To want to say F*** off to all the Beaver parents and throw the towel in?

[DippyScout]

Sorry sounds dramatic but my goodness I am at my wits end. I run a very well established Beaver group. I work bloody hard to make sure we have vibrant, engaging and exciting activities every week that link to all the badges and all children can achieve in. I reckon in total I put around 4-5 hours a week into the admin, setting up, running etc of this colony, all for the sake of the 20 Beavers who come each week and really enjoy it. I am a volunteer, a volunteer who has a full time job, children of my own, many other commitments. I do this because I really believe it benefits the children and I adore the children.... however their parents - well that's another thing! On large they simultaneously refuse to help out or support, but expect the moon on a stick and constantly complain and whinge. I have some parents who will help out when asked, but others, particularly a couple of them, who are causing me so much hassle I am tempted to throw the towel in. I don't want to kick their children out (lovely children who love the group) but the parents complain continuously about the nature, style of activities not being badge focused enough (all activities built around badges), complain if I organise trips, complain that we've made the group more inclusive (apparently they don't 'pay' (voluntary subs) for their children to not have full attention), and the list goes on. Over the years I have noticed volunteer support from parents dropping each year, and less and less support. I am a volunteer, it is wearing me down! My children have been and gone from Beavers, I only now do this because I enjoyed it. I've spoken to them, addressed issues clearly and firmly, but they are sapping all the joy from this role! I've been doing this for over 5 years and right now I want to throw the towel in!

glut and daddyfox are shining examples of why soon no voluntary kids groups will be offered. You both post in an arrogant entitled arsehole way!

People like you deserve medals, not this cr**p! My two did Beavers and are now at cubs, and I have always felt awful at the lack of support or effort some parents put in - such at attending parades and activity days to help out etc. I always do what I can and make sure my children never miss any of the Remembrance day, St George's Day, Litter picking, Christmas carol services, Woodland management days or whatever, unless totally unavoidable. Parents seem to take it all for granted and can't be bothered to help out (although some may have home commitments which make it hard, I suppose). There's never any excuse for complaining to the group leaders about minor whinges, though.

Lately our cubs group have brought in a 'compulsory' rota for parents to help out - two per night, works out about once a term but I think it makes people appreciate the effort involved by all the regular leaders, as well as enabling numbers to be increased. (they probably make allowances for people who really can't attend). Might be worth trying? Akela just said 'right, we can't run this size group without parental support so I will be drawing up a rota, please let me know if there are any dates you can't make'.

Hope you can resolve things so you feel able to stay - I'm so sorry you have had to cope with so much rubbish!

Sorry - just RTFT - parent rotas have obv already been discussed to the nth degree.....

So who should help out @DeathStare? Because most people think their reason is a good and true reason not to help. Ergo massive issue with not having enough parents helping out.

Everybody thinks they are special, and their life is harder than everyone else but of course their kid shouldn’t miss out, it’s the other parents who need to help!

There is always some way to help out.

*BigDaddyFox

Throw the towel in!

Are you looking for some kind of praise and affirmation from parents because you're not being paid? It's your choice to be a volunteer, you're not obligated to be one*

FFS, BigDaddyFox, where did the OP say she’s looking for praise or affirmation? (Although she definitely deserves both these). She just doesn’t want parents complaining about the effort she does put in.

With regard to the parent rotas, I’m a cub leader and I run one (non voluntary- I just send it out at the beginning of each term). Most families only have to do one evening a year. Of course there will be always parents who truely can’t attend (illness, kids with SN etc, and that’s fine), but the majority of my parents do come along, even if they have to bring younger dc or swap with another parent.
The benefit of this is that they get to see what happens at cubs, how much work goes into the meetings, and for a rare few it leads to becoming a more permanent assistant/leader.

So who should help out @DeathStare? Because most people think their reason is a good and true reason not to help. Ergo massive issue with not having enough parents helping out

Whoever wishes to. If the group doesn't run, it doesn't run. So be it.

There is always some way to help out
One of my DCs attends a brownies/cubs/scouts/guides group. There is absolutely no way possible I could help out. Ever. I drop my child there then take another child to a different activity in a different town then return just in time to pick first child up, then go to pick the second child up. It is just not possible. I often also drop the child of a friend of mine. She has a disability/chronic illness that can suddenly attack without notice with varying degrees of her being affected. There is no way she could commit to helping out. She can't even commit to being able to drop her child off every week.

Please don't assume that just because you can that everyone can.

