Looking to the Future: Coventry

With just over 800 volunteers, the City of Coventry, is relatively small county in comparison to others. As such, our volunteers aren’t a stranger taking on a range of roles, so we can deliver great programmes to our young people. Our smaller size does have its benefits though. It gives us more opportunities to bring people together, to share messages and present information to encourage collaboration.

After Basecamp in 2022, where we learned about what changes would be coming, we decided that the County would take a lead on sharing the information. We formed our delivery team from those who already met regularly, had the right skills and the forward-thinking attitude needed to make a positive impact.

With our delivery team made up of the County Commissioner, a District Commissioner and our Media and Communications team, along with several other County staff, we decided the team would communicate directly with volunteers.

We focussed on sharing what was relevant to each volunteer's roles, and this seems to have worked in our favour.  We communicated key information at County and District meetings, but limited the information shared at wider local membership roadshows. This meant key facts were kept in the spotlight and any shifts in timelines didn't change the overall message.

We believe that this helped keep people interested and have faith in the changes.

Delivering change locally – how we did it in Coventry

In late 2022, we gave what is probably best described as a soft launch, sharing key snippets of the plans on our social media channels and through the County and District newsletters. We also made sure our delivery team were available at events and activities to answer any questions and share key information.

In 2023, we started to ramp up our approach. We started with our County Conference in February, with Section, Group and District Teams, as well as the County Team joining us. The day was a great success, with our delivery team available and approachable to support our volunteers taking change forward.

Matt Cobble and Hamish Stout, volunteers leading on changes to the volunteer journey and learning, came along and delivered a comprehensive presentation. They explained how we’re transforming our volunteer experience. We then followed the presentation with four workshops, which allowed for more focussed discussions.

Following the buzz of the County conference, our delivery team attended District and County meetings, where they shared presentations and had discussions with members. The numbers in attendance varied, but what we said always went down well.

We’ve continued to share what’s happening, making everyone aware that they can find out more. We've also been reassuring them we’ll tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it. We’re staying visible over the summer, making sure we’re available at events, camps and at our activity centre.

A challenge, and our solution

When out talking to Districts, we had a bit of push back when we presented the introduction of Trustee Boards. A Group Scout Leader (GSL) shared a concern that his current Group Executive Committee might all leave now that they were becoming Trustees.

It was actually a simple one to solve!

We explained that, although currently called Executive Committee Members, they are and have been doing the work of Trustees, even if they didn’t realise it. He was quite happy to hear about the change and that things were becoming clearer. He was also glad that we’d had a conversation to clear up the confusion.

Being on the ground with people, to answer their questions has massively helped us to keep people positive and on board.

A definite highlight took place in a Group’s AGM when they asked the usual question of ‘who would like to become a Trustee?’ Much to the Group’s surprise, four parents raised their hands and stepped forward to join the team!

They understood what being a ‘Trustee’ was and what it meant for them. Their feedback was that before, the words ‘Executive Committee’ had been off-putting.