Centers present at the meeting: Griebal (Laura, Antonio), Our Chalet (Sarah, Simone), Nocrich (Diana, Nadejda), Houens Odde (Soren, Jacob), Drave (Paulo), ISCR (David), Naesbycentret (Cecilie, Maj), Kapraluv Mlyn (Michal, Pavla, Igor) Burg Rieneck, (Sonja) Scoutscentre Rotterdam (Sandy, Olle), Zellhof (Michi, Marketa) Papa Goose (Ewoud)
Received input for this meeting: Kandersteg International Scout Centre
- Opening of the meeting
Short welcome to everybody and a special thanks to Zellhof for hosting the meeting. For this meeting Papa Goose received from every centre a response about being present or not being present except from BPpark and Úlfljótsvatn.
KISC couldn’t manage it to the meeting but send some input to Papa Goose.
- News from each Centre
Houens Odde: Had several centre camps with around 1500 scouts. They saw an increase of participants in August and are looking if they have to extend their centre camps but therefore they need more volunteers. They tried to do a lot with Scouts go solar but there isn’t that much sun in Denmark.
Our Chalet: They try to adopt more activities from WAGGGS when they have a less crowded period. At this point they have around 15 staff members, which is less than other years so they have to adapt their program to it.
Burg Rieneck: There is a big renovation of the castle going on, which give a lot of other kinds of troubles. They want the renovation done before summer next year when the castle (as a Scout centre) is celebrating their 60thyear anniversary. In September the new staff member (for a year) have started. Their mid-century camps are a big success with lots of different guests.
Naesbycentret: They did 5 weeks of camps instead of 6 due to the challenge to get sufficient staff. During summer they managed to get some new staff. They build new toilet buildings and a shed for the blacksmith. They want to build a new house and hope to finish that in 2020. In their shop they introduced a new system with an Ipad so that works more quickly and reducing chance of mistakes.
Zellhof: They had a very good year and they hired a new maintenance staff member. They are busy transferring knowledge to the next generation in the staff team. There is a new boathouse in the middle of the town.
Nocrich: They have had more campers and more local people coming to the centre. The locals come to the centre for the pottery workshops. Also more Romanian scouts are coming to the centre.
Kapraluv Mlyn: There was a record breaking summer with the amount of visitors, but it was also a very demanding season for the staff members. Erika (Úlfljótsvatn) visited the centre.
Griebal: Had a good summer with around 3000 scouts on site. There is a shortage on staff. They have a big building project on site, but they get help from professional builders.
Drave: They launched a new app, and bought a new car. They had more international guests this year and incorporate their surroundings in their program with: plant a tree; see the stars and scouts go solar.
International Scout Centre Rustavi: had a nice year with around 20 staff members. Still developing a lot of infrastructure (Multi sports building, swimming pool). They see an increase in German scouts visiting the centre.
Scoutscentrum Rotterdam: Discussion within the centre about less non-scouts overnights but more scouts overnights. Their water obstacle course has been opened (Moi Gekloi). For the Roverway they were a landing zone and they also had some paths visit them.
- Members of the Goose Network
New members: There aren’t any centers known who want to be a member. During the year there was a question from “Fonte Dom Pedro Camp” in Cantanhede, but Papa Goose haven’t had a reaction about the information he send to the centre about Goose.
Candidate members: On the candidate list is also Stevninghus. After a call and en e-mail to Stevninghus they haven’t given a reaction. So it is decided to remove them from the candidates list. If they want to become a member they can send in a new request.
3a. Being an active member
As we agreed last meeting (2017 Úlfljótsvatn) we would finish the discussion about being an active member. And we agreed to the following.
The Goose network is formed with the thought that centers want to meet each other more regular than once every two years. This is also a guideline for the question about being active. Only visiting the meeting at CMC isn’t enough to qualify as an active member.
Does a centre have to be at every event? Of course it would be nice that a centre can attend every event. The camp staff seminars and the Managers Meeting are part of the Goose Network. But there is also an understanding that it is not possible to be present at every meeting due to activities or others reasons.
Being active also means that when the network reaches out by e-mail there will be a response. It isn’t a problem for example that a centre can’t come to a meeting or seminar, but a message that a centre can’t come would be very nice to the one who organise the meeting. For this meeting Papa Goose made several phone calls to centers whom didn’t response to the e-mails.
We also agreed that we want to give centres a warning when the meeting thinks they are not an active member. There will be a new status introduced to the Goose Network. Next to the status of candidate and member there will be a review status. The network can decide in their annual meetings if a centre should be put on a review status. The status gives a warning to the centre that if they want to be a member of Goose they should be more active in het network.
In the next annual managers meeting the centers can decide if the center should return to the status member or won’t be a member anymore. For that centre there is always a possibility to request for a new membership.
The meeting also requested Papa Goose to inform the meeting next year about the response the centers had during this year if an e-mail is send by him.
Several people mentioned that they really hopes that this will finish all the talks about being an active member or not, because the network should be about sharing ideas and exchange information and not talk about being active or not. It is the choice of every centre of itself to be a member, and with that choice are also some responsibilities.
3b. Review status
BP Park is put on the review status. Papa Goose will send them an e-mail with this decision. The e-mail is send on 13-11-2018
- International Centre Day
The ICD for 2018 was a success. The participants enjoyed their time. The winner for 2019 is Kandersteg (but we already knew that). It has been very nice that the results of the ICD were known very short after the game. So for next years please announce the winner as soon as possible.
