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.

Apart from baby groups what things are still not running in England?

In my life it is church stuff and home education stuff.

Church: hall not re-opened, so no refreshments after the service. No social groups or study groups. No 'events'.
Singers still have to be masked or behind screens, so we are limited to two singers (or households) in the choir, because there is only room for 2 screens, and singing in a mask is impossible. The service is not back to normal yet either, a lot of the things we had to introduce for infection control are still in place.

Home education groups: although most of these were allowed to reopen during lockdown because they were for kids education, a lot of the venues they were held in weren't allowed to open.
It took so long that most of the volunteers running things moved on as their kids had grown to the next stage, so they haven't restarted. Other new things are starting up, but volunteers are reluctant to run public events, so they tend to be a few families getting together privately and not opening it to others.

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
Sad innit. All the expensive things are open while the free or cheap things are closed. Sucks for people in poverty, mums with little kids and not much money, etc.

I sadly feel for council run/associated groups here Covid provided the perfect excuse to axe all groups apart from those in the poorest of areas. Also all local weigh in clinics have been completely axed, the organisation in charge of all local hv services on behalf of the NHS had already cut them down to the bare minimum pre-lockdown, to much local out-cry and protest, covid has subsequently allowed them to axe all clinics.
I really feel for new first time mums now, these services and groups were a life line for me when my first was little.

YANBU but I can see why it's happening. The events I run need venues: one is still being used as a testing centre and the other hasn't decided on a 'Covid Policy' yet because it's run by volunteers for whom opening up the venue again hasn't been a particular priority.

Add into that the fact that the 'Covid Policy' will almost invariably involve a lot of cleaning for us, which makes running events more of a hassle (not to mention pointless since Covid is spread via aerosols, but apparently hygiene theatre makes everyone feel like they've Done Something...) and we'd rather wait until things have calmed down.

Some stuff round here isn’t reopening as the people who run them have moved on. There was a very popular yoga group that isn’t going to be returning as the teacher has gone back to her old job. I can understand why. Two years with uncertain income must be a nightmare. The local kids ballet class is apparently not coming back either. Similar reasons. It’s hard enough making an income when self-employed. I can’t imagine how difficult it is when your income relies on in-person classes that can be shut down in a second if someone tests positive.

My local junior parkrun has only just restarted, a few months after they were allowed to, because many of the core team of volunteers moved on to other things and weren’t interested in coming back to it. A new team had to take over, sort out the land owner permissions, beg for additional volunteers, get new equipment as things had been lost in the changeover etc. I imagine there are similar obstacles with a lot of volunteer run groups, including baby and toddler groups. And as others have said, not everyone is rushing back to these things so there may not be as much demand as there was before.

There are problems with volunteers: health issues, people moved on or cut volunteering because of DC’s risk of Covid. Also many school restrict access to their premises for clubs, community groups etc. Many people (especially children) are still not vaccinated.
One of DD’s clubs are still online because of this, it’s not ideal at all but …. They used to rent premises at school and now they are not allowed and they’ve lost some volunteers. So Zoom is the only option.

I think Covid has highlighted a more general issue: that it's now harder to find volunteers for things like this, because a lot of the volunteers used to be SAHMs and now more women are working (or working longer hours on average). It's tricky for things that rely on volunteers.

I agree it's very regional. The Yorkshire town I is live in is basically 100% back to normal apart from some mask wearing in shops and people have really moved on.Our local Covid rates seem to bob up & down around the national average for it's worth, so it's definitely not absence-of-Covid. Almost anything catering for children and / or families is very much up & running in an Old Normal way. The few things that haven't restarted were winding down naturally anyway (ie a church run toddler group I know of where finding volunteers pre-Covid was already a big issue). But talking to friends in the SE I get the impression it's quite different, which I find fascinating and can't really find an explanation for.

Covid has without question been used as an excuse to get rid of some things and not reintroduce them even where it's possible they might still be viable. That said, there are also genuine issues with staffing.

People have made good points about volunteers, and how lockdown and the various restrictions have essentially disrupted the supply. It's also the case that there's a general labour shortage at the moment, so for those where someone in a paid role would have been facilitating, it's harder to get people to do those jobs now than it would have been 2 years ago. Some older retired people are being more cautious, so that has an impact.

And even though the awful bubble bursting system has gone, there are still greater demands and unpredictability for children's caregivers than there was pre-covid. That means they're less likely to be able to commit to volunteering. So the parent who works 3 days a week and would otherwise help out one morning at a playgroup is less able to do that now: any time their toddler has a cough they're expected to test and isolate them, so they have to catch up their work on their days off, and that gets in the way of committing to anything else. Things like that all combine together and have a cumulative impact.

If they are volunteer run groups things like safeguarding, first aid or dbs may have expired so can’t just re start until that’s all sorted. Hassle and time of re doing plus wary about mixing on courses for covid reasons.

isittheholidaysyet That's really interesting. The church I go to is basically back to normal, bar a bit more ventilation and a fairly tokenistic bottle of hand sanitiser on a table by the door. This is very much congregation-led if that makes sense - we'd have more precautions if people wanted them, but the overall concensus was a desire for normality. Our church is younger than many congregations though which might partially explain it. To me this kind of thing highlights how much responses are culturally determined, given a vaccinated 50yo in my town is at no more or less objective risk than one anywhere else in England. It really does fascinate me, especially as an immigrant who is always trying the figure out the nuances of English culture anyway!

