The 12th Guernsey Scout Group – which celebrates its 60th anniversary next year – has been meeting in the Maurice Lihou Building at Les Beaucamps High School for the last 35 years.
But it is now having to move out because Education needs to make physical alterations to the building in order to better facilitate education provision for students with additional learning needs.
‘We help as much as we can in the community, but in our time of need we’re asking the community whether there is any help they can give us,’ said Sean Sarre, chairman of the Scout group’s trustee board.
In September 2023 Education started a trial of its additional learning needs provision in the Maurice Lihou Building, sharing the space with the Scout group.
While initially successful, the trial found some operational issues with the space, with its open-plan nature and a lack of acoustic separation. As a result, two fixed partitions will be installed into the building over the summer.
An Education spokesman said while it recognised and acknowledged the value of the Scout group and appreciated the group would be impacted by the installations, it needed to prioritise the needs of pupils.
The 12th Guernsey Scout Group currently has just fewer than 100 members, with more than 20 in each of the Squirrels, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts sections.
The inclusion of volunteers, leaders and parent helpers takes the group’s size to about 120.
Education has made a new space at Castel Primary School available to the group, at a similar cost to what it has historically paid at Les Beaucamps.
While the group has agreed to the move for the time being, Mr Sarre said the space was not guaranteed for more than a couple of years.
‘They said they’d then reassess and see if they could find us somewhere else, but then we will end up as a transient Scout group, and we’re not transient,’ he said. ‘We want to find something permanent.’
The group has been in communication with St Matthew’s Church – which it is linked with – and Cobo Community Centre, which used to be its base in the 1970s and 80s, about the possibility of using their spaces, with discussions ongoing.
Talks have also taken place with Vazon Elim Pentecostal Church, but concerns were raised about the group’s historic link with St Matthew’s, should it be based at a different church.
‘We want to stay in the same catchment area, if we can, so as not to encroach on the other scout groups near us,’ Mr Sarre said.
‘What we need is someone with a piece of land in our catchment area, a barn or a building we can convert or actively use and make a permanent home for the 12th Guernsey Scouts.’
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