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An Update from your CVR's & Upcoming Info Session

February 10, 2021

On the day of the Annual General Meeting of Scouts Canada last November Council Voting Representatives (CVR) met virtually with the Board of Governors. The opportunity to engage board members was well received and proved to be productive. Over the course of the meeting there were 4 sessions held concurrently; Diversity and Inclusion, Volunteer Engagement, Properties and Finance.  Notable highlights from these sessions are outline below.
 
Diversity and Inclusion
  • Many representatives indicated that they were very pleased to see an increase in diversity & inclusion across Scouts Canada.
  • It was recognized that this is something for which we need to seek the help of others, both from inside and outside Scouts Canada.
  • As one of its goals the board has created a Diversity and Inclusion working group to lead us in moving forward on this topic. That group has started meeting to define objectives for this year and to begin structuring their work. 
 
Volunteer Engagement 
  • There was general agreement among the representatives that many Scouters are desperately seeking ways to truly connect with leadership and with their peers. It was suggested that we should find ways for volunteers to connect with others doing the same role from across the country and thereby help increase volunteer engagement.
  • There was also a great deal of conversation on the pros and cons of virtual training when compared to in-person training.  It was agreed that there are some things that may be best delivered face to face (when we are able) while there are also a large number of topics that are effectively delivered virtually. 
  • The board has created a volunteer engagement working group whose primary objective is to build a plan to regularly engage with volunteers across the country in a meaningful way. 
 
Properties
  • Many perspectives based on volunteer personal experience with some of our properties were shared.
  • The board explained that on one hand properties represent such a great potential to help deliver core elements of the Scouts Canada program and allow our members to experience Scouting in the outdoors, they are also repositories of much of our history and traditions that form a great foundation of the Scouting experience for so many of our members. On the other hand, they are expensive to maintain, increasingly difficult to keep safe, and are generally not very well used by Scouts Canada members. Finding a way to balance these factors is a complicated and difficult undertaking.
  • The board has agreed that the most important objective for the Property Committee working on this task is to get us to the point where we can articulate a clear strategy for how Scouts Canada Properties will support our mission going forward as soon as possible. 
 
Finance
  • There was a great amount of engagement and interest in reviewing the Scouts Canada financial statements and there were a number of excellent suggestions on how to improve understanding and transparency of Scouts Canada Financial reporting. 
  • The board is committed to fully transparent reporting to all members.

CVR Information Session

The CVR's will be holding a live information session via Microsoft Teams to discuss this further and gather informationa so that they can better represent the views and opinions of the members of Nova Scotia Council. This seesion will take place March 7, 2021 at 7pm. If you would like to attend please RSVP here and a link to the meeting will be sent to you 48 hours before the event.