Or nickname. But I think it’s better to introduce a degree of informality to these.
Do you know of any specifically that didn’t?
After someone was allowed to speak on Monday and used that time to try to force a personal issue into the conversation I don’t blame them for moderating.
I was enthusiastically looking forward to this. In my view a “town hall” is about interaction with the community rather than being the town crier and transmitting.
It was obvious that it was scripted and followed many party lines. Which meant it was awful and lacked any humanity.
Lots of talk of efficiencies being made but zero depth as to how those will positively affect the volunteers and reduce their burden. The impression I was left with was the opposite, restriction on activities and paperwork will increase…or stop if the civil servants can’t save us from ourselves. The messages weren’t those of working together as a team to make things better. Which is what I was hoping for.
Perhaps hold these once a year in each region. 6 per annum. Live audience with non-screened questions and everyone else can join via teams. Much better engagement and truly a town hall.
All that aside, it was an opportunity to put some rumours to bed and get it straight from the top. I’m a little biased but the only person who laughed was relaxed and confident in his answers was Comdt 2 FTS.
If I were writing their assessment on this it’d probably read,” good start, but could do better. C+”
Well. I missed this because I was delivering an activity to cadets (strange concept, I appreciate).
Was it recorded to be shared?
It was definitely recorded. Not sure where it can be accessed though. Sorry.
It’s an army thing.
Not Mr Alex?
Which ones were liked a lot but not addressed?
Was this all live in the chat function or something?
All questions needed approval from the moderator… so you can read into that
We said watching it, it was like people who’ve never had kids, talking about kids. We are dealing with cadets as best as we can, and people in their offices who don’t deal with cadets regularly, stopping activities and putting pauses on this and that.
It seemed scripted and they’d attempt to answer questions thrown their way. But instead of an answer, we got story time so I went to make coffees and have our slightly out of date biscuits.
How enthusiastic are you about your job? I wouldn’t expect any of them to be as passionate as the volunteers are, and I think this taints our view as we are comparing Staff to Volunteers and the motivations are different.
I think once again we are having to manage for the lowest denomination, which the rest of us who follow the current rules then feel to be onerous.
I work with children and adults and am enthusiastic most of the time.
Even when I’m not, you have to put on an act - it’s the professional thing to do.
I mean, for crying out loud, he’s leading a huge number of volunteers as an air commodore…surely, it’s his job to motivate and enthuse!
This clearly is not the job for someone who doesn’t want to work and encourage volunteers.
It’s like becoming a dentist and complaining that your patients all want to talk about their teeth.
At the very least, for his salary, i could be a hell of a lot more enthusiastic!
Maybe Cab should realise just how bad the delivery was last night.
TBH I walked away, couldn’t put up with TK, Adders and RC SW droning on. About as much enthusiasm as Eeyore on a bad day 
I personally think that TK is the single worse thing to happen to our organisation in the 40+ years I have been involved. The ‘Townhall’ was a complete and utter disgrace, absolutely pointless. I fear for this fantastic organisation over the next few years.
minor challenge - it wasn’t pointless but first time it was done. It may not have been great but if it then kicks the organisation out of the stagnant rut it’s got itself into then it’s a good start.
TK is retiring - even if they are fantastic, the next person will probably come across as mediocre whilst they are in post as they have a lot to fix but if they are good it will give us a solid foundation which we will only notice & appreciate in bout 10years after they have left.
Are you going to explain why or just throw contextless accusations around? I feel like such strong phrasing and emotion should be justified.
A lot of topics in a short time made it light on detail, but there was information in there that I didn’t have before, so “pointless” again feels hyperbolic.
I challenge that. I dont agree with every decision hes made or even the approach but i think hes the one thats had a couple of decades of mismanagement handed to him and had the fortitude ti deal with it rather than hope it goes away/sweep it under the rug. Hes been very vocal that every stone he over turns theres another issue to deal with. Ultimatley ending up the bad cop…but again thats just that my opinion so now time to be shouted at by people slating the cmdt hiding behind an alias on here for having an opinion…
Anyways townhalls?
