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Guidelines

  1. Recruiting may be done through the Sunday School, Schools, Shopping Centres, local notice boards and local press.
  2. All Junior Section Boys should be encouraged to attend Sunday School or Church.
  3. A Boy may be in the Junior Section while he is in Primary School. Under exceptional circumstances, the O.I.C. of Junior Section, with the agreement of the Company Captain may extend the age requirements.
  4. A Boy is encouraged to serve a probationary period of six (6) weeks before he is eligible to wear the Junior Section uniform. An Anchor Boy promoted to Junior section may wear his uniform from the first meeting night of the session he commences in the Junior Section.
  5. A portion of each Junior Section Boy’s Company fees pays for their Annual Affiliation Fee. At the Annual General Meeting of The Boys’ Brigade State or Territorial Council, an Annual Affiliation Fee is set. Each Company has to pay the Annual Affiliation fee multiplied by the number of members they have.
  6. Generally, each section of the Company will meet separately.
  7. Each Junior Section meeting is encouraged to commence with the “Opening Parade” and finish with the “Closing Parade”.
  8. Boys should be encouraged to attend all parade nights, church parades and most outings.
  9. All Boys should have their own copy of the BBA Junior Section Boys Handbook.

Boys and Groups
As mentioned previously, Boys in this Section need to be of primary school age.
The Boys in No. 1 Section are divided into Groups, each of which contains an even mix of the varying age levels.
These groups are given attractive names to identify them in competitions. Examples of these include Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Jaguars, Cheetahs and Pumas etc. Other imaginative names are used for the Anchor Boys (eg Teams or boats) and Squad numbers for Senior Section.
When addressing a Junior Section Boy, he is called by his full name e.g. “John Smith – Fall Out”. When a Group is being addressed, the designated Group name is used e.g. “Jaguars – To the Tennis Court Fall Out”.

Special responsibilities
Although, there are no ranks in the Junior Section, older Boys can be appointed as Leading Boys. Leading Boys are Junior Section Boys with lanyards – to acknowledge them as people with extra responsibility. This often may include being Markers on parade, but some companies will rotate the Boys who act as Marker weekly to give everyone a sense of responsibility. The lanyard should only be for Leading Boys and not for whoever is a marker.
If your Company has a flag raising ceremony as part of your parades, the Flag Boy is a Boy specifically chosen to raise and lower the flag for a particular night.
Each Company may appoint Boys to other roles which assist the Company operation as well as the Boy’s self-esteem and development.

Risk Management
Activities operated by the local Boys’ Brigade ministry should have the approval of the Church’s Governing Body in particular activities which involve sleeping away from home or off the Church premises.
Other Battalion, State or National activities would have the approval of that Governing Body.

Ensure adequate risk management
Whilst all approved activities are covered, with the exception of activities involving vehicles that require registration as a Government requirement, appropriate Risk Management is an essential component to afford the best protection for the young people in our care.

  • Please ensure that all duty of care and risk management principles were accounted for, that is any steps that could have been taken to avoid the incident were actually taken and that there was no willful intent for the incident. There is no excuse for ignorance of regulations, inadequate assessment of risks (eg the venue was suitable and all risks minimised), safety precautions (eg ensuring all were adequately equipped for the activity and the circumstances of the event), inadequate instruction to or management of the young people by the leaders (eg neglecting to mention relevant information or not ensuring adequate supervision due to poor leaders to young people ratio).

Ensure adequate record keeping
The keeping of records is an important matter should an investigation into an incident be held.

  • A permanent roll should be kept of all attendees, including Leaders of every meeting, outing or event.
  • These rolls should be not be discarded at the end of a session, but stored in a secure locked place to protect privacy or held by your State Office. These records may need to be referred to up to twenty years later.

In event of an incident
If an accident or incident occurs during an authorised Brigade event that results in injury, then an Incident Report should be filled in and sent to your State Office. It is important that the Incident Report be completed as soon as practical after the event, preferably within 24 hours of the incident.

It should be noted that you should make no admission of negligence, nor encourage claims.

The loss of property and personal property is not covered under these policies.