Dear Suffolk Scouters,

Thank you for your continued support. Please remember that the key communications over the coming months will be the weekly email newsletter and our website https://www.suffolkscouts.org.uk/coronovirus.  All content we post is based on UK Government and The Scout Association guidelines. Our Facebook and Twitter pages will be updated with pictures and videos of what our young people are up to regarding Scouting – there is lots going on! 

A recent UK survey showed that Suffolk Scouts is the top in the Eastern Region for running online programmes during the Covid19 pandemic, standing at 92% of groups, well done for your hard work and resilience in these challenging times.

Is your “virtual” programme accessible and inclusive?

Like many Groups and Sections across the UK, you may be successfully running virtual programmes with your young people. However, have you thought about those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities or those who struggle with social communication?

One Cub pack (31st/9th Ipswich (Tuesday) Cubs) has every single Cub in the pack participating in their accessible to all and inclusive programme.

Here are some of their ideas that you may wish to consider. 

  • They have put out a range of 80 activities / challenges some of which are specifically aimed at gaining certain badges and some of which are purely for fun. The challenges are wide-ranging from the intricate to the quick and easy
  • The Cub parents can upload evidence that can be handwritten, typed, photos or video logs onto an education platform called Seesaw. Leaders can be contacted through Seesaw if there are any queries via parents and leaders are responding to every submission.
  • They also sent out the challenges in a complete word document at the beginning so that parents could print them if they prefer and have a complete list to cross off as the Cub does them. Any subsequent challenges added since the beginning have been added to the Seesaw platform and emailed to parents
  • It was sent out with a covering email explaining it was designed to be completed at home but there was no expectation or requirement for Cubs to HAVE to complete any of the activities and what they do can be done at their own pace
  • The Leaders are sending out a weekly update to all Cub parents detailing some of the highlights of what has been uploaded and making them aware of young people who have gained activity badges and any birthday or memorable occasions.  This is sent out during the normal Cub meeting time each week.
  • Some of the submissions from the Cubs are really innovative and clever ones as well as ones that make you smile e.g. one of the challenges is making a sandwich with one hand that links to the Disability Awareness activity badge and one of the cubs is using their foot to hold the bread still while they butter it and another one uses their mouth to open the fridge to put the butter away!

If you are working hard to ensure that online scouting is accessible to, and enjoyable for all, please let us have (development@suffolkscouts.org.uk) examples of how you are also being inclusive so that we can share with others.

Suffolk Scouts and Suffolk Community Foundation

Suffolk Scouts has teamed up with Suffolk Community Foundation to support Charities in Suffolk. Many local Charities have lost their funding streams since we have had to change the way we are living. Many Suffolk Charities are experiencing greater demand just at the time that their income has collapsed. We would like Groups and Districts in Suffolk to join the Social Media Army promoting Suffolk Community Foundation. We will feature an exciting fundraising opportunity in the next newsletter. You can find out more about Suffolk Community Foundation here.

#AdventureContinues

Don’t forget to visit our ‘Scouting At Home’ initiative, full details on our website. The next        #AdventureContinues Challenge focuses on being outdoors. Considering that the Government is now encouraging us to spend more time outdoors, this is a good time for this challenge.

Check out all of them here.

We can see why we are one of the top counties running ‘Scouting At Home’. The Resources page for Coronavirus with mainly links to other programme sites has had 417 visits and you are using the resources; we have had the following downloads to date

  • Virtual Camp at the Zoo – 26
  • MyCovid Timecapsule – 20
  • Tom Moore colouring sheet – 27
  • Key workers colouring sheet – 21
  • Escape to Hallowtree – 24

Challenges

The Challenges page itself has now had 1881 hits with Challenge 2 having downloads of

  • Beavers – 188
  • Cubs – 245
  • Scouts – 135
  • Explorers -75

and the recently published Challenge 3 – International – 213 and this week’s Challenge 4 – Outdoors – 56! Try some if you haven’t already.

In the News

The East Anglian Daily Times featured a great article about scouting activities in Lowestoft. You can read the article here.

We’d love to hear more stories that we can share. Email us county.news@suffolkscouts.org.uk.

Best wishes

Mark Pearson