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.

[HelplessProcrastinator]

We haven’t heard from the Brownies leader since March. Nothing on the WhatsApp group.

[HugeAckmansWife]

Not heard a thing since March. It wasn't an especially active group, didn't do much in the way of badges and no camping or anything but literally it seems to have vanished.

[BogRollBOGOF]

My Brownies are meeting outside. Two totally seperate "pods" which reduces social contact, plus 2m social distancing.
We're shortly holding our planning meeting for next term. The team is burned out with Zoom, and it's working out the logistics for inside or outside in the dark. Inside would mean alternating pods each week.

DC's Beavers and Cubs are still on Zoom. My DCs do not engage with Zoom. They haven't scouted for 6 months, and won't be interested until it's face to face.

[Chrysanthemum5]

My daughters guides have been fantastic with zoom meetings and virtual camps during lockdown. They are now having outdoor meetings with smaller groups (so DD is in a group of similar age girls and they meet every second week) and social distancing. No sign of hall meetings as they can't access it.

I'm also in our scout committee and know how much work is going in to trying to restart hall meetings. For us it will mean having the hall professionally cleaned after each meeting which adds hundreds to our running costs. We also can't hold our major fundraising events such as a coffee morning etc so troop funds are not looking good. We are debating asking parents to donate as there just isn't enough money from subs alone to keep the troop going.

And for both guides and scouts it's all volunteers so I applaud the massive amount of work they are doing to keep things going!

[icebearforpresident]

DD is a rainbow and no mention of when face to face meetings will return. The local rainbows & brownies have a Facebook page and one of the leaders is posting activities there for a special badge but there doesn’t seem to be much response to most of them. DD misses it and is desperate to go back and her sister would have been able to start in the new year and was looking forward to it but I’m not sure how I feel about sending them to be honest.

[leafinthewind]

I'm a Cub leader. We're waiting on our risk assessment coming back from District for our face-to-face meetings, so we're on Zoom for now. When we do go back (please let it be this week!) it will be two batches of 15 Cubs max., with 2m between each Cub and 25m between the batches.

We are extremely lucky in that we have a big enough outdoor space to do that, but I don't know how easy it's going to be. In order to use the outdoor space effectively, we're going to have a run a generator and floodlights. Honestly, we have more chance of incinerating a Cub than infecting one. (But that doesn't make any of the leaders feel any better.) We've cut our meetings short by 15 minutes to give us extra set-up time.

Also, there are no loos and no running water, so we're limited to hand sanitizer for cleaning hands - but it does mean we don't have to clean the toilets!

[BrieAndChilli]

We are in wales (not a local lockdown area) and so have just started back. We don’t own a scout hall so rent the village hall. Hall is only being used for toilets and so we are using the fields and forest.
We are buying a large inflatable marquee for when weather is rubbish.
We have just heard that wales scouts are now allowing inside meetings of 15 max so that will be the next step- probably half the group on alternate weeks once the weather gets too cold and wet.
Our group have been pretty active throughout with zoom quizzes and activities, home activities and badge work.

[Love51]

We got a text saying they are considering having the girls meet half at a time to allow for SD - one week on, one week off. They wanted to check how many families were still interested in sending their kids.
Then the Rule of 6 was allowed and I've heard nothing since.
Nothing from beavers but the leaders are elderly and were shielding at the start of lockdown.

[Horrible76]

I'm really struggling with the Guiding Association during this pandemic. I am both a leader and a parent. The decision not to offer refunds for the last three months of last year, followed by a proposed price hike in the subs has really put the boot in. We are never further away from offering the opportunities to girls from disadvantaged backgrounds.

And if I get one more carefully curated 'right guys' email from head office I might pop.

[Quartz2208]

We have a scout hall (which I think makes it all that much easier)

Beavers/Cubs/Scouts going back on an every other week basis (it pretty much has 2 main primary schools feeding into it so they are split)

Guides is going back on the 7th October for face to face. They are exceptions to the Rule of 6. The meeting will be an hour and they will SD and wear masks

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

Heard absolutely naff all from Beavers. I won't be sending mine back as I was already less than impressed with the lack of badges done (he was there for 15 months - did one badge). They couldn't cope with his autism and adhd additional needs on trips so I was strongly discouraged from sending him and outright told not to send him to the st georges parade and the remembrance day parade. He is at mainstream school and doesn't have one to one . I asked prior to him starting if they had the ability to manage his additional needs and was clear what that entailed as social settings are a big difficulty for him but he needs opportunities to learn social skills (hence chosing beavers over sporting activities).
The evening when I was pulled aside and had my 6 year old accused of racism for using the term poohead was the day I should have said no more. Honestly, reading some of the lovely experiences of others makes me sad. Ours couldn't be further from those.

