The National Youth Agency: Comment - Speaking Truth to Power

And to meet young people. Clubs for Young People fielded four "beneficiaries" who testified warmly to the gains they had made in confidence and the great enjoyment they had from participating in club life. The Scouts adopted a different approach, flooding the reception with a couple of dozen members from their nationwide pool of "ambassadors" - young people who have been specially trained to be contact points for local media and who were thus able to discourse freely with parliamentarians and others about their current Scouting experience and the forthcoming World Jamboree.

These are primarily "feel good" occasions providing the organisations concerned with the chance to showcase their work and to highlight a few policy points - which Peter Duncan, the Chief Scout, and Simon Antrobus, chief executive of Clubs for Young People, did with skill and panache at the respective gatherings.