The next step of our digital journey

If you’ve visited scouts.org.uk before, you’ll notice that a few things have moved. As an organisation with thousands of members, our website contains a lot of information on a variety of subjects. Making sure it’s easily accessible starts with designing effective navigation. That’s why all of our content areas can now be reached from a horizontal navigation bar, with content split into four categories – ’Be a Scout’, ‘What Scouts do’, ‘Volunteers’ and ‘About us’, with a separate link to our shop.

Also on the navigation bar is a new, improved search feature. When you use this search feature, results from the main website and from members.scouts.org.uk will now come up, with the URL displayed beneath the result to make it easy to find what you need. 

We’re working on moving content into the main website – if you have a look under the ’Volunteers’ tab, you can see it starting to build up. In the meantime, members’ resources remains a separate site and is still available for your use.

We know that the majority of our users visit our websites on their phones. To best serve them, our website needs a mobile-first design. That’s why the website is designed as a series of stackable columns, with a collapsible menu bar. Whatever the size of your screen, our content is designed to be readable and font sizes are accessible.

One of the new features included on our new website is a programme planning feature, including over 500 exciting and engaging activities which are accessible to all. Though these activities are designed to support Beavers and Cubs, they can help provide all young people with vital life skills.

The planning feature is designed to help Scout volunteers compile the activities into anything from a single, one-hour meeting to a full, multi-year programme. It’s also possible to download ready-made programmes. The material isn’t just for Scout members. They can also be used by parents, teachers, and anyone else looking for fun activities to do with young people. 

We’ve also been working on updating our group finder, which allows prospective volunteers and parents to find and join groups near them. You can now search for groups based on the day they meet - making it easier than ever to find the right role to fit around your busy schedule - and request to join them by filling in a simple form.

Although we’ve created lots of new content and features for this exciting update, there’s still more we’d like to do. We’d like your feedback to help shape the future of scouts.org.uk and improve the site further. If you’re interested, you can submit your thoughts at any time by pressing the ‘feedback’ button on the right-hand side of the page and you can also join our digital community of interest by emailing digital@scouts.org.uk.

This website marks the beginning of a journey to transform the way members, volunteers and visitors access everything Scouts has to offer. We can’t wait to hear what you think.