;

Please distribute to all those who work with and for the Cub Scout Section

2002 will go down as one of the milestone years in Scouting history. It will be forever remembered as the year the new Programme for all Sections is introduced. Wherever you see it launched I hope you will return to your Area, District, County, Group or Pack excited and bursting with energy about the new possibilities it throws up for our young people.

If an issue arises at one of our Regional Communication and Consultation meetings how will we know if it is regional or a national issue? It would take a long time to answer if we were to take the issue personally around all the regions before coming back to the one where it originated. Therefore, we now have contacts in each region that we will contact if we need to to find the answer to a question or issue. Upto now there hasn't been a need but the system is in place.

...you don't have to wait until we roll into your region to ask us a question. As usual we can be contacted at Gilwell Park as follows:

By Post:

Cub Scout Office

The Scout Association

Gilwell Park

Chingford

London

E4 7QW

Verity's telephone number:

020 8433 7149

Verity's email:

verity.steddon@scout.org.uk

Cub Scout Office email:

cub.scout@scout.org.uk

We are also going to use the same system for getting the Cubs views on issues as well. We tried it out on a small scale at the end of last year by asking for their views on The Cub Scout Annual and it was quite successful and their views will be fed back to the publishers.

Q. Is there a specific date when the old programme badges will no longer be available from?

A. Outdoors are attempting to maintain supplies where demand exists and will reorder from manufacturers in a situation where stocks are running low and a new order is economically viable. In these circumstances the timing of potentially moving to an out of stock position at Lancing is quite variable. As a fallback situation badge secretaries may be in a position to fulfill and residual demand. Outdoors are led to believe though that most parties will wish to move to the new badge range soon after the launches.

Q. More than one area has reported that yellow woggles are to be phased out. Is there any truth in this?

A. Outdoors reply: Yellow woggles remain part of the range. There has been a temporary supply issue as one delivery did not pass our quality requirements.

What's this Support Team? I don't know what it is or who is on it?

Core Teams are no more. Now each National Commissioner has a Support Team made up of staff and volunteers who meet about four times a year to review the Section and plan work for the future. At present our Support Team comprises of Verity Steddon, the Cub Scout Adviser, Sarah Hobbs, the manager, Marylyn Evans, Deputy County Commissioner for Programme from Norfolk and myself. Roger Starr, National Commissioner, Programme, also can attend.

The Support Team is different from the Core Team in that the National Commissioner can invite people onto it for a certain period of time to do a certain piece of work. Marylyn has a two year remit to support me in the successful launching of the new programme and supporting ACC/AAC's. Marylyn was ACC Cub Scouts for Norfolk when I first asked her to join the team. In the near future we hope to be joined by two ADC Cub Scouts to support a piece of work we wish to undertake on District Meeting support for CSL's.

At our last Support Team meeting in February we discussed the following items:

• Items from the Committee of the Council, Programme and Development and National Programme Team meetings that affect Cub Scouting.
• Under 8's at Pack Meetings
• How the Launches were being received
• How we are keeping track of comments into the information Centre and the Cub Scout Office about the new programme
• Scouting Magazine and ScoutBase UK
• Expanding the team
• The new publications and resources
• The Cub Scout Annual
• Regional meetings
• A Welcome Day for new AAC/ACC's Cub Scouts

And we did this all in less than 4 hours!

During December an information letter was sent out from Headquarters regarding Under 8's at Pack Meetings. In January, due to the Beaver Scout and Cub scout Office receiving many more enquiries version 2 was issued to all ACC's and AAC's. Please can you ensure that all your ADC's have passed this information on to their Packs? It is important that we do adhere to this guidance. The only way that Beaver Scouts can attend Pack Meetings before their 8th birthday is if they are accompanied all the time by one of their parents. Personally, I feel this is an excellent way of recruiting new Leaders. The more that know about what happens in our Packs the easier it will be to recruit.

One of the good points of working with the National Commissioners of the other Sections is that you share good ideas. For some time the Venture Scout Section have organised Welcome Days for new ACC's/AAC's and, not to be left, out we have decided to hold one in the autumn of this year. Invites to the day will be sent out in September.

In the last Bullet Point News I advertised the sub-editor's position for the Cub Scout pages in SCOUTING Magazine. I was delighted with the response we got and I am equally delighted to announce that Rita Hickin, presently ACC Cub Scouts in Nottingham, will start her term of office from the May edition. Rita has been a member of the National Cub Scout Team, a writer for Whizzy Waterworld, 2003 Join-In Jamboree pack, the Queen's Golden Jubilee pack and the new programme's Activity Badges.

Having been a past sub-editor of the pages I know that it is not the easiest job in Scouting to do and you really do look for inspiration from the readers so can I ask you please to pass on to your ADC's the plea to send as much material as possible to Rita so that she doesn't feel she's working in a vacuum all the time. By material I mean:

• Programme ideas
• Games
• Minutes of District, County and Area meetings
• Newsletters from Groups, Districts, Counties and Areas
• Campfire Songs
• Handcrafts

This was the question I asked when I was appointed ACC Cub Scouts. Why did we need to find out who the best five footballers were? Wouldn't those Cubs more than likely turn out to be the same ones who also attend their local football club weekly?

Think of the amount of time and effort that is involved in organising a County event that involves a relatively small number of Cubs from across the Districts of your County/Area.

Wouldn't that time be better spent organising an event that is really needed? What do the Leaders in the District find difficult to do that could be addressed as a County or an Area?

For example, when the Challenge and Adventure programme was introduced 12 years ago a new aspect of it was the Cub Scout Challenge Badge for older Cub Scouts. The adventurous activities part of the badge posed problems for several of our Districts at the time and so as a County, using County people, we organised a Camp to concentrate on those activities.

After you've attended your launch of the new programme I would like to suggest that you give careful thought to how this programme can provide new opportunities for you and your ADC's to work together. Let's try and all make better use of our time, energies and resources.

Can we provide County/Area activities for a larger number of Cub Scouts and their Leaders that are really needed to support the Packs within your County or Area? The County Commissioner who appointed me suggested that we only have one event a year and that it needn't always be the same. If an event isn't supporting the Cubs in the Packs is it actually worth running?

...to all of you who regularly continue to send in your minutes and newsletters. Please keep them coming.

If you would like one of us to visit an event or meeting then please can you put your request in writing to Verity who looks after the Cub Scout diary. We will reply to you as soon as possible.

This will be the last Bullet Point News in this format. From the autumn, all the National Commissioner's newsletters will be combined into one format, probably similar to Talking Points. Please look out for it!

Are all the Pack Meetings in your Counties and Areas a FIASCO? Don't be alarmed if they are, they should be! All Pack meetings should be:

F un

I maginative

A ctive

S piritual

C hallenging

O rderly

Best wishes

Ian Railton
National Commissioner for Cub Scouts