FWIW I do a lot of voluntary work. Including working in areas many people would refuse to go in and with some people who some of the parents at my DC's cubs/brownies/guides/scouts group would not touch with a barge pole. The voluntary work I (and many many others) do impacts on society generally ; everyone benefits including them and their children. I don't demand everyone should do the voluntary work I do. People do what they can, what fits around their other demands and what fits their skills set, and nobody has to justify to me or anyone else why they don't do the same voluntary work that I do.

It's the same beavers/brownies/cubs/scouts/swimming club/youth group whatever. If you can do it, if you feel it fits your skills set, then great do it. And those who can't do it shouldn't moan about how you do it. But if you can't do it, don't do it. If it doesn't run, it doesn't run. That would be a great shame but nobody would die. But FFS don't exclude children based on the fact that their parents can't volunteer - in all likelihood you are just going to exclude children who are most marginalised - the children with disabled parents, parents with mental health issues, single parent families, children who are most impoverished. Arguably the children who need it the most.

glutanddaddyfoxare shining examples of why soon no voluntary kids groups will be offered. You both post in an arrogant entitled arsehole way!

Thanks for that.

Actually, the OP appreciated my post and understood being hassled wasn't right.

Note, we stopped going to beavers BECAUSE we couldn't help out.

You have no idea what my other commitments are. And I'm neither entitled or arrogant.

Before my kids, I ran an after school group for children every Friday for 2 years. Voluntarily.

But judge away by all means.

deathstare While I agree with quite a lot of what you say, it’s interesting that one of the reasons you give for not being able to help is that you have other children at other activities.

It seems to me that children these days do lots of activities (certainly more than when I was young), and, in general I think that’s a good thing for the child.

However, this increases the demand for club spaces, and in turn, the demand for people to run the clubs. I can accept that parents shouldn’t be expected to help out at profit-making clubs (in our area this would be swimming, karate etc). But those which are volunteer led (scouts, guides, football, rugby etc) often rely on extra help from parents to meet the demand for spaces. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable for leaders to expect one or two evenings a year from most parents (illness, disability etc excepted). If you genuinely can’t offer this due to logistics of your childs activities, offer to help with a fundraiser, or a trip or whatever. Your child is benefiting from a cheap, fun club.

Your child is benefiting from a cheap, fun club

Yes they are. And your family are benefitting from the fact that I do voluntary work that has other imapcts on society. Swings and roundabouts.

Or I should volunteer at brownies/guides/cubs/scouts and you should volunteer to do the voluntary work I do, and we should all spread ourselves so thinly that it's useless.

I have an older relative who attends a day centre that relies on volunteers. Am I obliged to volunteer there too? And another relative who uses a mental health drop-in run by volunteers. Should I have to volunteer there too? I have, in the past, been a user of Citizen's Advice Bureau (which depends on volunteers) and a voluntary agency that offers bereavement support and a breastfeeding support group (and probably others that I can't even remember right now). Am I obliged to therefore volunteer for these organisations? And if not, why am I obliged to volunteer at guides/scouts/cubs/beavers? How many lots of volunteering should I be doing?

why am I obliged to volunteer at guides/scouts/cubs/beavers?

You’re not obliged, and it certainly sounds like you’ve done more volunteering than most. However, if parents don’t help out on occasion, then clubs can’t and won’t run.

You may accept that as a natural consequence, and fair enough if you do, but plenty of parents won’t.

A cub pack near me recently closed as the leader couldn’t cope anymore. He was running it on his own, with a part-time assistant (due to night shifts), and with a parent rota in place. 24 cubs, but he was consistently let down by parents. He sent several emails warning if this continued he’d have to close the pack, and asked for help. Not one parent stepped up, but almost all of them moaned when the pack closed.

I'm a Brownie leader and have, for the most part, been blessed with lovely parents. There have been the odd one or two, but mostly they have been fine, although that might be partly because my own daughter was in the unit and so at that time many of the parents were also personal friends.

I don't have a compulsory rota, although I have considered it in the past. I'm not in a position to help at my children's activities because the only evening I'm not working late is the one I run Brownies on, so I do understand it is difficult for parents and a compulsory rota makes me feel uncomfortable. Luckily I have a couple trusty parents that can be relied upon to help when no-one else offers, although I have come very close to cancelling events in the past due to lack of help.

