After rigorous testing this has now gone live. Leaders in Staffordshire have had access since August 2009.

Whilst locally Leaders have been keeping records on paper, on computer, printing it out, copying it passing it by hand and emailing it between leaders in units. All of which results in a mountain of paper and time, hours and hours of time.

Project Streamline will simplify and streamline administration and reduce bureaucracy by providing volunteers with access to shared information and straightforward processes throughout the organisation. The new ways of working will cut out almost all of the manual paperwork, and save many hours of volunteer time spent on administration, creating more personal or guiding time

A year later, a number of focus group sessions were held in each Country and Region to listen to volunteers’ views on the current registration and administrative processes and explore ways of improving them. 

• Provide a secure platform for storing unit records with access only to those adults who are registered with guiding and have the correct permissions.
• Enable Leaders to keep their  own personal details up-to-date. Changes will no longer have to progress through a chain of people, meaning you will have control over the correct delivery of guiding magazine!
• Provide Leaders with standard templates for letters to parents, holiday notices, forms etc, which can easily be populated with names and addresses.
• Enable you to create reports and forms, email all the members in your team or produce mailing labels for newsletters.
• Process volunteer recruitment and disclosure checks.
• Make paying annual subscriptions more straightforward.
• Easily calculate records for claiming Gift Aid.
• Calculate members’ length of service and prompt for awards accordingly.
• Remove the need for a manual head count, with the last census in 2009.
• Automate a number of time-consuming paper-based tasks, meaning more time for volunteers to enjoy guiding!
• And more... we’ll update you as the project moves along

• Name of the member being registered
• Address
• Telephone numbers
• Date of birth
• Email address's
• Parental contact details and contact details for one other alternative emergency contact
• Immediate health details, inc allergies
• Any disabilities, or religious requirements
• Ethnicity - this is used to provide data for Local Authority grant requests
• Dietary requirements and in particular food allergies
• Consent for photographs, video
• We ask parents to consent, if possible,  to help on a daily, weekly, monthly, or never basis. We particularly need help with travel arrangements to activities.
• We ask parents for information on any skills they have which they may wish to share with the unit
• We ask parents to sign a Gift Aid declaration (all our units are Charities and therefore able to claim tax back from the Government. this is currently 28p for every £1 you give us in subscriptions)

When a girl moves from one unit to another Leaders will be able to transfer the girl electronically, parents will no longer have to fill in the Essential Information Leaflet unless any of the information on the form has changed. (click the hyperlink to obtain a copy of this form) You will only need to notify us of any changed information such as new address, new phone number, changed Emergency Contact details, change of school.