Female volunteer with a Scout jacket walking in the woods with other volunteers.

The Scouts are a movement and we move with the times. The Scouts across the UK are beginning one of these moments of transformation. You’ve got questions and we’re here to help you answer them and ease you through.

You can find the Transformation information on the scouts.org.uk website at the Volunteer Experience pages.

Within the New Forest district, Lynn Tatavossian is our Transformation Lead. Plus we have a Go-Live Support team in place for your launch queries in the run up to and immediately after the launch. You can contact them all at [email protected]

When we notice some questions being asked a lot, we’ll pop the answer here.

In short, what is changing?

The changes are all focused on making it clearer for new and potential volunteers, making it easier for existing volunteers to do their role and to keep things up to date with best practice across the UK.

  • Team-based volunteering will become the norm with role descriptions shared between a team rather than falling on one person.
  • Volunteer titles are being simplified to make them easier to understand for new starters.
  • Executive Committees are becoming Trustee Boards with a more governance focused role.
  • Introducing a Volunteering Culture statement making it clear what volunteers can expect from the Scouts and likewise.
  • New digital tools to replace Compass and make it easier for new starters.
  • Changing and updating the training system.

When are the changes happening?

Some of the changes being made are already happening, for example the new Volunteering Culture statement is ready to launch now. Changes to turn Executive Committees to Trustee Boards are likely to begin at your next AGM, although there are some things you can do now.

A number of the other changes are reliant on the launch for the new membership system at scouts.org.uk which will replace Compass. This isn’t quite ready to launch yet as some parts of the system aren’t communicating as they should – to allow time to ensure it is working properly, the launch date for this system has been delayed indefinitely. We will update here when we know.