Having spent two days at Gilwell this week and with the St George’s Day parade and service at the Cathedral to look forward to on Sunday, I thought I had my week planned out.  Then of course I was hit with the unexpected in the form of an initiative by Gilwell to run a story in the press about the number of girls joining Scouts last year exceeding the number of boys.  The press loved it and wanted interviews with myself and more importantly with a number of female Scouts.  After a lot of phone calls and emails we were able to arrange interviews on Heart FM, Star FM, BBC Radio Gloucestershire and Stroud FM alongside all the national coverage arranged by HQ.  The papers also picked up on the story and will be running it over the next week.  If you are contacted by the press please make the most of this very positive story.  My sincere thanks to Tabitha, Naomi and Rishona who made themselves available at short notice, did their research and gave fantastic performances on air and Alexa, our new County Media Adviser who pulled it all together.

The important messages however are that our numbers are continuing to rise, that the majority of sections are at capacity and we still have a waiting list of young people wanting to join.  The challenge is to meet that demand by recruiting new leaders and opening new sections, offering more Scouting to more young people.  That is what we are in business for, after all.

Keep the good news coming.  There will be a lot to report on in the next few weeks and months so keep an eye on the County Website for developments – http://www.gloucestershire-scouts.org.uk/.