volunteers, sometimes even resulting in wait lists of youth who would like to join the Scout movement.

The goal of our research is to help Scouts develop state-of-the-art recruitment, training and communications strategies to ultimately improve the attraction, engagement and retention of Scouts volunteers. The project started last year and will run for three more years. During this time Scouts volunteers will be approached by the UWA team to participate in surveys and interviews.

Last year’s annual volunteer survey was a great success thanks to many volunteers sharing their experiences and motivation. Based on your responses we informed all Scouts branches about ways to improve the volunteer experience. This year we would like to ask for your input again. What motivates you to volunteer for Scouts?

HOW YOU CAN HELP

On Wednesday 18 October, this year’s survey will commence. We would like to urge you to participate, because more information will allow the research team to make better recommendations that allow Scouts to continue flourishing. The most important aspect of this project is getting opinions from as many volunteers as possible. So, in addition to completing the questionnaires yourself, please encourage your fellow volunteers to do the same! Please talk to other volunteers about the project and encourage them to participate too.

WHAT YOU WILL GET OUT OF IT

If you agree to complete the questionnaires, we can provide you with personalised feedback on your motivation, values and personality. For example, if you complete a personality questionnaire, we can tell you how you scored and give you some information about what your scores mean.

Additionally, we will give away prizes: Two $250 Woolworths group gift card for group activities to two Scouts groups with a high participation rate!

MORE INFORMATION

For more information, please visit our project website www.uwascoutsresearch.com where you can meet the research team, get updates on the project and learn more about your personalised results. You can also find the report on the previous survey on our website. If you have any questions you can contact the research team directly via scoutsresearch-psy@uwa.edu.au.

Thank you very much for your support!