[Notthisnotthat]

DDs guide company has just restarted zoom meetings, I'm not sure how long she will stay interested though as it's Disney quizzes most weeks. The local scout group seems much better and have met outside or the leaders have dropped off supplies at houses and they live had zoom baking, science experiments etc

[Wetweekend99]

We have been informed it would be zoom until next year. We have unfortunately cancelled its not something our girls would enjoy and they couldn't commit to which day it would be each week which doesn't work for us. Such a shame, we would have continued if they had arranged outside meetings.

[CuppaTea82]

DD goes to Brownies. She had zoom meetings over lockdown and they have just started meeting face to face outdoors, they have been split into smaller groups and will be meeting for 2 weeks then 1 week off. This is the plan until half term so not sure after that. We had to say which school and class they are in so I think they have tried to sort the groups using that

[Sittin]

Horrible- same here. We can’t use our venue, most of the leaders are teachers, girls from 6 different schools - meetings not an option! No one has any interest in zoom anymore so we clearly can’t charge subs or fundraise. I’m beyond shocked that they still expect us to pay the census when we’ll have had nearly a year of no meetings. Added to that the patronising emails and general impression that it’s assumed that everyone is now running meetings it’s good to hear we aren’t alone! I think it’s a bit of kick in the teeth for schools tbh, for guiding to encourage girls from other schools to mix. Just asked me feel like I cba!

[Sittin]

The thought of outside meetings in winter after a long day at school isn’t appealing + the paper work - it might be nice once but I can’t see anyone wanting to do it once a week.

[Franticbutterfly]

Disappointingly, no (Brownies and Rainbows).

[PotteringAlong]

Cubs and beavers back face to face here next week

[doctorhamster]

No. We're in a lockdown area so we're zoom only for the foreseeable.

[BogRollBOGOF]

What drove me mad when planning this term is how inflexible the programme is. I hate the new programme anyway, far, far too much sitting and discussing dry topics anyway, and we've already worked around much of what is viable to do Zoom already. The programme is not practical enough anyway and I much prefer the structure of the scouting programme anyway and is much easier to adapt to doing with social distancing.

On a practical level it's the girls in the same classes who can mix all day at school that are the hard ones to keep apart from each other. Statitically they are far more likely to be exposed through school than while in a park, but it's the impact on the pod and leaders if it's flagged up that they didn't stay firmly away from each other in their Brownie pod. You can't prove that it wasn't a 15 second lapse that did it over playing together at lunchtime and sitting two rows away for 5 hours in the classroom.

It is hassle (and I'm not even the one dealing with risk assessments) but it does make such a difference seeing them in person.

[youdidask]

@thismustbeadream

You do know leaders a volunteers don't you?

Did you offer to attend and assist to help facilitate your sons additional needs?

School is very different from beavers!

[ghostmous3]

No my dds guide group hasnt. I think the leaders are still in the vulnerable group which is why they havent started up
It cant be to do with the venue itself because theres a dance group that have restarted and they share the same place

[underneaththeash]

My unit is returning in 2 weeks, although we did an outside session for the leavers during the first week of September. Girlguiding as an organisation was much slower to respond to the guidance published by the government about youth groups.

I did a few zoom meetings in May - but I'm not a big fan, children spend enough time on the computer as it is.

Main differences are:
We're limited to 15 children
They have to socially distance from each other and us.
We can't share stuff - like art materials.
Leaders have to wear face coverings.
Parents can't lift share.
There was also a very long risk assessment to fill in.

Hopefully, we'll manage a fun programme, even with the changes.

I know some units haven't been able to go back as their halls are still closed, or leaders are vulnerable.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Not yet for us. The church hall where we meet are not happy for community groups to be in yet, and probably not until January.

We aren't even doing outdoor meetings yet, as we just don't have reliable enough weather for that.

[CallarMorvern]

Yes, our girl guiding units are now running as normal indoors, as we are on the Isle of Man. DD had been so happy about this.