Simplifying volunteering

How we'll simplify how we volunteer together for positive volunteering everyday

Moving to teams-based volunteering: volunteering in teams with a clear purpose and shared tasks 

• All volunteers will be part of a team. Some places already volunteer in effective teams, but we want this to happen everywhere. We already know from local successes that people achieve more in teams.   
• A team shares a Team Description, which gives a purpose, outcomes and tasks for the team. This will be a mixture of tasks for the whole team and allocated tasks for a particular people that the team can agree on.  These will replace the current Role Descriptions.  
• A team can decide between themselves how to allocate the tasks to suit volunteers’ skills, interests and availability. This makes flexible volunteering normal and available to everyone. 
• Teams have team leaders. This could be one or more people, and they’ll coordinate the tasks with the team.  
• Our systems and processes will support volunteering in teams.  
• As part of these changes, what we call our volunteer roles will change. Our role titles will be updated to reflect how we volunteer now.  
• Updating role titles will also ensure they’re understandable and appealing for new and current volunteers. Some named roles will be retained – where these serve clear purpose such as Treasurer or Permit Assessor.  

Why we need to make sure how we volunteer is right for current and new volunteers, as well as for young people 

At the moment:  

• We have too many roles, which can be unmanageable, fixed and too often feel like work.   
• They can be hard to understand, and expectations when someone joins or moves role are often unclear. They can put people off from joining - ‘I couldn’t do what you do.’ 
• We have a few people with lots of responsibility (and stress) placed on them. This can often make volunteering tip into feeling like work.   

For current volunteers to have a good experience and attract new volunteers: 

• We need our roles to be appealing to more and different people, including those who have never been involved in Scouting. This means that we’ll increase the numbers of volunteers who join us and increase the diversity of our volunteers.  
• We need to make some of our roles more effective at supporting the delivery of great programmes to young people. That’s what we’re here for. If we refocus our roles around what is needed in Scouts today, every hour a volunteer gives makes an even bigger difference to young people.  
• We need to be clear about what roles should be doing and how they fit in with other volunteers to reduce duplication. This means that we know who’s doing what and we all get more out of the time we put in.  
• We need to share tasks from our key leadership roles to reduce the workload of our Group Scout Leaders (GSLs), District Commissioners (DCs) and County Commissioners (CCs). Over time, this will make these roles more accessible and appealing to a broader group of people. 
• We need what we call our roles to be more understandable both to those inside and outside of Scouts, so that people understand what we do and join us.  

The impact on volunteers

What this will look like in reality

There’ll be lots more information and detail coming over the next few months, including all the support materials and what exactly this will mean for each of our current roles.  

Our structures will still be arranged in Sections, Groups, Districts and Counties.  

Sections

View the Section Team diagram in full screen.

The Section Team will be made up of Section Team Members, Young Leaders and Section Team Leaders(s). There’ll no longer be a distinction between Section Assistants and Assistant Section Leaders. The team will share out tasks in a way that works for them. 

Groups

View the Group diagram in full screen.

There’ll be a Group Leadership Team, which includes the Section Team Leaders and any other volunteers. This’ll be led by the person leading the Group. This means that all the things the Group does shouldn’t default to just the Group Scout Leader. There’s also a Trustee Board at Group Level, which provides governance to the Group.  

District

View the District diagram in full screen.

At District, the teams are split into 5 areas. There are brief summaries of each below. There is a lot more detail that will be released soon for feedback, including the Team Descriptions for each.  

• Leadership Team – lead, inspire and motivate 
• Trustee Board – provide governance 
• Programme Team – bringing Section roles together/ with other activity experts 
• Volunteer Development Team – ensuring our volunteers are well supported 
• Support Team – keeping things running smoothly such as incident management 

There is also 14-24 Team at a District Level supporting Explorers and Network. The Team Leader also feeds into the District Leadership Team in the same way that the team leaders for group feed into the Leadership Team.

County 

View the County diagram in full screen.

At County, the teams are split into 5 areas. There are brief summaries of each below. There is a lot more detail that will be released soon for feedback, including the Team Descriptions for each. The remits of each of these teams at County level with be distinct from but compliment the purposes of the teams at District.  

• Leadership Team – lead, inspire and motivate 
• Trustee Board – provide governance 
• Programme Team – bringing Section roles together/ with other activity experts 
• Volunteer Development Team – ensuring our volunteers are well supported 
• Support Team – keeping things running smoothly such as incident management 

What will stay the same 

Our structures will still be arranged in Sections, Groups, Districts and Counties, as well as broadly the tasks that happen at each level. For example, Section Teams will still deliver programmes to young people.  

Even if our structures look different, you should still be able to volunteer in the area that is of most interesting to you, such as working with young people, delivering excellent governance or giving support to other volunteers. 

Who’s leading the positive volunteering project 

• Rich Bennett, Project Lead: How We Volunteer 
• Pete Jeffreys, Project Lead: How We Volunteer
• Laura Congreve, Volunteer Journey Executive (Volunteer Framework) 
• Alex Harvey, Volunteer Framework Theme Lead