Today we have been delighted to announce that HRH The Duchess of Cambridge will volunteer with us. The Duchess will be volunteering with beaver scout colonies and cub scout packs close to where she is living.
The Duchess has chosen to volunteer with us because she has been so impressed by the impact that we have on young people and on our communities.
Like many people The Duchess is incredibly busy. What has made it easy for her to volunteer is that we offer a model of volunteering that she can fit around her other duties and obligations.
As an organisation we realised some years ago that we had to be accessible to all potential volunteers; not just those who could commit to regular weekly meetings. All the work we have done to encourage ‘flexible volunteering’ has been to support this.
The involvement of The Duchess is the most wonderful endorsement of the volunteering opportunities that we are able to offer – you must make sure that you seize it.
Over the coming days the news of The Duchess’s involvement in Scouting will be a talking point with other volunteers, with parents, perhaps your friends or family. When you are speaking about the news, make sure you don’t just talk about the news itself, but the different opportunities there are for everyone to volunteer.
As line managers we have a particular responsibility to ensure that it is easy for people to volunteer. We have to explain to our teams the value of thinking differently, and the benefits it can have for us. We have to ensure that our groups and districts have a culture that encourages new people to get involved, and that ‘the way we have always done it’ doesn’t become a barrier to growth.
We all know of volunteers with many years service; volunteers who seem to commit every waking moment to Scouting; volunteers without whom Scouting wouldn’t happen.
Such people are the heartbeat of our Movement and we must value them, but we shouldn’t set the expectation that it is the only way to volunteer with us. The Duchess will be helping out where she can, when she can. We need as many people as possible to do the same and we need to ensure that we make it easy for them to do so.
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