Team Pink are the team of the Executive Officers and Assistants who are responsible for the running and development of the National Student Scout and Guide Organisation.
Find out who we are
The Exec
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Chair
James Barber
What I've done
- Making lots of progress: working on lots of small projects and supporting Team Pink on their projects.
- Handling complaints/issues: supporting Team Pink in dealing with issues and complaints as they arise.
- Team Pink Task Management: implemented a new Discord-based system for managing tasks throughout Team Pink.
- Relationship with The Scouts: working with new contacts at Scout HQ to improve our relationship and for support with becoming a charity.
What I'm working on
- Secure SSAGO's Financial Position: work to establish a robust plan to make SSAGO's accounting procedures better and work with a new treasurer to resolve other issues.
- Develop a Charity Timeline: publish a transparent timeline for SSAGO becoming a charity within the first 100 days of office (07/08/2023) - on track.
- Relaunch the SSAGO Shop: work with the Quartermaster to relaunch the SSAGO Shop within the first 100 days of office (07/08/2023) - on track.
- Rewriting the Complaints Policy: working to simplify the Complaints Policy and working with The Scouts to formalise their involvement with it.
- Introducing a Bar Policy: a policy to ensure bars at SSAGO events have the correct licenses and members staffing bars have adequate training around alcohol laws.
Last updated 24/06/2023, 13:49
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Secretary
Jack Woodward
What I've done
- It has been an incredibly busy month and a half since Ball, both personally and with SSAGO stuff, so here's a brief snapshot!
- Finishing my degree: I've been through my last exam period, sat my last exams, and officially finished my Master's degree - now on to the PHD in October!
- Scouts 14-24 Redesign Project: I've joined the Youth Panel working on the Scouts project to completely redesign the Explorers and Network provision. While theoretically completely separate to my SSAGO role, I've talked about SSAGO enough that I'm being interviewed about SSAGO as part of the research phase!
- Emails: I have sent and received lots of emails, including lots of NaN forms and Adventurous Activity Notifications making clear that SSAGO is getting up to plenty now that tern has ended! Also dealing with lots of other things, including complaints and incidents, handovers/getting things set up for Treasurer, Indie rep and Associate rep, helping to co-ordinate WSJ merch, and some general queries that don't quite fit in a category.
- Switzerland: I have also visited KISC, met with Oli, both constructively for SSAGO and to have a lot of fun, and completely failed to not do SSAGO stuff while on holiday (mainly because a lot of stuff for reps wasn't done before hand - including this report, which I'm writing from Geneva Airport, before flying to Rally).
What I'm working on
- Reps: I'm aiming to make the post event part of ReBaR reps go much more smoothly than the pre-event part, and now that I kind of know how much time it takes, I'm aiming to be much more on time/ahead of schedule for Reps at Oktoberfest!
- Scouts: I'm aiming to actually work with scouts at HQ level to build a positive relationship which should benefit SSAGO - I'm hoping involvement in the 14-24 Redesign Project will help with that, and that a SSAGO presence at Gilwell Reunion will also support that effort. I'd also like to start the effort of doing the same with GirlGuiding, but don't currently have as convenient a pathway to pursue that.
- SSAGO Policy and Factsheets: This was on my aims in my last report, and I didn't get a chance to even think about it, so I'm carrying it over. There's plenty of issues with out of date factsheets that need updating, and some policies that were originally based on Scouting policies that have since changed, and so could also do with updating.
Last updated 23/06/2023, 15:01
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Treasurer
William Burrows
What I've done
- Accounts- Getting settled into the new role. Just completed the mandate papers and currently waiting for Lloyds to process them.
What I'm working on
- Accounting: To improve the way SSAGO reports its accounts
Last updated 19/06/2023, 20:34
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Publicity
Beatrice Overend
What I've done
- Working with quartermaster to sort final shop problems.
- New merch designs are in process, publicity packs are in process.
- Ssago support - need to have a meeting with Ben to discuss how to get this up and running again.