I'm also a volunteer and I get where you're coming from with ungrateful parents. The thing is you can walk out the door when you want if I ever get as bitter towards my parents I would leave. Sorry to sound harsh but all my parents know I have a full time job and a family at home. You only do 4-5 hours a week I wish that's all I do I have 2 nights a week a camp a month and all the admin that goes with that. Where are your leadership skills ? Tell the parents out right if they don't like what you do in the time you give take them elsewhere. So woman up and lead your kids be assertive remember you are after all not only their leader but also their inspiration.

However, if parents don’t help out on occasion, then clubs can’t and won’t run. You may accept that as a natural consequence, and fair enough if you do, but plenty of parents won’t

And the same is true of domestic violence refuges, homeless shelters, NCT, disability support groups, Homestart, CAB, Samaritans, many mental health services, elderly befriending services many cancer support services, the RNLI, rape crisis, mountain rescue, food banks, animal shelters.

Should everyone who takes a walk in the countryside be coerced/forced to do a shift for Mountain Rescue? Should everyone who has phoned Samaritans feel compelled to fundraise/staff the helpline? For many people the point where they use these services may actually be the worst time in their lives to be able to volunteer for them. Some people will volunteer for them at different times in their lives. The same is true with groups such as brownies/guides/cubs/scouts.

It's sad when any of these groups stop running. It really is. But there is only so much any one individual can do. Nobody can volunteer for all the worthy organisations they/their family may utilise. Nobody has all that time. Nobody has all those skills. At different stages in their life some people may be able to do lots of volunteering, at other times they may not be able to do any. And threatening to withdrawn the service from specific individuals if they don't "volunteer" really isn't in the spirit of why these groups were formed.

And threatening to withdrawn the service from specific individuals if they don't "volunteer" really isn't in the spirit of why these groups were formed

I’d never go that far, it’s not fair on the children, so I agree with you to a point.

I do draw up a rota, as very few parents will voluntarily put their names down. If anyone genuinely can’t help, then they can just come and let me know, I don’t need to know the reason. However, that’s only happened once in the 18 months I’ve been running the rota.

It’s not always a threat - it’s the honest truth!

But I’ve noticed that people have less time to give now.

If all parents helped out 1 hour a month then all these clubs would just run smoothly. That's it, just one hour. I know lots of people who work and volunteer. There are 2 F/T workers on the committee of where I help out.

There are lots of things you can do, you don't have to get a babysitter and go along to the place. You can do a bit of finance, marketing or admin. You can rock up for an hour and put things out. You can find the time if you really want to. I think that parents should be given a form that they sign saying they will commit to X hours a month and if they don't then they should be asked to leave. Why, because it is not fair.

I know it was a long time ago but I don’t think any of the parents had anything to do with my brownies or guides groups. Just dropped us off and picked us up. There were two leaders for brownies (neither had children even) and three ish for guides (whose children were all either older or they didn’t have them).
Young people, late teens early twenties, and older people 50-60s tended to lead them.

Wow. My children aren't yet old enough for Beavers / Brownies but I am incredibly grateful for my time in guiding and to the people who volunteered to make that happen.

To the poster saying she volunteers in other charities and therefore can't help out - that would be fine if communities would pull together to volunteer across a range of causes however it sounds like this is not the case.

All in all some of the attitudes on this thread have made me incredibly sad about the society we live in today.

@restofthetimes

In olden days there probably wasn't rules on adult to child ratio

When I was a kid I didn't go to a lot of groups - 2 in my whole childhood & my mum was a stay at home mum

Kids now seem to go to loads of clubs / activities

One of my friends couldn't possibly help out at any clubs as she works (PT) & her child is in 6 clubs a week ! Some paying activity's & only 2 are volunteer run

Think parents need to focus on fewer activities & ensure they can manage them properly

People on this thread have repeatedly said that there are other ways of helping for people who can't help at evening sessions due to other commitments. Examples given were a weekend activity once or twice a year (yes, perhaps even the dreaded church parade!), doing the accounts, other ideas might be ordering the craft supplies, perhaps researching trips and activities and passing the information on. Your circumstances would have to be most extreme to literally not be able to fit any of that in.

gluteus, I do think that you invalidated the rest of your point somewhat by the 'last straw' being to get up at the unearthly hour of 8am (!) on a Sunday to attend the twice-a-year-maximum church parade. When I was in Brownies we were expected to go monthly! Even if you don't believe, church is part of our culture - and, crucially, of the culture of the organisation - and in this instance could have been a reminder that Mother's Day wasn't always about cards and meals out. What you don't seem to have understood was that that 'nice cheap activity' was not a service for you, but is based on an ethos and a mission (not meant in the religious sense here) involving the teaching of particular values to the children and the encouragement of a sense of community. It's not an ethos that Scouting/Guiding exactly hide. I think your expectations clashed with the reality.