Covid has without question been used as an excuse to get rid of some things and not reintroduce them even where it's possible they might still be viable. That said, there are also genuine issues with staffing.

Some places are using Covid as an excuse but equally for a lot of places, the covid break has given them a good reason to make changes that have been needed but that they didn't want to implement as it would rock the boat or lead to complaints from service users that the goalposts were being moved from what they signed up for.

My DDs Brownie group has been amalgamated with two different groups because the individual groups were just about keeping their heads above water before covid, but during the lockdowns it gave the leaders chance to objectively look at the costs/time for each group and realise that it just wasn't sustainable long term any more, and with the rising costs and reducing volunteers they had to make a change somewhere. Brown Owl is am NHS worker so she shut down the groups during the first lockdown as she literally could not provide the groups and do her day job and none of the other volunteers was able to take charge. The long "covid break" was the perfect time to change the structure and groups being offered because the old cohort was aging out and they could begin with a clean slate and start fresh rather than constantly having a mix of old and new groups where a new system would be a change to the older girls and risked the parents upset.

The previous set up was three smaller groups (Monday/Tuesday/Thursday) where they could only do small scale activities due to the facilities at the church hall which was the only venue with availability multiple times a week. Brown Owl also had different assistants at each session due to availability and was always needing volunteers if one of them was sick/unavailable one week. During lockdown the leaders got together and as some volunteers dropped out the rest basically agreed that the best way to run things was one larger session, once a week on a Wednesday, as it worked for all of the volunteers availability (and allowed for more flexibility if a volunteer was sick/unavailable one week) and meant they could do more activities. Also, because they would have a single larger group they could afford to hire a different community hall once a week that had a larger capacity and more facilities which has allowed the girls to do more varied activities (eg they have a full, large kitchen so can do more actual cooking activities together rather than the "assemble premade items and call it cooking" that they used to do as the church hall kitchen had room for 2/3 max and had a basic hob, water boiler and sink and mot much else).

Even big businesses have used covid to reassess working strategies - I work for a national supermarket ... my store used to open 6am until midnight but between about 9.30/10 and midnight we used to get barely any customers (I would regularly work shifts where less than 10 customers came in during the last 2 hrs and their spending barely covered the wages of the members of staff that had to be in to just cover the checkouts/security) and it wasn't worth the hassle with getting staff to work the midnight shifts as nobody wanted to do them, but the company didn't want to randomly announce a shortening of their hours as it would have a negative impact on their image ... during the first covid lockdown the store hours were restricted to 8am-8pm, to allow nights time to restock earlier to allow the home shoppers more time to pick the huge influx of additional orders before the store opened (plus to allow us to rejig staff to cover shielding/sick/parental cover etc). During the lockdown, head office assessed customer shopping patterns, staff ratios etc and made the decision that when we went back to "normal" opening hours we would only open 6am-10pm rather than 6am-midnight. The pandemic allowed them to spin a logistical change that saved them a hell of a lot of money as "for the customer benefit" rather than just "to increase our profits".

I do think that a lot of volunteers, as with catering staff, have found that they quite like having their lives back! A lot of volunteers are underappreciated, and don't get enough support from their service users (thinking of parents not helping enough with brownies/scouts, not pulling their weight generally etc.), and so won't be in a rush to come back, especially if they feel they will be risking their health.

There is more covid in my area now than at any other time in the last 20 months. So I can see why people are cautious as our area is stretched for medical care, even in normal times. Retirement & tourist community.

There is a mental health crisis 'calming cafe' in my town. Pre-Covid, you could spend up to 14 evenings there, from opening to closing, with 14 different hot drinks on offer along with lots of activities.
Now, you only get 2 evenings in 1 week, for 2 hours. And they tell you when they are. You can't choose. No activities and no drinks at all "because of Covid". Not allowed to talk to other guests.
Seems nuts to me when you can spend time there, 2 metres away from staff who are masked etc, no drinks/activities.... then can go into a Costa and it is totally normal.

I go to a few different classes with my DD with some paid and some free and since these classes have reopened barely any parents have turned up, I regularly go to these classes where there might only be me and maybe one or two other mums.

I don’t know if this is the case in other places but maybe the demand isn’t there for these classes to be put on either.

In our local area in Scotland, so more cautious, the LA have been super cautious about reopening buildings for groups to be able to book space. Council staff are still wfh to a large extent as is recommended , so there won’t be people physically in the building to facilitate groups using it. The groups that are running even those run by paid staff, free and aimed at users with the greatest needs, are still being run outdoors as much as possible. Indoor groups are reduced in size due to COVID. Parents tend to not come if their child is even slightly unwell, just in case, whereas pre COVID a child with a basic cold would still be brought along. If these groups were self funding there is no way enough money would be taken. Many of the mums for toddler groups are pregnant with another child, and may not be vaccinated, and are super cautious or they have older school age children who may be isolating. Also due to building use being restricted groups have to run where venues are available and not always where they previously were, so if mums on low incomes are reliant on public transport there is a cost implication plus concerns arround using the public transport and whether it runs at a suitable time or near the new venue.

