Poland Jamboree 2027
Well done to all the 21 young people who attended the Jamboree selection event in November, and thank you to all the adults who helped with the event. Congratulations to Amber, Evie, India, Isla and Luke on being selected to represent Gravesham at the World Scout Jamboree, and to Del Jarvis on being selected to be part of the leadership team for the event. Please do support their fundraising activities over the next 18 months.
Inclusion (and GirlGuiding)
You may have seen press or social media commentary about GirlGuides changing their admission criteria re Trans members. Scouts remains fully inclusive and open to all and is not affected by this.
Compliance and learning
Well done to everyone! Gravesham are currently 100% compliant on Safety and Safeguarding, which is a great achievement. We are also doing well on DBS compliance, so thanks you for taking action on this. We still have quite a few people with roles that are not full. If you log into My membership, choose My profile / Roles & accreditations / My roles to see your roles and status. If your role is “Provisional” or “Provisional + System” click on the role title to see what needs done to make the role full. If learning is outstanding you will need to log into the learning system to see what is needed and complete it. If you have any problems, please speak to your Group Lead Volunteer or ask me!
First aid
All adult volunteers working with sections need to gain and maintain a first aid qualification. If yours is due for renewal or needs completed in the next few months you should have had an email from me. All adults are welcome to take advantage of First Aid training, and we are offering a 16 hour Outdoor First Aid course as well as one day First Response courses.
Events coming up
Details for Winter Camp (which will be different this year due to the works on the toilet block at Hopehill) and Easter Hillcraft (still at Rydal) will be out soon. Dave has also published an advert looking for Events team leaders for 4-7 and 8 – 10.5 year olds – we are looking for someone to lead a team, not run all the events!
Christmas
It was great to see over 100 young people and many leaders at Christingle. Thank you to Barabra and Lynda for organising, to the Shrimpers for making Christingles and to everyone who took to the stage. Please consider supporting Santa on Riverview and 5th Northfleet’s Christmas Tree Recycling.
I hope you all have a great time with your family and friends over the festive season, have time for a break and possibly eat and drink a little too much, and get some great presents.
Merry Christmas
Fraser