From the Chief Commissioner
Hi everyone, hope you are having a great month!
On behalf of all members of Queensland Branch can I congratulate two of our members who were awarded honours in the King’s Birthday Honours this week.
Phil Harrison AM – Member of the Order of Australia – for services to youth and outdoor education. Phil is the Branch Adviser Training Adventurous Activities and previously the Chief Commissioner for Australia.
Merrill Ovenden OAM – Medal of the Order of Australia – for services to youth through Scouting. Merrill is an Activity Leader within Redlands District.
Bravo to Phil and Merrill!
Really excited that I now have six new backgrounds for my virtual meetings thanks to Joey Scouts and Cub Scouts.
Below are the winners of the compasses and you can review the backgrounds provided. A huge thank you to all who lodged a submission – we had a hard task of judging them all. You can view them all here
Just an update on our membership.
As of this week we have seen an uplift in our membership to 8,713 which represents 4.5 % growth since 1 April 2024. This is good to see, and we are still getting on average 150 enquiries per month to join Scouting!
You will have heard the State Government has announced some exciting changes to the FairPlay Voucher Scheme in Queensland. This scheme will now see vouchers valued at $200 and they will be available to all families. This is a great opportunity for current and new members of Scouting to assist in funding fees. This comes into effect from 1 July 2024 for 12 months.
I wanted to thank all Leaders/Adult Members who completed the Youth Program Survey during April. Those results and comments are currently being reviewed both nationally and in Queensland and will be shared shortly. I will keep you informed of the progress as it comes to hand.
I have mentioned previously about the transition of our mandatory training modules – Child Safe Scouting and Workplace Health and Safety migrating to two yearly cycles instead of the current three year cycles. This takes effect on 18 June 2024. Impacted Leaders will receive correspondence if this change impacts their current expiry date for these modules which brings it forward to the 2024 Calendar year. Another demonstration that supports our focus on Child Safety and Workplace Health and Safety.
We celebrated Queensland Day and recognised our volunteers in National Volunteer week.
I have also provided to our Groups/Districts and Regions a short video that can be used at Annual Report Presentations that are happening across our Branch over this month.
AJ2025 is now just around the corner for this Branch – January 2025 in Maryborough. Trust your young person has applied! If you have, I hope your payments are all up to date. I have also provided some data to our Leaders on the State of Volunteering following the report issued during National Volunteer Week.
Over this month I have communicated with our Leaders around the following topics:
- Adult Member Definition Changes
- AJ2025
- Visitor Registration
- Mandatory Training Modules changes
- Unit Codes
- Volunteering Trends
- ARP (Annual Report Presentation) Video
Have a great month and good Scouting!