Slightly different scenario, but I used to do am dram pre-Covid, in an established group that had been running for years. It closed abruptly sometime in 2020, along with everything else, then there were tentative noises of reopening at the end of last summer, obviously nothing came of it and it's now dead for good. Other similar groups in my area have also shut down.

As PPs have said, volunteers move on, attendees move on too. It's now been close to two years and a huge disruption for groups that more often than not were run on a very tight budget.

Venues are a big issue. Schools here still aren’t allowed to let out spaces and community centres and the likes still aren’t open except for food banks and testing/vaccination centres.

Another reason volunteer groups may be slow to open, or not bother, is because of the grief they’ve taken. The playscheme I was involved with for 15+ years until a couple of years ago has now folded because the new volunteer chair and treasurer both quit after taking stick from people complaining about them not opening in the summer (they couldn’t, it wasn’t even a choice - if you can’t hire the suave you can’t open!). They’ve walked and there’s nobody currently willing to replace them.
Two local Brownie groups have closed for the same reason.

The hall where I used to run our Brownies still hasn't reopened. It's run by a private company (which also runs several other halls and at least one leisure centre in our town) and while they have opened lots of their other venues, it seems they aren't that bothered about ours - maybe it wasn't making them enough money? They also used to do a special "charity rate" for hiring the hall, but in the places they have reopened, that's been scrapped and everyone now has to pay the same rate. So even if we do get back in there, our weekly rent will have almost doubled, and we'll have to put subs up.

Fortunately, we have been able to use a conference room at a local gym, for free, and our group has been thriving since September (particularly as a couple of other local Brownies have closed) but it's not a long-term solution. I completely agree with those who have said that the break has allowed a lot of volunteers to reassess whether they want to stay in their roles. From a Girlguiding perspective, the extra risk assessments and paperwork that are now needed have made it a much more complicated task than it used to be!

I think for things like baby groups, they've been hit extra hard as the natural turnover of members (+ many volunteers) is about 9 months-1 year, as many of the mums will go back to work at that point. When the first lockdown happened, I was on maternity leave with DS2, and helped with an NCT walking group and Bumps & Babies group, but he's now 2.5 and would a)not stay in a buggy for a long walk (but can't walk fast enough to keep up with a group) and b)would be a liability around small babies at a B&B group.

I think the natural cycle of these groups is that a few regulars develop, which means as new mums come to try it out, there are some people who will talk to them and ease them in. Then, sometimes when the volunteers running it move on, some of those regulars may step up to help out. But having been completely cut off for 18+ months, they would all be starting from scratch with a bunch of strangers in a room, which is harder to get going, and people are less likely to volunteer to help if they weren't involved already.

OP, are you talking about groups run by volunteers, or private businesses where the organisers are trying to make a living from the classes?

If you're talking about volunteers, this is a thankless task at the best of times. I'm not the least bit surprised if people don't want to volunteer to spend their time indoors with a group of unvaccinated children right now and all the covid protocols that are required to run a group right now such as extra cleaning of equipment, etc.

If you're talking about businesses, you're presuming that the leaders have not had to take on other work to make ends meet over the pandemic. Your comment about opening over the summer doesn't make sense - unless they are specifically holiday schemes, parent and toddler activities don't get enough attendance during school holidays to make it worth opening. Such businesses usually have a lot of outgoings for venue hire and so on, before any customers have walked in the door. Profit margins can be small at the best of times. Take into account the current need to limit numbers, and people's caution about mixing in groups, and I don't think many businesses can make it work right now.

Thanks everyone I’ve learnt a lot from your responses! PP I’m a FTM and didn’t realise lots of those groups didn’t run over summer in ‘normal times’ either. Good to know :)

I used to run toddler classes but had to close down recently. I'd not been able to work since Feb 2020. When restrictions lifted earlier this year, the church hall I used still didn't want to open. They cautiously resumed in June. Room rent was higher to cover extra cleaning. Plus they kept social distancing in place. Which meant only half my usual numbers could enter the room, which meant barely covering my costs. When schools were due to go back as normal in Sept the local parents became even more cautious and people were booking places then at the last minute requesting refunds. It just became impossible to make the tiny bit of profit I could make pre-covid so sadly I had to abandon it. A lot of groups near me are waiting til new year as the building's managers were all anticipating high covid and flu cases over the winter and many volunteers and staff were elderly and more vulnerable. It's such a shame for all the parents and littlest ones who really need interaction, but I hope you can find things OP!

Pretty much everything baby/toddler wise seems to be open in my area (and thank god as it's saved my sanity as a SAHM!) Private run groups, bigger franchises and cheap church groups. One stay and play we go to is booked up every session without fail.