What I'm working on
- Produce SSAGO Publicity Packs for freshers
- Introduce new lines to the ssago shop
- Work the SASU Manager to promote and set up SSAGO Support
Last updated 25/06/2023, 19:06
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Members
Ben Dickinson
What I've done
- DBS: I have completed my first DBS check for a SSAGO member. This is surprisingly easy!
- SASU Membership: I have cleared out the SASU, ensuring that only SSAGO members are members of the SSAGO SASU. I have also added a number of people.
- Clarifications with the Scouts: I am in the process of clarifying who can/should be in the SASU from their perspective.
What I'm working on
- SASU Membership: I will be keeping the SASU membership up to date, adding and removing people as required, and ensuring people do their training!
- Interim Members Officer: I will be trying to keep SSAGO running and do what is needed as members' officer alongside my Active Support role. This includes meeting with clubs, members and the rest of Team Pink as needed.
Last updated 16/08/2023, 20:40
The Assistants
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Quartermaster
Joe Barnes
What I've done
- Neckers: We have neckers now!
- Popup Shop: A pop-up shop was opened to allow people to buy neckers and badges. This involved a full stock recount and updating the catalogue on the website. Some orders are still outstanding from this but will be dispatched shortly.
- Uniform Badges: We need to restock the uniform badges, the current design is decades old and is no longer in line with the updated Scout uniform badges - diamonds are for top awards, SASU badges should be rectangular like the network badges. I have suggested new designs and passed to Leon for finalisation.
- New Merch: I have contacted companies with regard to getting new merchandise; travel mugs, bobble hats and sunglasses are on my list at the moment, but as always you can suggest ideas via merchandise@ssago.org
- Viking Rally: The shop was open in person at Viking Rally, when I wasn't cooking hundreds of sausage rolls!
What I'm working on
- New Merch: Continue getting new merch options into the Shop.
- Re-open shop.ssago.org: I am in the process of contacting people with order issues and out of stock items so that the full SSAGO shop can re-open and be running properly in the next few months. New uniform badges will clear out about half of the remaining orders.
- POS Efficiency: I'm working with Oli to make the shiny new electronic Shop system work more efficiently for us, including being able to use it as a more integrated till at Rally, which will make stock control much easier and mean that hopefully none of these problems we’ve had will happen again...
Last updated 23/02/2022, 17:14
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Archivist
Charlotte Simmons
What I've done
- March-May: After largely taking from late March until late May off from Archives matters due to personal reasons, I spent the end of May easing myself back in and catching up on general team pink stuff.
- Club queries: I have responded to a few queries from various clubs regarding archive matters - if you ever have any queries regarding club history (which may be mentioned in the national SSAGO archives), or anything related to your own club's archives, please do get in touch with me and I will do my best to help you.
What I'm working on
- Archives online: To finally make archive online a reality - I'm not totally sure about the how of this because if I'm honest, I'm a bit of a technophobe, but I'll be looking to make some real progress on this in the coming months.
- Supporting clubs: Continue to help and support clubs with archive queries
- Coronation helpers: I am planning on collating stories from those ssago members who were involved in helping at the Coronation.
- Archives stories: I will also be collating stories from wider SSAGO regarding a variety of events - from the Jamboree this summer all the way down to local camps. Now feels like a good time to do this as we fully get back to normal after the pandemic.
