PREPARING TO GO-LIVE
WITH THE NEW DIGITAL TOOLS
Transformation Go live date now announced
You may have seen a lot of chat about changes over the last couple of years and the new systems will go live on 28th November 2024
The changes in the volunteer experience transformation work will focus on:
Making sure all volunteers get a warmer welcome
- redesigned appointments process
- Online recruiting tools
- introducing welcome conversations
Simplifying our approach to volunteering
- Team-based approach with shared tasks
- Clearer responsibility and Purpose of teams
- more flexible ways to volunteer
- new digital tools to support volunteers
Making learning more engaging, relevant and timely
- new digital learning tools to support our volunteers with the skills they need
- easy to access and relevant
These will all be underpinned by new digital tools from Scout HQ
You can find out much more about the changes,
If you’ve got any questions or need help, feel free to drop an email to the county go-live support team transformation@buck-scouts.org.uk
To make ourselves ready for go live all Volunteers should sign up for one of the HQ familiarisation training sessions Register for training ahead of Go-Live | Scouts
As we rapidly approach “go live” there will be a period of 3 weeks when our current Compass system will be frozen to allow data to be migrated. Compass will Freeze from 7th November.
It’s vital that in the next few weeks, we ensure our Compass data is in good shape to Migrate
Checking data in Compass
Most data held in Compass will move across to the new digital system, and we have been working hard over the past few months with District and Group Lead Volunteers and others to make sure that a few specific parts of data held in Compass is as good as it can be before we go-live.
- Making sure that people are in the right roles, and closing any roles not needed
- (including Occasional Helper roles which might be hanging around from a family camp a while back for example)
- Make sure that email addresses are current and correct.
- For anyone who shares an email address, it will only work for one person to log in- ensuring that email addresses are unique would be helpful.
- For anyone with more than one email address, the ‘volunteering’ email address will be used as your login account; and the ‘scouting enquiries’ email address will be used as your communications address.
- Making sure any completed learning is validated on Compass.
- Only modules which have been validated will be migrated over – so it’s worth checking so that the learning you’ve done isn’t lost.
More detailed information about data migration is in the guidance for updating Compass, on getting your data ready for migration, and on how current roles will migrate to the new system.
A warmer welcome for all
Making a good impression at the beginning of someone’s time as a Volunteer is really important, and the welcome changes will help make this simpler and smoother.
New volunteers will meet with their Group Lead Volunteer (or District 14-24 Team Leader for Explorers and Network sections) plus an independent Welcome Conversation Volunteer. This meeting will normally be at their section meeting place, and will make sure they’re welcome to the organisation.
Group Lead Volunteers and District 14-24 Team Leaders are instrumental in making sure the first few months of a new volunteer’s journey are great, and the new Welcome Conversation is part of this.
Simplifying how we volunteer in teams
Many Groups and Districts have worked in teams for years and found that it helps to recruit more volunteers by having this supportive and inclusive approach. For most teams there are Team Members and Team Leaders – this helps to simplify the language we use when speaking with parents and prospective volunteers.
The teams-based volunteering pages have more information, and it’s particularly worth looking at the local teams page to find out more about who does what.
Making learning more relevant and timely
New Growing Roots learning (which replaces Getting Started training) will be online with automatic recording of results directly to your profile.
Safety and safeguarding learning will be required by all within the first 30 days, along with a DBS application.
Other parts of Growing Roots will need to be completed within 6 months. This includes more than is in Getting Started under the current system. – to make sure that we’re preparing new volunteers better for what we do. A plan of which modules migrate where is available online.
First Response first aid will be required within 12 months for Section Team Members, Section Team Leaders, Group Lead Volunteers, and District 14-24 Team Leaders.
