Module 7 - Scouting For All

Returning home from a week away in the caravan my first job (aside from the laundry mountain) was to prepare for the Module 7 course that I was to deliver last night.  

Before going away I had printed off the trainers notes and read through them, just to get my head around the content, and ensure that I wasn't going to be desperately searching for some resources at the last minute.  I was quite pleased with myself because I realised that I'd need to put together a powerpoint presentation so that I could show The Scout Association's Vision to 2018, and also an outline of the Equality Act.  I would also need to show "Inclusion Matters" - a video available from The Scout Association.  I got on the phone to Gilwell (UK Scout HQ) to find out where I could download the video from and also on the e-mail to somebody in the District who was going to be at the course, to ask him to bring his laptop.

Yesterday I sat down and once more went through the notes for the course.  The material is for 3 1/2 hours learning - I was hoping to get it down to two, or at most two and a half (started at 7.45pm and finished by 10.20pm, so not too bad).  As I went through the material I put a powerpoint presentation together.  I try not to use Powerpoint too much, so just had the Objectives, the Vision to 2018, the Equality Act, the module Validation criteria and a brief summary of the content of each session on the screen.  I also printed and copied all the resources I was going to need for each part of the course - case studies, role cards, activity sheets and so on.  I was pleased that this only took me an hour or so.

In the afternoon I took a drive with the children to our District Office so that I could pick up the flip chart and projector (we threw in a dog walk and a playpark while we were there).  Then I made sure that I had my training box, my training material, tea, coffee and sugar by the door ready to go.  On the way to the course I stopped to get milk and biscuits, and of course, sweeties - I don't run a course without sweeties!

I was pleased to get eleven participants.  I knew about eight, so there were a few extras which was good.  A disappointing turnout from the other Districts though, at our last team meeting we had said that we were going to encourage all Leaders to attend this training, but clearly not!

I'm not sure that the evening went amazingly.  Inclusion and Diversity are so important for the development of Scouting, but it's not exactly the exciting bit of what we do.  Part of the course material is also about exploring your own attitudes, and that can be a bit uncomfortable for some people.  I was also conscious that the material was fairly new to me, and that in places I was searching for the right words, and struggling to get across the "fizz" which makes training memorable.

That's done though, and now I just need to follow up from some queries that I got early in the evening.  Tonight it's the Appointment's Advisory Committee.  I'd better go and print off the relevant information to give the new volunteers about training.