Kirk gets the Award for Merit
District Camp this year was held at Willesley Scout Camp site.
Where our very own Scout Leader Kirk, received the Award for Merit on 12th June 2022. Awarded for outstanding service, it implies keen, conscientious, imaginative and dedicated service over a sustained period, of at least 12 years duration. It requires nomination, approval by the district commission, is monitored by the National Awards Advisory Group and submitted to UK Scout Headquarters. It was the highest award presented on the day.
Kirk also received his 25 years service award which is a massive achievement in itself.
This is the citation:
There are several things I would like Kirk to be recognised for.
Kirk joined Market Bosworth Scout group in 2017 to stop the scout group from closing and he has been a major positive influence on the scout group. He came with 20 years of experience in Scouting and boy did we need that.
Growing the section: Kirk has grown the Leadership team in the Scout section from himself in 2017 to five adult leaders in the section in 2021. I am looking forward to seeing and supporting what Kirk is going to achieve with the leaders he has managed to recruit and the expected increase in youth numbers, which I estimate will be at 25+ for Jan 2022 census.
Our Lockdown Zoom Guru: Kirk took the leap of embracing zoom and being the first section to run online meetings. He offered to train the other section leaders in Cubs Scouts and Beaver Scouts who took up the offer and I am so pleased to say that all our sections ran zoom throughout lockdown. The parents were so impressed that they got all the leaders a gift as a thank you; https://www.mbscouts.org.uk/
Young Leaders: Kirk is a big advocate of youth led scouting and young leaders. We now have five young leaders at the group that would not have had this opportunity without Kirk identifying most of them and being so positive about what a young leader can do. Our adult leaders now do not know how they managed without them.
Appointment Review: I carried out an annual appointment review with Kirk today and we spoke about what he enjoyed about scouting “He likes young people to come from Cub Scouts with basic skills and for him to help them progress to doing things themselves without being treated like a kid but being treated as a Scout.”
We also talked about challenges over the last year “his big challenge was being autistic and having to adjust to using technology for Scouting which he felt was a big leap for him.” My view is that he did not leap he flew like Concorde carrying us all in his slipstream, I think that his actions getting us on zoom which was outside of his comfort zone kept the scout group active throughout lockdown and has left us with a stronger, closer nit group of leaders. As well as all the great stuff he does for us, this I believe is above and beyond and Kirk deserves to be recognised for an “Award for Merit”.