Report from England Regional Committee

Brigade Constitution

The new Constitution was approved at Brigade Council. Details for the registration of Girls Associations will be released after the Executive Meeting in November. Districts and Battalions are encouraged to reflect on their own Constitutions with regard to Charity Law changes and the changes in governance involvement for U26 Members.

Brigade Staffing

Phil Lund has been retained as a member of Brigade Staff as Resource Development Manager until March 2011. Alex Schwerzmann has been appointed NVQ Co-ordinator. Niall Rolland has been appointed as a Development Officer in Scotland.

125th Anniversary

The House of Lords Celebratory Dinner hosted by the Lord Griffiths of Burry Port. The Chief Guest was Sir Alex Ferguson who spoke of the influence of the Brigade in his formative years.

The Dinner had been funded by five individual donations and hence no cost fell to the
Brigade. Our guests ranged from national church leaders to those who might be able to
offer support in a variety of ways to the Brigade. To date over £10,000 in donations has
been received and dialogue established with a number of denominations.

Glasgow Cathedral was the setting for the National Service of Thanksgiving on October
4th. The weather was not kind and the scheduled displays by all age groups had to be
brought indoors restricting the performances.

The Brigade will be present at the Festival of Remembrance, the Cenotaph Parade and
The Lord Mayor’s Show which falls on the same weekend.

The response to the national appeal for the Children’s Hospice Association has been
mixed and there is evidence that many donations have gone straight to the local hospice
and has not been recorded in the Brigade’s total.

See separate paper on Tattoo 2009.

Funding

The Brigade has been made aware of a further round of funding available from the
Department for Children Schools and Families in England and are pursuing actively.

Development.

New Companies have started to meet at St Peters at Wawne near Hull; Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham;Radford & Holbrook Methodist Church near Coventry;31st Northampton Company; Whitby Methodist Church in Ellesmere Port

New Companies are due to shortly in 1st Chipping Norton Company; Hexham West End Methodist Church; Droitwich Spa Baptist Church; South Craven Baptist Church in Bradford; 4th Cheltenham Company; St Martins Church of England in Cambridge

Engage a Generation.

Presentations are taking place around the Region and will now start to be followed up by Rob Ciantar the newly appointed worker.

Company Support Scheme

A Briefing days is arranged as follows:- 29th November – Leicestershire

NVQ scheme

As part of achieving the Development Plan we have a NVQ scheme.

The range of NVQs available to leaders has been extended to:

• Youth Work at Level 2
• Youth Work at Level 3
• Playwork at Level 2
• Playwork at Level 3
• The Assessor award

YLT

Youth Leader Training is currently being updated with additional modules being written
on mixed gender youth work as well as extra modules supporting Discover and Challenge
Plus, and on working with challenging behaviour.

As part of our NVQ work we are developing web-based learning resources, which
although are designed for NVQ candidates will be available to all BB leaders.

Safeguarding

It has become apparent that there are still occasions when companies and/or churches
decide to deal with incidents or allegations without informing BBHQ. The risks inherent
in this approach could include a leader moving to a new company without details of the
incident or allegation appearing on the central database. Additionally, our insurers insist
that they are informed immediately that an incident occurs or an allegation is made.

Also advice will be issued on unsupervised time at Camps and Holidays and guidance for leaders on Social Networking Sites shortly.

Music Festival

A National Music Festival will launch in March 2010 and will incorporate the National Band Championships plus additional activities for Brass and Woodwind players, Choirs and singers and in following years will look to develop other musical activities.

Firm Foundations

Details have been issued for FF 09. The Booking system is changed and Bookings with a deposit are required by December 15th.

Northern Saints

There has been issues with the identified venues and to ensure a successful launch the first Festival will now take place on August Bank Holiday Weekend in 2010.