Last updated 24/06/2023, 11:49
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International
Conni Schmitt
What I've done
- International attendance to Rally: I promoted Rally of Games to our known SSAGO connections, and established contact with a group in Finnland. In the end, myself and one other Dutch scout are attending
- International members: promoted SSAGO to student scouts and guides, getting international members involved on Discord
- African Rover Moot: working on SSAGO attendance, which will likely be possible (pending some buerocratic hurdles)
- Other International events: promoted international opportunities for SSAGO-aged scouts and guides, among them BuLa which will be attended by a SSAGOer
- Gave advice to SSAGOers considering Explorer Belts in countries I have lived in (Germany, Ireland)
- Other activities: involvement with RoG, particularly a fundraising badge and the Rally+ summercamp
What I'm working on
- International attendence at SSAGO events: I'll be in touch with Irish, Dutch, German and other international student scout groups and invite them to both virtual and in-person SSAGO events
- SSAGO visiting international events: I will keep an eye and an ear out for events by international student scouting groups (like the Irish Rover Intervarsities) and hope to make it possible for SSAGO members to join. Currently, this is trying to get a SSAGO contingent to the African Rover Moot.
- Answering questions by internationals: I'm more than happy to be contacted by exchange students, both incoming and outgoing, and get them in contact with local clubs if there is one known to SSAGO!
- Promoting an international atmosphere within SSAGO: Discord has done an awesome job at getting SSAGOers and student scouts from different coutries talk to each other - my goal is that this international community is preserved even after lockdown is over!
Last updated 14/06/2022, 10:58
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Webmaster
Oli Bills
What I've done
- Event improvements: Q&A system, registration system, new booking features, app platform
- General SSAGO things: Newsletter system, moving resources from Dropbox to Drive, better Reps system
- Rally of Games: SSAGO app, SSAGO treasure hunt game, patrols and teams and other fun things for future events
- AGM and EGM things: As always, elections continue to change and need to happen and I made sure the technology was in place to accommodate these
- De-Olifying SSAGO: More automation, administration interfaces and making sure all SSAGO sytsems work when Oli was in Switzerland and preparing for the future, including migrating SSAGO tech to the AWS Cloud
- Life outside Webmaster: I volunteered, slightly unexpectedly, at the Kandersteg International Scout Centre for Autumn 2022 as a pinkie! I also supported the Iceland event last July, the WinterKISC event this February and Kander100 this coming summer.
What I'm working on
- New exec: Supoorting the new incoming Exec and any of their requirements and goals
- New future: Continuing to work towards SSAGO technology being someone else's problem!
- More web team: Continue to work to grow the web team to support the webmaster
- Tidying up: Tidying up any remaining non-automated parts of SSAGO that require manual intervention, to make sure the infrastructure "just works"
Last updated 13/03/2023, 14:04
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Events
Rose Moran
What I've done
- All events: I have had meetings with all events to get an update of where they are at and how team pink may be able to support them so far.
- New events: I have had getting started meeting with all new events, voted in at the agm and egm, to discuss the first few steps of planning. This included setting target of what need to be done over the next 2 months.
- Event Resources: starting to look through the event resources drive to see how it can work best in supporting events.
What I'm working on
- Event Questionaire: to put together a questionnaire to find out how they have found support in the past and how team pink can help events going forward.
- Event Resources: to sort through the event resources drive.
Last updated 23/06/2023, 22:31
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Charities
Alex Banwell
What I've done
- Charity: Met with Scouting and Guiding multiple times to ensure that they are happy with the new constitution, and to formalise a new 3-way agreement to put in place for the new charity
- Accounts: Published the draft accounts for 2019-20 and 2020-21.
- Bank accounts: Set up a Spring Rally, Summer Rally, Ball, Reunion, Witan, Shop, Indie and 2 spare event accounts with Lloyds
- Bank accounts: Applied for debit cards for event accounts.
- SSAGOBus: Booked, and organised the SSAGOBus to Viking Rally
- Queries: Replied to a number of bank account related queries from clubs, using my knowledge and experience to help.
- Events: Paid and checked lots of loans and tried to ensure that events were on budget, and accountable, including by sharing my own knowledge and experience with more recently elected events.
What I'm working on
- Charity: Continue to see through the process to become a charity over the line
- Accounts: Continue to work on improving the accounts system to be more transparent
- Bank accounts: Start to promote the use of the new bank accounts
- Fundraising: Research grants that could be applied for once we become a charity
Last updated 14/02/2022, 18:40