“Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now” – Bob Dylan It now looks as though the result of the UK’s election could have been down to young people turning out in their droves to vote. Talk of a 72% turnout for 18 to 24-year-olds has been doing the…
UK Scouting is celebrating YouShape month at the moment. Youth Shaped Scouting takes place all year round – indeed it’s at the very heart of what Scouting is about. Baden-Powell was fond of saying “Ask the boy”, to remind adults of the importance of what educationalists might call the “subsidiarity principle”. (If he…
“There is more in you than you think” Over the last 60 years the Award has inspired millions of young people to transform their lives. In 2014 more than 1.1 million young people around the world took part in the Award, in 141 countries and territories, equipping them with skills for life. To celebrate this…
Last week, I listened to four young people tell their Award stories at a lunch held in Johannesberg, to celebrate 60 years of The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award. Over the coming days, with their permission, I will hand over my blog to each of them in turn. Today, Shane tells his story… Good…
Over the past few years I’ve been getting increasingly concerned about some of the language that folks in the voluntary sector are using. In particular, there has been a creeping reliance on the terminology of the workplace. In the organisation in which I volunteer, it’s commonplace now to talk about ‘line managers’, ‘targets’ and ‘key…
A presentation I made to voluntary youth leaders in Oxfordshire today… Click here to access the PowerPoint slides and associated notes.
Tonight, France is in mourning. Last night, between 21:20, local time, and 22:00, Paris suffered a series of deadly attacks, described by President Francois Hollande as “unprecedented”. They were, he said, an “act of war” organised by Islamic State (IS) militant groups. Shootings, bomb blasts and a hostage siege have left at least 128 people dead and hundreds…
It’s just under a week since the world changed for the people of Nepal. In those six days, more than 20 million GBP have been donated in the UK alone to emergency disaster relief. There have been 60 earthquakes in the last 7 days:- There have been many tremors over 4 on the scale,…
A friend of mine is about to change roles in Scouting from working with Beavers (6-8 year olds) to working with Cubs (8-10 year olds). She’s nervous about making the shift and asked for some advice. This is what I wrote to her: What would you want from your Leader if you…