To be shocked at the price of Beavers?

[12ylnon]

Just had to turn down a place for DS at beavers today because it was just too expensive :( I'd been looking forward to him doing it for such a long time too!
£30 for the term- £180 a year. Well there is only four weeks in this term and next term so thats a whopping £7.50 per session. Uniform is another £30ish quid on top of that and the whole price doesn't include trips.
Am i being a massive cheapskate? I just think thats an insane amount to charge for 45 mins of play and activities!

Sorry - just looked at the minutes of our last guide meeting - looks like the helpers need to be paid not the leaders ...

Former Beaver Leader here - can I claim my fees in arrears? There was some kind of admin mistake and I didn't get mine.

And we don't get any fees!!!! Please don't think that any of your subs money is going toward paying the leaders.

All Guide and Scout leaders are volunteers. As district commissioner I take on additional admin and support duties and I don't get paid for that either, nor do the division commissioners, advisers, county commissioners, trainers, activity instructors etc. The only people who are paid are those who work office-type jobs at HQ and certain positions at campsites etc - even at those sites many of the workers will be volunteering.

sorry - cross-posted with quite a few there.

As others have said, £30 covers fees up to the end of Spring term (Easter).

The only uniform is a jumper (usually available second hand), a necker and a woggle (£1.50 I think).

Trips are usually free - hikes, visit to fire station or a working farm etc.

Occasionally trips have an associated cost - we paid £20 for a whole weekend of camping and watersports (food included) - but they are not compulsory.

I'm surprised that your perception is that it's expensive - one of the cheapest activities you can do IME.

as everybody has said it's about £30 x 3 for brownies, cubs, guides etc.
about a third goes to the guide or scout organisation for registration including insurance and the training resources for leaders and overall admin and activity resources etc. the rest covers hall hire and materials for games, crafts, cooking etc.
a cub sweatshirt is about £11 - i'm not sure if anything else is compulsory.

imo it is absolutely the cheapest children's activity possible... at about £3 a session.

fleshwound What helpers are paid? We pay instructors (climbing, archery etc) but all our helpers are volunteers.

Agh x-post OP, glad that's been clarified for you.

OP, I'm glad you've double checked. Your DS will love Beavers, and if you have a look on Ebay you can pick up the uniform second hand pretty reasonably.

If its too expensive talk to them. AIUI these organisations do not want anyone to be prevented from taking part because of financial issues.

We live on the edge of a very poor area and brownies are £1 a session. We vountarily pay £2 as we can afford to do so and we know it helps all the girls if we do and means they are in a better position to offer very reduced fees to girls if necessary.

Look on ebay for uniform as you can get it quite cheaply on there

Paid..............(hollow laugh). If it is just the cost which is putting you off, then could you have a word with the leader about paying weekly? My Guide unit has some families which aren't so well off so we always offer instalment payments whether for subs or for trips.

I think ours is cheap as the church lets them use the hall for free

Oops - there were only two messages when I started posting! I'm glad that it is cleared up, OP. I hope that your DC has a great time at Beavers.

Timber Tee's DS is preschool, it's her own mentality that's 12

Ask them if they have any old uniform. I have twins, so our bill is £180 a year, but we got some free sweaters and tshirts kindly passed on to them.

My older two do GB/BB and I've mostly got second hand uniform cheaply from them, and it is £15/£18 for a term.

Sorry, inadvertently started a mn war.... No offence meant to the Scouts, genuine misunderstanding!

£2.00 a week here for 1 1/2 hours. Great value for money,cheap trips and camping.

For Brownies, we charge £25 a term, to be paid before half-term.

Most of our trips within the city are covered by that, our room rent is about to go up to £15, and we need to pay £30 to Girlguiding to cover national and local activities. We don't get paid at all. I'm amazed that anyone thinks otherwise!

I think £2.50 a week for 90 minutes is quite fair!

It was a noted comment made by the brownie leader when the fin statements were presented. I wasn't there to question it, but I have been put to rights that there is no fee - apologies !

12ylnon, no offence taken! Glad to have a bit of good publicity at what good value we all provide!

If anyone is worried about the cost though, please just speak to the leader confidentially. There are grants we can get to subsidise a girl's time at Brownies, including camps etc.

no offence taken here either!

you can often get the scout activity trousers on ebay quite cheaply - they are very hardwearing and wash beautifully so they are well worth getting if you can afford them

Yes, what MrsR said! LT is 3.7. My brain is a 12 year old boy!

IMO it's the cheapest club my DC's do! £25 per term. That's £75.00 a year or £2.50 a session.

The session lasts an hour, he wears navy joggers bought from tesco etc.., only needed to buy the tops and necker which was probably no more than £20.00 and will see them until cubs.