Australian Jamboree, Maryborough hosts 10,000 Scouts

Newsletter 2023 Term 1

Welcome back to another year of Scouting, with our volunteer Leaders providing a wonderful development opportunity for the youth of our local community. Some other information will be coming through from your Section Leaders, but here are a few items from the Group as a whole.

1 Group calendar

We continue to migrate to Office365 and Terrain to improve the security of our systems. All youth events are now being recorded in the Terrain calendars, so if you haven’t already, please log on to Terrain and subscribe to the calendar. Adult events will be recorded in Microsoft Teams. Lots of information is available on our SJW website.

2 Equipment desired

We are hoping to acquire the following items for free or at low cost – please let me know if you can assist. There might be an opportunity with the current kerbside collection.

· Fridge – main “Wirra Birra” den – looking for large fridge around 500L that works well. Appearance not important.
· Aluminium security doors (x 2) for repurposing to secure items in the District canoe trailer.
· Temporary roadside post bases (see photo) for repurposing as weights for our canoe buoys to set courses for the Scouts. Broken ones may be suitable as well.
· Coloured nail polish – to colour code tent poles with the paint applied to the tent fabric so that tents and poles are not damaged by using incorrect poles.

3 Leaders / volunteers required

We have a great group of Leaders, but of course we need to constantly recruit to ensure the workload is equitably shared and to enable Leaders to follow other pursuits. We are particularly looking for Leaders for the Wednesday Cubs and Thursday Joeys, but we’d love any offers of help!

Is anyone good at Facebook and willing to share a post once a month promoting how much your child enjoys Scouts?

Also, we need more help with the regular chores of running the Scout halls, including tidying equipment and the kitchen, managing the red 10c container collection bins and the council bins, keeping hand wash supplies stocked, picking up rocks, rubbish and sticks off the grass and the like. Let me know if you can assist with these items – this might only take 5-10 minutes each time you collect your child before the end of the night. More details are on our website.

BBQ helpers six times per year. I’m looking for helpers that will volunteer to help at most of these events per year. There are a few roles available, but the main ones are helping prepare the adult curry on the Thursday night before Group Night, and cooking sausages on the Friday Group Night from 4:30pm. We have two other events, one being providing snacks and ice blocks at the Group family breakup, and the other being a breakup BBQ for Leaders and families.

Committee members: The Committee needs a Chair and a Secretary. The monthly online Committee meetings are on the 3^rd Tuesday of the month at 7:30 pm for one hour - you could also volunteer for other tasks if desired. The role of the Chair is to coordinate the “back-end” operations of the Group and manage those things that need to be done so that our Leaders can concentrate on our Youth support and development. The role of the Secretary is to attend meetings, keep minutes and ensure that action items are allocated. Have a go – it can be lots of fun and rewarding to support your child’s Scout Group.

4 The buildings and grounds

Together with a parent working bee, a group of three volunteers (Alan, Ken and Russ) have a regular weekly working bee that has been focussed on the flood recovery. The Leaders’ Shed is strongly repaired and ready for service again, but there is still plenty more work to do! We’d like to replace our main Den (or at least replace the roof), but the Brisbane City Council has not approved these projects.

Parent working bees are scheduled for Sunday mornings from 8am to 12noon each term – youth welcome under their parent supervision – dates are: 26 March; 4 June; 27 Aug and 19 Nov.

In great news for the safety of our Youth and volunteers - the site is now asbestos free. An audit report confirming this is expected to arrive shortly.

5 Renewal / invoices

The Scout membership year runs on an annual basis from 1 April to 31 March. Renewal payments must be received well before end March to allow our volunteers to process the renewal and update the Scouts Queensland system. Invoices will be issued in the next week to give plenty of time for payment. Please pay these before the invoice due date (2 March) (or let the Treasurer know otherwise if you are having difficulty paying). The fees have increased slightly, but well below inflation. Please inform the treasurer if you have not received your invoice by 28 Jan.

6 Snippets

There is lots of lost property from Cub camp. If you are missing anything, please contact collect from the box in the den - we don’t want to throw anything out and contribute more waste into the environment!

SISEP Applications: For exchange placements to Denmark or Japan close on 1 March 2023. Age 15 is best.

Dick and Pip Smith Leadership Through Adventure Fund: Youth Members can apply for grants to support activities and adventures they may be looking to undertake. The next round of applications closes on 30 January - you can apply here.

Operoo hint: Add a second parent for notifications as per the SJW website.

7 Summer camp review

The Group had a great summer camp at a dedicated Scout campsite at Karingal from 11-15 January, with up to 30 Scouts and volunteer Leaders attending. Activities included canoeing, a day trip on the ferry to Coochiemudlo Island, shopping for camp food, orienteering, a “monkey bridge” (refer lead photo), drone flying, cooking chickens on an open fire survival style (photo below) and the closing zip line activity. One lucky Patrol was excited to get a new stove after theirs became faulty (photo). The Scouts did a review at the end of the camp with Leaders recording – the feedback was good, with some suggested changes for next time, such as a flatter, greener campsite with a pool (e.g. BP Park) or offering a canoe journey as well as the summer camp. Other feedback included cooking more food on the fire (which is interesting, because although the chicken was moist and delicious, it took four hours, which was way longer than the Leaders expected!).

8 Advancing to the next section

There are lots of 10 year old cubs moving to Scouts this year, so I’ll share a graphic showing what a big change that is from the Cubs Section. The Scout Section is the “crossover” time for leadership - where the development of our Youth means that, by the end of their time in the Scout Section, the senior Scouts are predominantly the leaders (and, correspondingly, the need for adult leadership and parent support is reduced). Although the role of volunteer Leaders is still vitally important, our senior Scouts are learning practical leadership skills “on the job” by leading their Patrol (team).

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Newsletter 2023 Term 1