Having just read the Coroners Report and the Scout Association response, I’m not so sure, I think I can draw a number of parallels, and I can also understand the concern that both the Comdt & @Cab have here given they are ultimately responsible and accountable for the safety of other people’s children within our organisation.
Safety Training
Safety training is predominantly done online. Having seen and forensically within the hearing, undertaken an exercise to complete the current Safety Module, I am concerned that the course is superficial at best and fundamentally basic. It can be completed in 12 minutes. It is unsurprising that the current pass rate is now correspondingly high. This causes concern as an introductory module needed to equip thousands of leaders with an understanding of how to complete a risk assessment in order to keep Scouts safe. It does not embed the fundamental principles of safety and safe scouting.
Whilst reference material is available in the course, it is not mandatory reading and not required in order to complete the click through course.
We are better here as our Risk Assessment training is delivered either in person or via Teams, in theory all units have 1 Risk Assessor who has been trained, but I suspect that not all Activity Commanders are trainer Risk Assessor’s, nor that all Risk Assessments are completed/reviewed by those with a sufficient understanding of the activity.
We also see the same with some of our eLearning modules being seen as “tickbox” by staff and as a blocker to engaging new staff, but how many staff could successfully complete a short test that covers our mandatory training to a sufficient standard.
Senior Planning Officers (SPO) have to undergo an an annual course & assessment within Defence Gateway in order to be eligible for appointment as an SPO, the SPO acts as the approver for Risk to Life Activity, but other approvers do not have any formal training. This assessment confirms the individuals understanding of the policy and applying it to the approval of the activity. I believe that we need something similar for all approvers, I’d also suggest there should be additional training for activity commanders.
Monitoring, Auditing and Reliance on Volunteer Line and the need for paid Trainers
I have heard evidence that The Scouts Association headquarters maintain that it is for the County and District as autonomous charities to monitor and audit training compliance. I am concerned that there are not robust systems of analysis, reporting and clarity as to the responsibilities of the County and District and what The Scouts Association require from the County and District in respect of:
Training compliance;
- Completion of induction training within 5 months;
- Completion of the full adult training scheme/ wood beads within 2 years;
- Appointment to roles – both pre provisional, provisional, and full appointment;
- Granting of permits.
Delays in Training
[REDACTED] had not completed their mandatory training within the 5-month period: [REDACTED] training was 3 [REDACTED] years and 9 months’ late; [REDACTED] was 2 years and 1 month late.
[REDACTED] had not completed his wood beads training within the 2-year period; it was completed 2 years and 9 months late. There was no apparent sanction for having missed deadlines for training.
This is an all to familiar story, we have a set of mandatory training, to be completed within the initial 6 month probation period and then subsequently maintaining validity predominantly with 3 yearly refreshers. In SW we have seen a focus on this with the transition to the Pillar structure, and I argue this should have been a focus previously from WHQs and this is where the variation lies, historically for a lot of people, there was no consequence and therefore why “waste” their time as nothing has changed and they want to focus on delivery of training to cadets.
Well said 
How many CFAVs pay lip service to ACTO99 until something goes wrong! Everyone knows about their training requirements, its on the front page of VP, and individuals should be held accountable.
I’ve told staff to stay away from the squadron until its complete, our squadron is 100% compliant, whereas others in the Wing are not. Some, so I hear, don’t even have the safeguarding element 
Time for Wings to start play the game, check activities and remove staff who are not 100% compliant or remove!!
But, as much as there are parallels in that regard, the actual Great Orme event was a Scout Leader going rogue and ignoring all the relevant checks and balances. As pointed out above, INCREASING the checks and balances pushes us in the wrong direction - it doesn’t actually make it any safer. Simplifying the policies and procedures CAN - it reduces confusions, is less onerous and has the potential to enable people to operate within the rules - rather than outside of them.
Ok, lets take the emotion out of it - I am to blame for that, Ive not had my coffee yet !
The structure and the way that it was delivered was amateur at best, it was a real opportunity to get a message across to a group of worried and concerned CFAV’s - In my opinion it did very little to achieve what I, and I’m sure many had hoped it would be. Now for a coffee…