Dear friends,
On behalf of the Regional Executive Committee, I would like to convey our thanks for your significant efforts in maintaining a focus on Scouting in our Region during the massive set of challenges that have been presented due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It came as no surprise to us that the 2021 census returned a fall in our membership numbers which reflects the situation across the country right now. However, we were also highly encouraged that 4000 young people and 1300 adult volunteers are keen to get back to Scouting in our Region.
As we finally see a path forward to a return to normality in our lives, accelerated by the ongoing mass vaccination programme, during our recent Regional Executive Committee we have now approved a number of fresh measures to support our groups and districts across the North East.
1) We used our own funds, to quickly make our full regional payment to Scouts Scotland for the annual census, therefore we will return a £0.50 rebate to all districts.
2) The Regional Executive has agreed an additional one-off payment rebate from the regional levy for this year, only because of the anticipated costs of the restart to full Scouting again.
This is a further £1.00 per member (giving a total rebate of £1.50 per member) to districts to aid the recovery to full Scouting, once that is allowed. The proviso for this extra rebate is that it must be used to relaunch activities at either:
District level: to be spent within the next 6 months on returning to amber (highly preferred for the Beaver section level), if not used within the 6-month timescale the monies are to be transferred to Groups.
-or-
Group / unit level: districts can pass the rebate directly on to them, for specific use to relaunch activities.
3) Under the stewardship of our ARC (Comms) Aaron Wappler, we continue to make great improvements to our regional website, coverage in the media and our social media presence. We can now confirm we have doubled our communications budget for 2021/2022 with money allocated to improving the functionality of our website and a new budget of £600 for social media advertising over the next 12 months to support our drive in the recruitment of new and former members into the Scout movement.
We trust that these additional financial measures are welcomed by you all, as we are only just beginning in the next steps to recovery there may still be as yet unknown challenges ahead before we reach a place we recognise as “normal”.
Please keep the dialogue open with the Regional Executive and let us know if we should be placing our attention on any issues that would support you better, you can find all members of the executive on: https://nescouts.scot/AboutUs/MeetTheTeam
With thanks for your continued dedication to Scouting.
Ken Bruce
Regional Chair
http://nescouts.scot I www.facebook.com/NEScouts I www.mobile.twitter/nescouts
North East Region Scouts is a Registered Scottish Charity SC039551