An update on Squirrels – involving Young Leaders and more volunteers
The rollout of Squirrels continues to gather momentum as we now have over 300 groups registered to open Squirrels in the coming months – with 36% in lower income areas and 17% in Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. We also have over 100 groups transitioning to Squirrels from the pilots and Northern Ireland.
To support leaders involved in starting a new Squirrel Drey, we’ve been running ‘Welcome to Squirrels’ webinars. These share information about Squirrels and the next steps that need to be taken in order to set a group up. These have been hugely beneficial to the new Squirrel leaders and we’ve seen 375 people attend the 19 webinars we’ve delivered so far.
Some counties have now appointed County Squirrel Advisors who we’re working closely with to help groups and districts find out more about Squirrels and help them get ready to open their very own Squirrel Drey.
Last month, we shared that some groups have been facing a challenge when it comes to working with Young Leaders, so we ran a forum which was attended by 20 Young Leaders from across the UK to get their thoughts about working with groups.
‘I feel welcomed [in the Leadership team] but not particularly useful as I’d like to be,’ said one Young Leader.
Using the feedback gathered from the forum, we’ll deliver some sessions over the coming months to help groups recruit and better utilise Young Leaders within their Squirrel Drey. The next forum will be held on 20 November and we can’t wait to hear from even more Young Leaders.
How’s it going?
Squirrel leaders have had lots of fun over the past couple of months really getting stuck in with the programme and the new Squirrel badges. We’ve sold over 25,000 programme badges through Scout Store and leaders have shared their thoughts on their favourite badges so far. The Feel Good badge is currently topping the charts!
The activity finder is packed full of great ideas for leaders to help them programme plan and get young people earning badges. (You’ll need to be part of a cohort to access the Squirrels activities, so that we can train you up on delivering Scouts to this age range.)
To help manage and understand the youth data as we roll out Squirrels across the UK, we’ve made it a requirement for new Dreys to use Online Scout Manager. Some groups have taken to this seamlessly as they already use it within their other sections but it’s been proving a little more difficult with others.
We’re working closely with OSM to make sure the system works efficiently and we’re providing plenty of learning opportunities for any newbies.
Squirrels are being invested
Hundreds of Squirrels have been invested across the UK over the past couple of months. 12th King’s Lynn Scout Group in Norfolk invested 12 new Squirrels on 19 October. They invited the West Norfolk Mayor, Harry Humphrey, along to join in with the celebrations and hand out the certificates. He brought the local press with him and there was a great story in the local paper about their investiture evening.
It was a brilliant opportunity to showcase the amazing work the group is doing with Squirrels. It helped to not only get more parents signing up to volunteer at Squirrels, but there was also some interest for the other sections in the group too.
The group is the only one in the county with a Squirrel Drey and the investiture event has attracted lots of attention from local groups wanting to find out more about Squirrels.