May 2019 – DYC Blog

Welcome to the first of my Monthly ‘Blog Posts’ where as your District Youth Commissioner, I’ll be giving you anything from updates on the Youth Team to exciting #Youshaped news! This month I’ll be going over where the Youth Team is now.

During January – March 2019, Northampton District Youth Team set out, on what many would call an extremely ambitious task, of visiting as many sections as they can to deliver a new exciting ‘Youth Forum Activity Programme’ all in the space of three months with the aim of actively engaging the #YouShape programme and the Youth Team into the District.

With a badge relay game, sticky note ideas and thoughts, badge designs and leadership quality suggestions from young people, we managed a total of 25 sectional visits, reaching a whopping 298 young people! A great standard to set for future visits. One part of our programme we asked the young people three questions:

Would you like to earn your Chief Scout Award?

Which Nights Away Experience is your favourite: Camps (Outdoors) or Sleepovers (Indoors)?

What badge do you prefer: Challenge Badges, Activity Badges or Staged Activity Badges?

Every young person we saw answered these three questions, and over the past few months I have been shifting through the answers and bring together the results. Have a look at the results below! Personally I think it is amazing to see so many young people with desires to be sleeping outdoors and aiming for their top awards!

In addition to this, the youth team has been looking closely working towards the aims I covered in my introduction post in April. The main areas we have been working on have been refining the structure of the team by creating new roles and recruiting new members who will be announced in the coming months, as well the revival of E.L.I.T.E. which will have it’s first session on 26th June 2019. For more details please get in touch.

Resources for a Youth Forum Base at District Cub Camp in June have been developed and a District wide Youth Shaped event, as a result of our visits this year, is in the early planning stages. It is exciting to see ideas starting to come to life with #YouShape Scouting slowly taking a bigger shape in the District.

Charlie Mackenzie
DYC