Our volunteering roles need to be… clear, manageable, and flexible!

We know that asking people to become leaders (or other specific roles) doesn’t suit everyone. People need to be able to volunteer in whichever way they can and want to do, focusing on the areas they have skills or interest in – and without having to take on the world.  

Why we are changing the structure of Scouts?

• We have too many roles, which can be unmanageable, fixed and too often feel like work.
• Our range of roles can be hard to understand, and expectations when someone joins or moves role are often unclear. They can put people off from joining – ‘I couldn’t do what you do.’
• We have a small number of people with lots of responsibility (and stress) placed on them. This can often make volunteering tip into feeling like work.

A teams-based approach

Teams thrive when they share a purpose, share tasks, and support each other to make the most of their different skills, experiences and available time. So, going forwards, the way we volunteer will be structured around these key principles:

• Everyone will volunteer as part of a flexible team structure.
• Each team will have a clear purpose, team description and set of team tasks.
• We will describe our teams and roles in plain English to ensure they are easily understood by everyone.

Our key teams:

Districts: At District, the teams are split into 5 areas. There are brief summaries of each below. There is a lot more detail that will be released soon for feedback, including the Team Descriptions for each.  

• Leadership Team – lead, inspire and motivate.
• Trustee Board – provide governance.
• Programme Team – bringing Section roles together/ with other activity experts.
• Volunteer Development Team – ensuring our volunteers are well supported.
• Support Team – keeping things running smoothly such as incident management.

There is also 14-24 Team at a District Level supporting Explorers and Network. The Team Leader also feeds into the District Leadership Team in the same way that the team leaders for group feed into the Leadership Team.

Groups: There’ll be a Group Leadership Team, which includes the Section Team Leaders and any other volunteers. This’ll be led by the person leading the Group. This means that all the things the Group does shouldn’t default to just the Group Scout Leader. There’s also a Trustee Board at Group Level, which provides governance to the Group.  

Sections: The Section Team will be made up of Section Team Members, Young Leaders and Section Team Leaders(s). There’ll no longer be a distinction between Section Assistants and Assistant Section Leaders. The team will share out tasks in a way that works for them. 

What are we asking Districts to do?

We are already working in teams, we just need to formalise it and utilise the new terminology. We want Districts/Groups to have conversations with their volunteers about the changes coming in and what this means to them – it most likely won’t change the task completed, just how we visualise it!

So, as a District Lead, you should be:

• Talking to your current teams and setting up your Leadership Team, Programme Team, Volunteer Development Team and the Support Team (if required). 
• Utilise the information above when considering what roles you need within each team.
• With some roles disappearing from our structure, have open conversations to see where people would feel comfortable going.
• Talk to your Group Lead Volunteers and ensure that they have adopted a similar, but slim down version, with their Leadership Teams and Sectional Teams. 
• Work with the District Trustee Board to establish what is governance and operational. The District Leadership Team manages operational duties and the Trustee Board reviews the governance.

Additional Resources

• Scouts UK’s PowerPoint Slides – Our Volunteering Structure
• Contact our NI Transformation Lead Scott Robinson at scottrobinson@scoutsni.org