To think most things should be up and running again by now?

[Peaplant20]

Sorry this genuinely isn’t supposed to be goady and I know it’s probably been done to death (don’t comment on the thread if you’re not interested!), but genuinely not sure if it’s unreasonable or not now.

I was looking through baby and toddler groups in the local area and some of them say things like… hoping to open in January 2022. It will nearly have been two years of closure by that point and I’m inclined to think the time to re open would’ve been summer when there could’ve been outdoor activities etc.

It’s no skin off my nose as I didn’t have my heart set on going to anything in particular and there’s still plenty of things going on that are running but im just wondering if these places haven’t been able to open by now will they ever?

Would just be interested in some civilised opinions on it, a discussion, not looking for argument, as I said it doesn’t particularly matter to me either way just wondering what other people think.

I suspect a lot of volunteer run groups are not going to re open easily. Nearly 2 years of not being able to run means lots of the volunteers have moved on. Often those for children rely on parents to help out, so as older children have aged out and no younger children being able to start theres a huge gap i the usual pattern of handover from one set of people to the next.

For the organisers there still a lot to weigh up too, room costs have gone up in lots of places with the extra cleaning and there is o guarantee that people will actually attend. I run a similar group. We've been meeting online but it's not ideal and people were asking when we would be back face to face. We restarted in Sept but have had only a couple of families each time. No where near meeting our running costs for booking the room.

Chicken and egg, if we don't meet we will fold, but we can't keep running at such small numbers.

That’s really interesting thanks for your reply. Sorry it must be tough for you rubbing a group, I hope things are back to how you want them to be soon.

I also think those that haven't restarted by now (for whatever reason) will now put it off until we're over the worst of flu season. As PP said its not just the organisers, if people don't want to come then there's no point running it in the first place. In that position I wouldn't want to go to the time and effort of restarting when winter was approaching and numbers would naturally be down with normal bugs/colds/flu anyway, now with covid people may avoid going at this time of year.

My friend runs baby groups and she has been offering outdoor meet ups. She hasn't got back to normal because there are so many unvaccinated pregnant women. She says that as a result perfectly healthy young women have been getting covid and dying leaving babies behind. I've not got her NHS contacts but I've certainly not read so much awfulness in the press.

I can understand why she is being cautious if this is the case. Hopefully soon there will be vaccinated people getting pregnant and it won't be so much of a worry.

I’m in Scotland where the attitudes are more cautious but here schools are not able to rent out their property to groups, many LA community centres are still in crisis mode - running food banks, mobile testing units etc and my local library is a testing centre.
Local churches are still quite cautious and although some are renting out their halls again there’s more cleaning required and numbers limited.
Against that backdrop I can’t see how group organisers can restart.

My baby group is run in a council building. Social distancing means only 6 could go in the room that usually held at least 12. Theoretically everything being up and running sounds right, but there are so many more variables to take into consideration.

A local charity group for toddlers restarted last week. I took DC and we were the only people there! Most are still too cautious to attend.

As PP said getting volunteers could be a major issue.

Venues will still have tight rules which may create issues. Ds attends a clinic in a school and they can’t use their normal room as the bigger rooms they have are being used for their own distancing things.

Costs will have risen for many things which can be a knock on for groups

@ZenNudist
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/11/one-in-six-most-critically-ill-patients-are-unvaccinated-pregnant-women-with-covid
I have read quite a lot in the new about unvaccinated pregnant women in ICU with Covid.
Where I live all of the groups seem to be back to normal and busy. No one is wearing masks or social distancing at the groups that I go to.

My DS is too old now but the problem according to most people I've spoken to is getting venues. They've either closed for good or aren't able to safely have capacity for enough people to make it worthwhile. Our toddler football group, for example, is having to stay outside for the winter whereas it would usually swap to an indoor venue.

It's funny how much this must differ regionally. In my area (rural) everything is back to normal and has been for a while. All playgroups are running as normal with good attendance.

Some good points here.

I do think with many things it’s an excuse to cut things. I do think it’s an excuse more times than not.

A few of the volunteer -run groups have gone back where I am but they have really struggled with getting enough volunteers to run (a toddler group in a church hall run by the church won't be paying rent but will need at least 2-3 DBS checked volunteers to be able to open). Previously those volunteers were a mixture of mums of older toddlers/kids now at school - a lot of whom won't have been to a group for nearly two years and so less likely to go back and volunteer themselves as it's no longer on their radar - and 'active retired' people - who may have found themselves more vulnerable to Covid and so aren't prepared to spend a morning mixing with babies and toddlers who may more easily spread it. They've also now got more cleaning to do, which is more work for people who are volunteers.

