If your Group has their own meeting place, speak with your Group Lead Volunteer to see if it’s available. If it’s not, you’ll need to find other suitable venues.
Think about what you need from the venue, such as a good location, price, availability and accessibility.
Weekly sessions generally take place during term time. The time and day of meetings will vary between Sections and different Groups.
The day and time can depend on lots of factors, such as when volunteers and the meeting place are available, so it’s important to find a time and day that works best.
Generally, younger Sections meet for a shorter time, earlier in the evening.
For example:
Squirrels – 1 hour. Squirrels generally meet earlier due to their age. A popular time is around 5pm to 6pm on a weekday evening, but some Dreys meet on weekends too.
Beavers – 1 hour. If Beavers meet after Squirrels, it’s a great chance for the Squirrels to see where they’ll move up to. Generally, Beavers meet around 6pm to 7pm on a weekday.
Cubs – 1 to 1 and a half hour. If Sections are meeting on the same evening, then Cubs generally meet after Beavers as they’re a little bit older. 7pm to 8pm is a typical time.
Scouts – 1 and a half to 2 hours. Scout meetings are normally longer as they’re older. They typically meet around 7:30pm to 9pm on a weekday.
Explorers – 1 and a half to 2 hours. Explorers typically meet around 7:30pm to 9pm.
You Group Lead Volunteer can use the Digital tool guides to register the Section on the Scouts membership system.
Take a look at our information on Banking and talk about how finances are managed in the Group.
Decide whether you’ll have a joint account with the Group or whether you need to open a new account.
There’re lots of top tips for recruiting volunteers that you could look at here on our Recruitment Toolkit webpage.
You could also place an advert for your Section using the Scouts Volunteer Opportunities website.
An adult rota is a great way for parents, carers or family members to occasionally support the Section. As you start recruiting young people, introduce this to their parents/carers from the very start.
Lots of people are happy to help occasionally if they don’t have to make a big commitment. It’s a great way to get extra support for sessions, and they might enjoy it so much that they decide to become a volunteer.
It’s important to check local guidance for adult rotas in terms of administrative requirements, such as criminal records checks.
You can find more information on our Getting young people's adults involved webpage.
Start thinking about how you’ll advertise the new Section. You might consider running an open evening, advertising to local schools and/or using social media.
There’re lots of ideas in our Recruitment Toolkit.
New adult volunteers will need a criminal record check. This is an ongoing process as new volunteers join.
The process can differ between areas and Nations, so check the local procedure with your Lead Volunteers.
There’s more information on our Criminal record checks webpage.
You Group Lead Volunteer can use our Digital tool guides to register new members on our membership system.
Take a look at our Growing Roots webpages to find out more about learning requirements.
Remember, safety and safeguarding learning needs to be completed within 30 days of new volunteers being registered.