Our People

When I begin my role as Chief Commissioner of Scouts Australia, I had a list of items that I wanted to try to achieve so that I could (as BP told us to do) “Leave the place a little better than I found it”.

Changing the volunteer model in a volunteer organisation was always going to be challenging. We ask a lot of our volunteers and if the model of volunteering changes then the training curriculum also needs to change. That’s what my team and I have been working on for the past two years. Now we are moving to the trial phase.

Flexible Volunteering Trial

I understand that our members will be very interested in this project. I need to stress that this is a trial, which we hope will prove successful. We will be evaluating the trial along the way, monitoring the experience of new volunteers as well as the experience of our youth members. Ultimately we want to see more volunteers working in teams contributing to the experience of our youth members so that more young people will want to join.

It is my hope that we will launch the volunteer model and the new training curriculum for the start of 2027 but only if the trial is successful. Stay tuned for more details as the trail progresses. On the last weekend in November we will hold the National Annual Meeting in Sydney and for the first time we will live webcast the evening. More details will be available closer to the date but I am hopeful that all going well I will make some announcements that night to all of you.

In the meantime we are also working to ensure the program is easier to deliver. You will see a range of resources launching throughout this year as well as tweaks to the program so that the program makes more sense, is more accessible and provides more opportunities for young people to achieve.