Our county plan...

This development plan wasn’t just decided by a bunch of commissioners sat in a room throwing darts at a list of problems they thought they had!

We invited all our adults to our 2018 County Ideas Exchange where we celebrated our achievements and asked for people’s views on our 2023 strategy. Everyone had the chance to have their say, we asked what they felt the issues were around each topic and discussed how we are going to action them.

Then, using the outputs from the day, this plan was drawn up by the county leadership team - which is made up of the county commissioner, our deputy county commissioners for people, programme and perception, our six district commissioners (Wandsworth have two!), the county chair and our development officer.

Our aims within this plan is to ensure:

• we are relevant
• we are understood
• we are growing (young people and adults)
• we work smarter
• we function easier
• we are always striving to be better

Thank you for the time you put into delivering scouting. Because of you, more young people take part in an inspiring programme that gives them skills to thrive and develop.

Our skills for life plan contains many exciting initiatives, under our pillars of perception, places, people and programme. Your priority is to keep doing great work towards our four key strategic objectives of growth, inclusivity, youth shaped and community impact.

Under each of the pillars we have listed the initiatives that the county team in partnership with our districts will be carrying out up until the end of2023. At the end of each of each pillar we have pulled together a series of actions that your group or unit can take, to work towards achieving our shared goals. These actions are specific and either already have supporting resources in place or will be developed over the coming months.

We want to make our districts and county bigger, stronger and even more impactful in our local communities. We can only do this if we work together to deliver our plan. 

1. have at least 6000 youth members

2. have at least 2600 adult members

3. have at least 1 young leader in every section in the county

4. have a succession plan process for our district commissioners

5. promote flexible volunteering to the parents of our members

6. provide more county activities and events for all sections

7. have better internal communications channels in place

8. have better external communications in place

9. be a leader in youth engagement across South London

10. have a sound strategy in place to ensure scouting across South London is in a good place for future generations to enjoy

11. be recognised in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, Lambeth and Wandsworth as the leader in coeducational youth provision

12. provide our youth members with skills for life and experiences that genuinely help them become active citizens in adult life

13. recognise and say thank you to our adults

14. enable more of our leaders to provide 100s of nights away and outdoor experiences to our young people each year

15. award more wood badges and more young leader belt buckles

16. provide meaningful community projects that make a real difference to people’s lives

17. Be a leader in promoting a youth-led methodology in scouting