County Team structure

Later this year Scouting is transforming to make it easier, more enjoyable and rewarding to volunteer. The changes to be rolled out will help us;

Give a warmer welcome to everyone;
Deliver better learning; and
Simplify how we volunteer together.

With the support of easy-to-use digital tools, including a new membership system which will replace Compass,

As a result, the structure for Scouting will be changing and moving forwards we will talk about the teams we work in and sharing tasks across all team members. This will allow volunteers to take on the tasks they can commit to which may not always be a whole role as we are used to.

Group changes

Whilst there are some changes for Groups, on the whole they will continue to work and function as we have in the County for some time. The flexibility will be in the way we manage members within our membership system and the fact the system will allow responsibilities to be delegated via accreditations. There will be changes to roles as all Sections will have Team Leaders and Team Members in the future instead of the Section Leader, Assistant Section Leader and Sectional Assistant roles. This will make it easier to explain the commitment to volunteers as the learning will be the same for everyone, and wood badges will become optional.

The Section teams will continue to run the Sections and will continue with the leader names they currently have – so if you are currently known as Skip, Bagheera or Red Kite then this won’t be changing.

Groups will have three main types of teams; the Section Teams, a Leadership Team and Board of Trustees. The Trustees are there to ensure the Group operates safely and legally and that teams in the Group follow policies and legislation.

Both the Board of Trustees and Section Teams have always existed and will continue to do so. In addition, the Group can now have a Leadership Team, which within the new structure will provide Group Lead Volunteers (previously Group Scout Leaders) the opportunity and ability to delegate tasks to other members of their team.

Volunteers may find that within the new structure they are members of several teams as they carry out a task in each; this will allow greater flexibility as volunteers take on the number of tasks they can complete, rather than whole roles where some tasks may be out of their comfort zone.

County and District Team changes

The biggest team structure changes will be seen within County and District teams which will work within four main teams; Leadership, Programme, Volunteering Development and Support. In addition to those teams, Districts will have a 14-24 team. Each of these teams can have sub-teams as agreed by the County or District

For Oxfordshire County, the structure will look as follows: