Organising a Scout meeting in 5 steps

For Scouts, meet­ings are impor­tant moments for shar­ing with oth­er group mem­bers. It is the occa­sion to bring old­er and younger Scouts togeth­er and the ide­al time to wel­come new Scouts. Some meet­ings go beyond the group and are held on a nation­al or even inter­na­tion­al lev­el.

In this arti­cle, you will find the key steps to organ­is­ing a Scout meet­ing to make a mag­i­cal moment out of it!

1. Define the date and place

The date and place of your Scout meet­ing are two of the most impor­tant ele­ments to define before­hand. As a first step, make sure that no oth­er Scout meet­ings are planned on the cho­sen dates, or at least they are held in a dif­fer­ent area.

Sec­ond­ly, as your event involves fam­i­lies and chil­dren, make sure it is dur­ing the school hol­i­days or choose a week­end so every­one can attend your Scout meet­ing. A sim­ple and effec­tive way to select a date is through a sur­vey. You can use a CRM tool to send this sur­vey to poten­tial atten­dees and review the respons­es.

The Scout meet­ing is held out­doors, so remem­ber to have an alter­na­tive in case of bad weath­er. Sum­mer and spring are the ide­al sea­sons to organ­ise such an event.

To choose a suit­able site, you must check whether it is pos­si­ble to camp there and whether there will be room for every­one. Please note that fam­i­lies may not stay overnight. To choose in which area of the UK to organ­ise your Scout meet­ing, you can search for active Scout groups in the UK on this web­site.

2. Communicate about the event

To ensure every­one can par­tic­i­pate in your Scout event, it is essen­tial to com­mu­ni­cate basic infor­ma­tion to poten­tial atten­dees. You can use an online reg­is­tra­tion tool to know the exact num­ber of atten­dees. This will be of great help in plan­ning the logis­tics of your event.

Send invi­ta­tion emails to your data­base. Before send­ing them, you will need to deter­mine whom you want to attend:

● Only cur­rent Scouts?
● For­mer Scouts?
● The fam­i­lies of cur­rent Scouts?
● New Scouts or peo­ple think­ing about join­ing the move­ment?

Do not under­es­ti­mate the impor­tance of social media. For exam­ple, Face­book has a handy event func­tion­al­i­ty. For exam­ple, you can include posts with pho­tos from pre­vi­ous meet­ings to encour­age peo­ple to sign up.

You can use a tool like Weezevent to cre­ate a mini-site for your event where you can gath­er all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion. Using the media, espe­cial­ly the local press, is also an excel­lent way to pub­li­cise your event.

3. Organise logistics

An essen­tial part of a Scout event’s organ­i­sa­tion is logis­tics: man­ag­ing the prepa­ra­tions, ensur­ing secu­ri­ty, prepar­ing the meals, etc.; these are all ele­ments you’ll need to con­sid­er.

Scout meet­ings require plan­ning meals. You can choose between a pic­nic or a full meal. If it is the first one, fam­i­lies can arrange to bring what is nec­es­sary for each of them. How­ev­er, if you organ­ise a full meal, you must pro­vide enough food for every­one. You can try to find a spon­sor or part­ner who can offer you ingre­di­ents or even pre­pared food.

Remem­ber that the prepa­ra­tion of meals is sub­ject to strict san­i­tary reg­u­la­tions. The young mem­bers and their super­vi­sors usu­al­ly pre­pare meals. They must be trained in food hygiene. Teach the youngest mem­bers using a “learn­ing by doing” method­ol­o­gy.

Also, bring some extra tents and sleep­ing bags in case any of the mem­bers have for­got­ten theirs or have any prob­lems. As safe­ty is your top pri­or­i­ty, don’t hes­i­tate to make a speech at the begin­ning of the meet­ing to explain the basic rules every­one must respect

4. Prepare activities

You can organ­ise many activ­i­ties at your Scout meet­ing. Some activ­i­ties require more prepa­ra­tion than oth­ers. Plan­ning a gen­er­al activ­i­ty and then sev­er­al games that are eas­i­er to pre­pare is a good idea to avoid get­ting over­whelmed.

Of course, you have to con­sid­er the age of the Scouts present and even make mixed groups to make it inter­est­ing for every­one. Younger chil­dren may need to be accom­pa­nied by an adult.

A fun activ­i­ty is the trea­sure hunt. To do this, you will need the fol­low­ing:

● One com­pass per team
● A trea­sure
● Ele­ments for mark­ing on the ground, such as chalk for paint­ing signs.

Each team will have to fol­low a dif­fer­ent route but the same dis­tance to reach the trea­sure. You will have to plan and pre­pare the routes and hide the trea­sure. For the old­er ones, you can even include rid­dles to fig­ure out the next direc­tion to fol­low at each stage of the path to make the game a lit­tle more chal­leng­ing.

You can then organ­ise sim­pler activ­i­ties such as dodge­ball or “two truths and a lie”, allow­ing the Scouts to get to know each oth­er bet­ter.

5. Thank the attendees

Remem­ber to thank every­one who attend­ed at the end of your Scout meet­ing. To do so, you can write a thank you e‑mail and send a sat­is­fac­tion sur­vey. It is essen­tial to know the strengths and weak­ness­es of your event to improve the next one.

Remem­ber to add new peo­ple to your con­tact list. Post a pho­to or video of the Scout meet­ing on your social media and tag the atten­dees.

With Weezevent, organ­ise your Scout­ing events with peace of mind using our online reg­is­tra­tion, mar­ket­ing and CRM solu­tions.

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