Rainbows, Brownies, Guides - Has your child returned to meeting in person?

[Ickabog]

I know a few groups have returned but have been meeting outside. However, i'm curious to know if any have returned to meeting inside, and if so how things have changed.

Not yet for our group. The church where they hire a hall has been very slow at letting the leaders in to do a risk assessment. So the guides and rangers are meeting weekly over zoom. The rangers had one face to face picnic at the end of the summer holidays. They are quite a big group so they would probably have to be in on rotation face to face.

Brownies is still on zoom so we're ditching it. But Beavers is managing to do fun stuff outdoors instead.

Not for any in my district for rainbows brownies and guides because the church halls haven't reopened or give priority to other groups.

One thing girlguiding Scotland also told us to think about is how many people you mix with in a day prior to meetings. I work with 5 staff members but may see other staff and up to 56 children. Add in 24 brownies. That's far too many people in a day to take the risk.

Plus after being told by numerous parents that they had binned my shitty emails then why should I bother giving up time to offer something when my job has become more demanding due to the cleaning schedule.

Not ours, because the leaders felt it was daft to spend all day encouraging the kids to stick in bubbles at 3 different schools and then to mix them up in the evening. I can see their point. So zoom it is for now.

our group (not part of the Scouting/Guiding cluster but similar concept) is meeting outdoors only at present. they say they will move indoors when the evenings get too dark and cold for outside meetings but I think we will drop out at that point.

Mine haven't gone back yet. I'm struggling to get hold of our church risk assessment & am not convinced, due to our jobs, that it's an overly good idea.

I've been posting activities in our fb groups and emailing those who wanted them that way. I'm not comfortable using video calls so not doing them.

Not ours, because the leaders felt it was daft to spend all day encouraging the kids to stick in bubbles at 3 different schools and then to mix them up in the evening
I agree with this completely. I’ve got a brownie, a scout and a ranger. None of their units have gone back or done anything since March and I’ve had no communication at all from the scouts. I had an email about the eldest starting zoom And outdoor Meetings with rangers, but nothing has come of that yet and I’m not sure how keen dd will be to take part. She isn’t really fan of zoom/video calling.

I’m in no rush for them to go back really. I quite like quieter evenings with no rushing around, especially in the winter.

Not yet

My DD helps with a Guide group and they have done 2 out 3 outdoor events, then will move inside from beginning of Oct.

She walked there last week (Usually drives) so we met her at end whilst on evening dog walk. I chatted with Guide leader, who is overall leader for area and whom we have known for a while. She said the girls were enjoying being back, esp those who didn’t got to school locally.

She also said it was a FT job for her doing risk assessments etc. They have a large Guide hall but will still have to stagger meetings of different ages when they go inside.

Interestingly, her DH is group scout leader and they haven’t started back apart from the older Explorers.

I am a Guide leader and DDs are in Rainbows and Brownies. I think all 3 units intended to start some face to face meeting after October half-term. But we live in Birmingham where meeting anyone who doesn't live in your household is banned so we can't. All 3 units have been meeting on zoom since March.

Scouts here but they aren’t back for a few reasons - the village hall they usually use isn’t renting out to groups in order to protect the school that uses it daily so they don’t have any premises to meet on, and there are concerns about mixing up bubbles from different schools. Hasn’t been anything online but that’s fine by me as my kids don’t like online particularly anyway!

DD’s Brownies lot haven’t returned yet. The leader says they can’t get the risk assessment approved so it doesn’t look likely any time soon.

Our troupe has shut for the forseeable unfortunately.

The local Rainbows group has said they won’t be having meetings as it would mean children would be mixing outside of their school bubble, but they are thinking of doing Zoom meetings.

Dd isn't back to guides yet. Leader has been putting badgework online and links to on line events throughout the country like virtual camps but it's been quiet for the last month.

Yes yestersay outside, but as they all arrived at the meeting point one of the leaders was so excited to have them all together again she hugged most of the girls. I was at a distance so if I'd said anything it would have been bawling across the park. Don't know whether/how to follow it up.

No, they were looking at starting back in person next month, but we've just had local restrictions reinstated so I can't see that happening now

No. And local restrictions mean we’re back to Zoom.

We tried a couple of outdoor meetings but are going into Zoom from next week. It just wasn't possible to keep the kids distanced and still do fun activities. Plus it's was starting to get dark by the end of meetings which also limits what we could do. Our meeting place still isn't letting us back inside either, so think it'll be Zoom for the foreseeable, which makes me very sad

No, they have the go-ahead from girl guiding I believe but the church that the hall is attached to are unsure if they will allow face-to-face meetings.

We are in Scotland - scouts is zoom only. Risk assessments are taking place but at thr moment they cannot see a way to make limited numbers work.

No. Ours emailed to ask were we interested in zoom meetings and I said no. I've a lot on and it just seemed like one more hassle. Hopefully they'll get back to proper meetings.

Our Brownie Unit is hoping to be back inside after Oct half term (if no greater restrictions). But, we have to fill in 2 huge RAs just to do that (1 for the church hall, 1 for GG) and we have to negotiate with the guides as they usually overlap with us and both groups are over 15 in size.

On the plus side, we have been meeting on line since March so it's not like we've not been offering anything. We will also probably continue a "blended" online/ in person even when we go back as we won't be able to meet in person weekly for months I suspect.

All our Scout sections are back to running face to face here. Meetings are mainly outside but each section has been split in half, so we can use the hut safely if necessary, which happened this week when there was a sudden downpour midway through Cubs!
We have worked out a one way system for indoors ,plus have gallons of sanitizer and we are cleaning everything like mad. All leaders, explorers and scouts wear masks indoors too.
Because we had to split the sections in half, it means they only attend in person every other week, but we have got a full scouting at home program, with zoom and weekly challenges for their 'week off' and for anyone who can't or doesn't want to return in person as well.