As well as giving us an opportunity to celebrate all that has been achieved over the past year, despite the challenges of COVID, the Regional Review and AGM gave us an opportunity to look forward to the opportunities that the future presents. In my Regional Commissioner’s Report I was able to give some of my thoughts on how we move forward as a Region as we continue to recover and rebuild and we will be sharing more details on that in the coming months.
An important foundation for growth is having the right people in place and so I was delighted that we made a number of new Regional appointments at the AGM.
John Bruce, Regional Vice-President
When John Cannon (Regional Chair), Dick Allan (Regional President) and I agreed to look at expanding the Regional Presidential team, John Bruce was an obvious choice. John brings a huge amount of experience, having been a District Commissioner, Edinburgh Area Commissioner, Regional Secretary to name just a few of the roles he has held during his 55 years in Scouting. John’s enthusiasm for Scouting in South East Scotland continues unabated and I know that he is keen to use his new role to help support the ongoing development in Scouting within the Region and I look forward to working with him to look at how best he can do this in his new role.
I would like to personally congratulate John on his new role which is a great recognition of the huge amount of work that he has done for Scouting.
Simon Innes, Regional Vice Chair
As Regional Commissioner, I was very pleased to be able to nominate Simon for the role of Regional Vice Chair. Having joined the Regional Executive Committee at our 2020 AGM, he has already made an important contribution to the running of the Executive Committee and I look forward to working with him and John Cannon (Regional Chair) to continue the positive direction that we are moving in.
As the Region continues to look at how we can best support our local managers, Simon brings an important insight to the Executive through his role as Group Scout Leader of the 108th Pentland (Colinton) group. As Vice Chair, Simon will also take responsibility for our Regional Risk Committee and the important work that they do identifying, assessing and managing the risks that we as a Region face.
Regional Executive Committee Members
We were pleased that following our call for new members to stand for election to the Regional Executive Committee, that Scott Goddard, Sue Liddle and Colin Orr all agreed to join the committee as elected members. All three bring important on the ground experience through their roles as section leaders which will help to ensure that the Regional Executive Committee is well positioned to support our adult volunteers. I would like to thank all three for their willingness to take on this important role and look forward to working with them to support the work of the Region.
You can find out more about Scott in our recent Meet the Volunteer article
The AGM also gave us an opportunity to thank those Executive Members whose terms were coming to an end:
- Andrew Green
- Alistair Mcneill
- Euan Mcfadzean
- Mark Hesketh
for the huge amount of work that they have done to support the work of the Committee as well as Scouting in the wider Region.
Tribute was also paid to Graeme Robertson who stood down as Regional Vice Chair after 4 years in the role and I was delighted to be able to award him a Commissioner’s Commendation in recognition of the support and leadership that he has provided to the Region during that time, not least during the pandemic where he spearheaded the Regional Executive’s response to the crisis.
Following the AGM, Douglas Allan, Regional Vice-President also decided to step down from his role after 8 years. I would like to thank Douglas for his service to the Region since he started as an Assistant Scout Leader in 1960. Douglas has held a wide range of roles over this time including as Assistant Area Commissioner for Adult Training and Scottish Commissioner for Development before joining the Regional Presidential team in 2013.
Finally, I would also like to thank Roseanne Allison who recently stepped down from her role as Regional Advisor (Additional Support Needs). In her time in the role she has provided advice and support to many volunteers to help them adapt their programme to make it more inclusive for those with additional support needs and I have very much valued her counsel since I took on the Regional Commissioner Role.
Martin Elliot
Regional Commissioner
rc@sesscouts.org.uk