Zellhof mentioned they needed more time because they were late. And Our Chalet regret they we’re up in the mountains. For Burg Rieneck the ICD was at a busy arrival day.
To try to get as many centers to participate the meeting wants to try a new schedule. On a Friday the assignments will be send out to all the participants/centers and the closing time will be on Monday. Also the request to the organising centre to give a couple of weeks prior to the ICD how many staff members and participants should participate at least.
The 2019 ICD will be organised by KISC! The date will be communicated as soon as possible.
- Future Goose meeting
2019: It will be prior to the CMC. Tanya and Felipe are representatives for WOSM and WAGGGS. Felipe is the chairman of the planning team. By the end of the year they will announce the date and location of the CMC.
2020: Nocrich will host the meeting from 9-11 October
2021: Will be held prior to the CMC
5a. Camp Staff Seminar
2018: ISCR. There were 14 participants, and it was a good event where there were different workshops about: sustainability, SDG, personal development, SCENES, Scouts go Solar. For ISCR it was their first Goose event. The seminar was shortened to three days because of the participants only could flight at night to Tblisi.
For more information about the activities please see the report on the website.
2019: Houens Odde. The funding for the Erasmus+ was turned down because of a shortage of three points. In Denmark the application was send during a period where a lot of other projects (by others) also applied so they had to raise the amount of point you needed to receive any funding. They applied again for funding but the expectation to get funding in that round Is very low.
Not every centre reacted to the questions about the Participant Identification Code (PIC) to the questions from Houens Odde. It could be that a centre for it’s own doesn’t have a PIC number but that the PIC number of the NSO can be used.
After a short discussion and looking into the possibilities the meeting concluded that the Easter weekend is the best option for the network to keep the seminar.
EDIT: you can search if you have a PIC number https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/organisations/register.html
Planningteam for the 2019 seminar will be: Ewoud (Papa Goose), Rikke Marie and Lars (Both Houens Odde), Jan (Bucherberg). If somebody is interested at your centre please get in contact with Ewoud (ewoudmol@hotmail.com)
2020: Bucherberg will host the seminar.
2021: Kapraluv Mlyn will host the seminar.
5b Costs for joining meeting and seminar
There is a request from the meeting to the planning teams for the meeting and the seminar. They see an increase in costs. Is it possible to look into the costs and try to keep them low. Last year with travel some of the centers paid 600 to get one participant in the seminar.
- Centre of the week (COTW)
A big thank you to Joao for making every post and completing text.
It took a lot of time to get the information of every individual center. We have seen that a lot of centers shared a lot of posts. There were a few centers who didn’t share all the posts. A few centers experienced it was a lot of information combined with their own information and some centers decided not to share the COTW that week (but later) or only post their own post that week.
The Facebook page of the Goose Network has got a lot new followers. But needs some traffic to get the new followers intrested, but also not to much posts. Ideal would be one/two posts a week.
For the future we talked about the platform, and if we should use other platforms. We agreed to the following steps:
- We can use Instagram where the posts of COTW can be re-used. Also it can be used for short movies to promote the centers.
- We will use the Facebook page for combined posts and also for reposts from individual centers which are nice to share on the Facebook page from the Goose Network (Action: Ewoud)
- Paulo, Joao and Ewoud will plan a meeting to discuss the possibility for Instagram/short movies/you tube.
- Centers only have to promote the Goose Network social media channels and not the individual posts.
6a. Request from NSO Slovakia
The meeting agreed that the NSO of Slovakia can use the pictures with the information that is posted during the COTW. They don’t have to use the framework The Goose Network is using. But if their promotion is ready it has to be send to the centers prior to using it so the centers can approve the posts about their own posts.
Action: Papa Goose
- Goose Game
At this moment the coordinator is Lucas from Houens Odde. Last year he was busy with the Goose Game on Houens Odde.
For next year the planning is to give a mayor update to the Goose Game. For this the centres will be approached to deliver (new) games. For the centre with existing games there will be the question to review their games.
There are some games who needs pretty big materials or food to play the game. The goal will be that all the materials will fit in one box and there is no food needed for the game.
When updating the game the meeting asks to think about how it can made easy when new centers join The Goose Network (maybe a blank map of Europe).
- Questions from centers
Staff exchange:It is nice that people visit other centers. But visiting another centre is different than visiting a centre as a staff exchange. It is moment we conclude that it isn’t that popular to do a staff exchange within the Goose Network.
Action: Papa Goose (update the website so people can find information)
Papa Goose to promote staff exchange on the Facebook group (private)
Financial Sustainabilty of a Scout Centre:We had a short conversation and moved the questions to the informal evening program.
GPDR– how are centers dealing with GPDR? Is the center compliant with the new regulations, how did he centre introduce the new rules and how do you stay compliant complying. Almost all NSO’s already made guidelines for local scout organisations to implement the GDPR into their systems. Some NSO’s are waiting for government for more specific regulations and guidelines. The best advice is to contact your NSO for advice. Make sure you have made a list with all the data you keep, why you keep it, how you store it, and update your privacy policy (for example: https://www.kisc.ch/privacy-policy)
Volunteers from outside EU.Regulations for volunteers outside Europe are more than volunteers within Europe. Always be careful with volunteers and try to gain as much information as possible. You can consult your local government for additional regulations. Sources you can look into Facebook and other social media or consult the NSO of the volunteer. Make very solid arrangements with the volunteer.
Goose Network 