You know, the problem is parents expect Guiding and Scouting to be run in exactly the same way as they experienced it as a child, 30 plus years ago.

Back then, certain members of the community could happily give hours and hours a week running these types of clubs. There were more single income families for a start. People did have more time (and more community spirit IMHO)
These type of people are now far fewer in number. Therefore these groups have had to adapt how they run (in the main) and they have to turn to the parents for help. What else do you expect them to do? The parents demand ''excellent care" and "'great activities", but like schools, our people resources are finite, the more support we get the better we can do.

The vast majority of parents CAN help, they just choose not to, because they have other priorities. That's fine by the way. However, IME these are the parents most likely to complain.

If enough of these parents gave a very small amount of time, we would be able to support the very few genuines cases of really can't help. It's like herd immunity, if enough parents are vaccinating (helping), the few parents who genuinely can't vaccinate (help) are protected by the herd. Unfortunately, in society today, far too many parents think they are the special case.

Back to the OP, she actually wasn't "demanding" every parent helped. She was just worn down by endless complaints and moaning and hardly any support.
OP, I hope you get your Beavers mojo back soon. You do a great thing (as do all the other volunteers for all the other organisations)

I've moved into a training and senior Commissioner role now (Have just finished my Division role and am moving to County) and I am not running a unit at the moment (I do miss it a lot), but over the years, my "favourite" complaints include:

Parent of a girl who just stopped coming with no communication from the parent: Why did she not get a leaving present? Her brother got one when he left cubs, so she is entitled to one.

Parent asked me to move my Guide meeting half an hour earlier because it would be easier for her.

We had a HRH visiting our community and some of the older Guides were invited to meet him and talk about their Baden Powell Award (which has a service element) - parent kicked off massively that her Rainbow daughter should be allowed to come.

Parent who wants daughter to leave, but still wants her to be allowed on the trips and camps if she fancies them.

Parent who was 90 minutes late picking up her daughter from a camp because her toddler had done a poo. (Brownie was in tears thinking her mum had forgotten her)

In our scout group we have parents who don't help out, but they help out at other voluntary activities such as soccer or GAA, or Tidy Towns etc. I'm a scout leader and don't help at other activities that my own children participate in. But that's ok, we're all volunteers and we all help each other.

What totally and utterly melts my head is the parents who don't help at scouts because they've to drop another child to soccer and they don't help at soccer because they're rushing to collect from GAA etc. These parents use every local group in our town and don't help at any of them because they don't have the time and how dare we ask them to because Little Johnnie is entitled to all his activites don't you know.

There are usually 24 in a troup and 40 weeks in a year so even if you needed a parent helper every week it still works out at less than twice a year. Surely most people can accommodate that in some way?

Ime though it's not necessarily an every week thing, it can be just for some trips or activities or even just offering to dry and pack a tent or two after a camp, helping to cart stuff back to trailers, turning up to support things and paying your dues on time.....and not moaning for no reason.

I've had two boys all the way from Beavers to Explorers and I've had to have a word with the leaders twice. First one was when the obnoxious son of my neighbour was continually goading and swearing at my son to get a reaction to get him into trouble. he didn't react other than to get upset. This was witnessed by other boys as well. I had a conversation about it with the leaders to make them aware, I didn't blame them, you'd need eyes in the back of your head sometimes to catch everything. second time was when some of the young leaders were a bit "over enthusiastic" in their helping and a few of the boys got hurt after being tossed onto the floor. My DSs not involved but I witnessed it

I think people also forget all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes organising activities and camps that, if they were provided by commercial organisations, would cost £100s rather than the £20 it's cost them for a child free weekend.

I wonder if beavers is a particularly difficult activity to find volunteers for. There will be lots of parents with younger kids who maybe need to be fed / put to bed around the time beavers is held. Also when kids are younger, often parents haven't found babysitters. I've volunteered extensively throughout my adult life, but helping out at beavers between 5 and 6pm at the time just felt too difficult. I'd now willingly help out at cubs / scouts because my dcs are older and can cope with changes to their routines and I can leave the older ones alone while I help out.

It's a perennial problem, lack of support from parents. Did cub scout leader many years ago. No problem when it came or money for anything pack wanted to do or needed. I came to feel I was providing a cheap childminding service for a couple of hours a week. You have to get your group leader involved, inform the parents of the risk of Beavers folding and if there were some assistants then their kiddies could do/achieve more. Good luck.