Scouting in Swale, Kent

Welcome to Swale District Scouts – the proposed successor District to Sittingbourne, Milton and District, Faversham District and the Isle of Sheppey District.

Why has this new district been formed?

As part of Kent Scouts ‘Project Redraw’, the three districts comprising of Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheppey Districts are forming to create a new proposed district, Swale District Scouts. This is being done to benefit volunteers by creating wider support networks within the district, as well as allowing a larger pool of skills to be benefitted from, as well as help young people by providing more experiences and opportunities for young people within our districts.

More information about Project Redraw can be found here.

New District Team

The form for expression of interest for the new district leadership team has closed now. Thank you to all who responded. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Swale District Trustee Board

Alongside recruiting our new Leadership Team, we also need to establish the Trustee Board that will oversee the governance of our new District.

As part of the merger, the three existing District charities will be brought together into a single District charity. Our new Trustee Board will have responsibility for ensuring that the District is well governed, that its finances and assets are properly managed, and that we meet our legal and charitable obligations. In short, the Trustees will play a vital role in ensuring that Swale Scouts is on a sound footing for the future.

We now have a Trustee Selection Panel in place and ready to begin its work. The Panel will consider applications and nominations and make recommendations to the three existing District Trustee Boards, with the aim of agreeing a single proposed Board for our new District. This will include recommendations for the positions of District Chair and District Treasurer, alongside the other Trustees.

As with the District Leadership Team, we are inviting volunteers to put themselves forward or to nominate somebody else who they feel has the skills, experience and enthusiasm to make a valuable contribution.

You do not need to have been a Trustee before to express an interest. We are keen to bring together a Board with a broad range of skills, backgrounds and perspectives, as well as representation from across our three existing Districts.

You can apply or nominate someone using the following form:

Swale Scouts – Trustee Board Selection

The deadline for applications and nominations is 23:45 on Sunday 25 October 2026.

Joining our District Teams

Finally, I'm pleased to launch another opportunity for volunteers to get involved in Swale Scouts, this time looking beyond the senior Leadership Team and Trustee Board roles.

Our new District will have a range of teams and sub-teams supporting everything from the programme we offer young people, to volunteer development, activities, events, communications, inclusion and the management of our District facilities.

One of the ambitions behind our new structure is to build strong, supportive teams in which volunteers can contribute according to their interests, skills and availability. Not everyone needs to be a Team Leader, and nobody should feel that taking on a District role means having to do everything themselves!

Before introducing the new form, I want to offer some reassurance about how existing volunteer roles will be handled during the transition.

• All Group roles, including Group Lead Volunteers and other Group Team Leaders and Team Members, will continue unchanged throughout this process.
• All Team Leader and Team Member roles within our individual Explorer Units will transfer automatically into the new District.
• Volunteers who are part of the existing Bexon Lane or Shepherd Park teams at the date of the merger will be transferred into the corresponding teams within Swale District.

If you currently hold a District role that isn't covered by the arrangements above, please don't worry!

In due course, you will be contacted by me or another member of the new Swale District Leadership Team to discuss how your current volunteering can continue within the new structure.

We greatly value the contribution that every volunteer makes, and we certainly don't want to lose anyone as a result of these changes. The aim is to bring our volunteers together, build on the excellent work already happening across our three Districts, and create new opportunities for people to contribute.

For those who don't currently hold a District role but would like to get involved, or who already volunteer at District level but would be interested in trying something different, we would love to hear from you.

We've created a straightforward form where you can express an interest in joining one or more District Teams, indicate whether you might be interested in leading a team, or nominate somebody else who you think would enjoy getting involved.

Join a Swale District Team – Expressions of Interest & Nominations

There is no expectation that you need to commit to anything simply by completing the form. At this stage, we are keen to understand who might be interested and how we can best make use of the wealth of experience, talent and enthusiasm that already exists across our Districts.

Please do take a look, and encourage others who might be interested to do the same.

If anyone experiences any technical difficulties completing the form, please email simon.moore@sittingbournescouts.org.uk

New District identity competitions

The current Scout district teams for Sheppey, Faversham and Sittingbourne are looking for a district scarf/ necker and a new badge for the new district for Swale Scouts, the successor district to Faversham District, Sheppey District, and Sittingbourne, Milton & District Scouts. This is a very much 'youth led' activity, as we are a youth shaped organisation, however adult volunteers may also submit ideas for this new badge as we do want to hear from as many people as possible and we recognise this is a major change.

District Scarf Competition

Below is a file containing all the current scarves for every group within the proposed Swale District, if there are any that are incorrect/ missing, please email swale-designs@sittingbournescouts.org.uk

Group Scarves within Swale

There are a few guidelines that we are setting for this competition:
-It MUST be different to all current scarves.
-There are no exact traditional scarf layouts we are limiting the design to, however we would prefer if scarves weren't triple bordered.

Please forward your designs, along with who the name, group and section of who designed it to swale-designs@sittingbournescouts.org.uk

District Badge Competition

There are a few guidelines that we are setting for this competition:
-The design MUST include 'Swale' or 'Swale District' somewhere on the badge.
-It MUST refer to the three predecessor district badges in one way or another; these are below for those unfamiliar.
-They should be in a ratio of 4.4cm (height) by 3.4cm (width) / same size as current district badges. (This does not include the border around the badges, as this will not include part of the design).
-We would like to see creative designs, and preferably ones not made with AI.

Current Sheppey, Sittingbourne and Faversham Badges

Please forward your designs, along with who the name, group and section of who designed it to swale-designs@sittingbournescouts.org.uk , with the subject 'Swale Badge Design'.

The deadline for both competitions is Saturday the 31/10/2026, so encourage anyone who wants to get involved to do so as soon as possible so we have as much time to judge as we can!

Contact

A new district leadership structure will be announced as part of the merging process, however please continue to use the current district websites for enquiries and joining information.