The more expensive classes etc may have limitations on numbers that can meet and extra cleaning costs - they may not meet the minimum numbers to cover costs let alone make a profit.

Could you volunteer one morning a week at one so it could reopen or an existing one is it has a firmer basis to be open?

Apart from baby groups what things are still not running in England?
I'm sure they may be something's but I can't think of anything from the top of my head.

Even sauna and steam rooms reopened in August which surprised me.

As for not reopening during the summer - most baby/toddler groups don't run in school hols anyway.

My church looked into reopening its group during the summer term but couldn't get enough volunteers (a lot of the older people who did it previously went away to visit family and understandably didn't want to volunteer - some of them have only just returned to going to church services). There was also a lot of uncertainty around what restrictions would be in place and what would be possible - the type of volunteer-run group that costs £2 a week isn't going to have the set up in place to take bookings, for instance.

In my area things seem to be back to normal. I do agree with pp though about getting volunteers to run the groups (if they are volunteer run rather than a business). It's much harder to persuade someone to start up what is effectively (after not happening for so long) a new class than it is to get them to start helping out with an existing class.

@notacooldad

Apart from baby groups what things are still not running in England? I'm sure they may be something's but I can't think of anything from the top of my head.

Even sauna and steam rooms reopened in August which surprised me.

Miniature railway for some reason; several aren't running yet as we looked to book a few places.

Round here a lot of baby groups are running, but there's weird calendars for some activities that don't seem to take into account normal child activity times.

I think the issue is a lot of council run premises or things like churches where our mother and baby are run are being a lot more cautious than private providers who need to turn a profit. If you can afford it, look into paid for classes or join a gym - I'm at David Lloyd and there is no shortage of baby swimming classes.

Miniature Railway is probably also shortage of volunteers (they're often run partially or fully by retired men), plus limits on numbers as difficult to distance from people.

Miniature railway for some reason; several aren't running yet as we looked to book a few places
Could this be down to lack of volunteers, like the baby groups.
The two miniature railway places near me are run by mostly older, retired males.

A x cross post there about railways!

A private provider is likely to have a regular cleaning contractor who can up their services (cost covered by what they charge) and is probably already informed about Covid cleaning requirements.

A church hall is far more likely to have had a once a week cleaner pre-Covid or for it to be done by volunteers. Much harder to scale up, to get it done between activity bookings and to meet Covid requirements.

Apart from baby groups what things are still not running in England?
Basically anything run by unpaid volunteers who are elderly or vulnerable, and anything that doesn’t make a decent profit. In some cases the venue limits the number of people so they can’t break even to pay for expenses such as room hire, which have often increased due to Covid. In other cases they’ve just lost volunteers and attendees.

The church hall toddler group I used to run has not re-opened. The church leadership is paranoid about covid, so not much has re-started. Consequently all the younger adults have moved to other churches.

This however means we don't have anyone who can be bothered to prepare a risk assessment to get our church hall re-opened, and there for we don't not have the volunteers (or finances to pay someone) to clean. (Much of our finance came from church hall hire, so it's a catch-22)

The toddler group leaders tried to re-open as soon as gov't allowed it, risk assessed it etc etc. However the church said they couldn't re-open as the hall was not in use yet.
That was a year ago, so the leaders kids have grown and moved on. I can't see the group re-opening ever, now.

If they are volunteer run groups on a shoestring they may not have money to restart or worry they wont get the numbers to make it viable.
Lots of volunteers do it while their children are there and will have been looking to drop it and covid perfect excuse plus next batch of volunteers not taken over due to covid.

Extra rules eg numbers in room and cleaning requirements. If you are already giving up 2 hours free giving up extra time to clean church hall and anti bac all the chairs is a step too far.
Our Guides reopened in September but we hardly have any girls due to covid but church charges us full rent. So very little money so can do less or have to charge extra. Plus disruption as it’s been high in school so girls off with covid.
I’m a volunteer. Mixing indoors with mostly unvaccinated tweens/teens. I can see why people wouldn’t volunteer for that especially if older or health issues.
I think people don’t appreciate how much work unpaid volunteers do and there’s little thanks. People won’t be rushing out to volunteer again. Eg If commit to running toddler group but have to miss due to own child having covid, isolating etc people will be cross it’s not on plus hassle of cancelling. Easier to just not bother.