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Wyred, your Wyre Scouts Newsletter – April 2021 Edition
In this edition:

  • A Message from our District Commissioner, Jon Minshull
  • COVID-19 Guidance on Amber Restrictions
  • St George’s Day
  • Our Strategy
  • Social Distanced Activities
  • Wyre All Members Meeting
  • Would you like to join the Wyre DofE Team?
  • Promoting Your Programme
  • Network Re-Launched
  • Updating Our Directory
  • 1st Carleton Get Minecrafting
  • Dates for your Diary

A Message from Our District Commissioner, Jon Minshull:

Welcome to the April edition of Wyred, it’s a jam packed edition with useful information, support and exciting things to look forward to across Wyre. Its exciting to see our groups and units start to begin returning to face to face Scouting but we are aware that it may be a little daunting for some of our young people and volunteers. As a District Team we are ready and willing to help you and so if you do need any help however please don’t hesitate to contact us. Working together we will bounce back stronger and have a bright and exciting future!

Additional Guidance on Amber COVID-19 Restrictions:

All leaders should now have received information from HQ outlining changes to the way we can meet outdoors following the exciting move to Amber earlier this week.

In summary, the previous limit of 15 young people plus 5 leaders will be removed, for programme activities, involving all youth sections including Network. Furthermore, if a section meeting is not viable due to insufficient numbers of young people or leaders, then that section may meet together with another section from the same group.

Notwithstanding this welcome relaxation, we must continue to observe social distancing and behave in accordance with the measures identified in our risk assessments; we must also be sensitive to local feelings, particularly where Network members are involved, and it is recommended that Network members wear uniform, or at least a necker, so that they are identifiable as Scouts.

Regarding the locations of outdoor meetings, whilst we are no longer legally required to remain within our town or village we should continue to minimise travel until the government announces otherwise. For example, this means we could reasonably undertake adventurous activities in Wyre or North West Lancashire but we should not yet visit the Lake District.

Further details can be found, here.

If you have any questions, please contact Geoff, the Wyre CRAG Chair.

St George’s Day 2021:
St George’s Day is traditionally a time for Scout’s to come together, renew their Promise and celebrate. As Wyre Scouts, we are inviting all our members to join us on Zoom to join together for a celebration on Sunday, 25th April from 2pm until 3:30pm.

Zoom ID: 940 5636 1404
Passcode: WyreScouts

Our Strategy:
We’ve released the first edition of the Wyre Scouts strategy which looks at how we’ll bounce back even better than before! You can find it here.

Social Distanced Activity Ideas:
If you’re struggling with coming up with socially distanced activity ideas or need some additional inspiration, The Scouts have compiled a list of pre-planned activities for all sections, which you can find here.

Also, if you have run an amazing activity, we’d love to share it with the rest of Wyre, so that we can all make the most of being outside again. If you have an activity you’d like to share with us, please email the media team! We’ll be adding activities under the coronavirus resources on our website, which you can find here.

Wyre All Member’s Meeting:
The next Wyre All Member’s Meeting will be on 13th April 2021 from 19:30-21:00. These meetings are a way for you to ask the District Team questions that you may have, raise concerns or ask for help. They’re also our way of updating you on what’s going on and our plans for the next few months.

At the end of the main meeting, we’ll break off into sections so that you can benefit from sharing your ideas and your thoughts with the other leaders who work with the same section as you.

We’d love to see you there!

Zoom ID: 952 2195 8585
Passcode: WyreScouts

Would you like to join the Wyre DofE Team?
Across Wyre, we’re looking for people to help support our young people achieve their Duke of Edinburgh Award. This exciting and flexible role that can be tailored to suit your abilities and skills and will help our Explorers and Network members achieve top awards and helping them gain a range of skills.

For more information, click here. To apply or nominate, click here.

Promoting your Programme:
As we begin to return and rebuild, it’s more important than ever to get ourselves out there. One of the ways we can do this is by promoting our programme on social media. We are offering the following support with this:

  • Workshops on Branding, Recruiting Using Social Media and Creating Social Media Content, you can sign up to there, here.
  • For the media team to come and take pictures of your group for promotional purposes
  • For the media team to produce some promotional videos of your group
  • Promotion of your activities on our social media channels
  • Promotion of your activities in Wyred

If you’re interested in any of the above opportunities, please email the media team.

The Scouts’ Brand Centre has recently been updated with some fantastic recruitment resources and The Scouts are also running some brilliant workshops on how to recruit face-to-face during Amber restrictions, you can sign up to these, here.

Network Re-Launched:
Our Network Unit has had two fantastic digital social events in the past month. They’ve been well attended and the members have come up with a rough programme for the next year. They’ve recently done a quiz night which involved all the members running a round each.

The next Network meeting will be on Saturday, 17th April and will be face-to-face. If you’re aged between 18 and 25 and would like to join in, email Gareth Bates, the Wyre Scout Network Commissioner

Updating our Directory:
It is essential that we keep our directory up-to-date. If you spot any mistakes, if anything needs changing, if someone needs adding or removing, please contact our new Appointments Secretary, Caroline. The directory will be reuploaded once a month with all of that month’s edits. You can find the directory, here.

1st Carleton Get Minecrafting:

As we are starting to look forward to moving back to face to face Scouting it is worth taking some time to reflect on the past 12 months. Scouting has had to change and adopt to delivering a different programme of virtual scouting during the pandemic with limited opportunities to see the young people face to face. Leaders have worked hard to ensure activities have been fun, engaging and interactive. However, for some scouting has become much more than just that one meeting a week. Friendships have been strengthened and despite not seeing each other the young people have found ways to engage and chat through a variety of platforms such as WhatsApp, Discord and more recently Minecraft.

The young people thought it would be great to have a Minecraft server for Scouts so they could chat and play at the same time. They started to explore how they could do this but hit problems as they would have to pay for the server. As a leader I was also concerned about how they could do this safely and so had a chat with another Leader in the District who had the knowledge and the kit to be able to set up a server for the Scouts to connect and play in a safe environment.

This has proved popular amongst the scouts with 11 users playing on a regular basis since February half term with more wanting to join. It is more than just playing a game it is about community and working together to make the Minecraft world work, they have started to develop a community and a mayoral election is currently underway.

The young people have massively benefited from the experience with one Scout, Archie, saying “I like it, it is fun and a great way to socialise”. Another one of the Scouts, Christian, said “it has brought us more together”. The parents have also expressed their appreciation towards this project as the Scouts seems happier and less bored!

– Nicky Dennison (Scout Leader – 1st Carleton & Assistant District Commissioner – Scouts)

The community the Scouts have started to build

Dates for Your Diary:
Please note: face-to-face events are subject to Government guidance

  • 06/04 – Branding 101 Workshop
  • 07/04 – GSLs Meeting
  • 13/04 – All Member’s Meeting
  • 15/04 – Social Media for Recruitment Workshop
  • 25/04 – St George’s Day Celebration
  • 03/05 – Creating Engaging Social Media Content Workshop
  • 05/05 – HQ All Member’s Meeting
  • 15/05 – Submission Deadline Wyred May 2021
  • 31/05 – Brand Update Deadline
  • 31/05 – Wyred: May 2021 Edition
  • 01/06 – GSLs Meeting
  • 26/06 – Wyre Scouts Competition Day

You check out all the latest events in the Wyre Scouts diary, here.

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