Dear parents & carers
Another week passes and things are beginning to change! Unfortunately, the situation with Scouts hasn’t changed – still no face to face meetings. Still, everything seems to be ticking along with some great activities going on and plenty of fantastic photos of our members taking part:
I’ve seen some lovely cakes and VE day celebrations. I hope you all enjoyed the day and got to know the neighbours – one of the real positives coming out of this awful situation is you get to know your neighbours far better than ever before!
The AGM is tomorrow – 12th May, 6.30pm. Please do join us using the Teams Live event and take a look at the annual report and accounts and log your vote. You can watch via Facebook and YouTube, however, there will be no way to interact using these channels (simply because we can’t manage it all, not the technology limiting it!!).
https://www.11thfolkestonescouts.org.uk/governance/2020-annual-general-meeting/
I was supposed to make a little video (asked by the Executive) to explain the AGM process a bit. I wrote a script and everything, however, I just can’t do anything with my hair, so have copied and pasted it here instead:
Tuesday 12th May is our Annual General Meeting – for the very first time it will be held online. This is a legal requirement, as we are a registered charity and must be undertaken within 6 months of our financial year end. Our financial year runs from 1st January to 31st December, so we’re getting very close to the deadline.
The AGM is a chance to reflect on all the great work our charity does, its important position in the community and to scrutinise the work of those the Group Council elected last year to run it on their behalf and then elect those we wish it run it for year ahead.
You are members of the Group Council if you are parents, volunteer at the Group or are a Patrol Leader in the Scout section. As members of the Council, you’re the ones electing the executive committee for the next year and approving the work done over the past year.
As we’re holding this online, we’ve set up two ways for you to vote. First is vote in advance using the voting card on the website. The second is to vote ‘live’ during the AGM using the Teams Live event link on the website. Because of the way the technology works, there is a delay of up to 50 seconds, so please bear with us. You’ll be able to vote and ask questions using the Q&A screen inside the Teams Live event webpage. You’re vote or question will be picked up by our Secretary who will count your vote and answer any questions she can. Questions that need to be shared with the Council will be published for all to see and the speaker or one of the other trustees will answer live – but remember, there’s a delay between you asking the question and our answer due to the technology, so even if we’ve already moved on by the time your questions gets to us, don’t worry, we’ll answer it. If it becomes too difficult, and it’s appropriate for us to do so, we’ll take all the questions and make a response video to follow up after the AGM. Please make sure you’re not asking questions ‘anonymously’ as this is a legal process we need to know the name of the person voting to ensure they are entitled as members of the Group Council and not some random person.
This is all new to everyone, but I’m sure it will work out fine!
The last little thing to mention is that at this AGM we are talking predominately about the work the charity has undertaken over the past 12 months. While we’re all keen to know when we’re going back to face to face Scouting and have questions about the future, the AGM isn’t the place – we really don’t know much at the moment but as soon as we do, we’ll communicate that to the whole Group. You are very welcome to send these kind of questions or queries to me directly, reply to this email and It’ll get to me or give me a call, on 01303 720191 if you’d prefer.
Hopefully ‘see’ you all tomorrow.
Take care for another week.
Best wishes
Craig
Group Scout Leader