Scout groups not enough Volunteers

[girlfriend44]

Local Scout group has lots of children signed up but enough volunteers do in danger of closing.

Is this the same everywhere?
What stops people from volunteering?

@NecklessMumster that must have been years ago - they’ve let atheists into scouts for nearly 10 years, we even have our own promise!

Same in our area too.

DH did for a while 17 years ago and even then it was seriously hard work and I was sorting ideas and buying things out of our money every week to do (thinking of ideas is hard).

A teacher friend was running Beavers and gave it up last year she said just the paperwork now is too much it's not the fun informal club it once was (not Scouts fault just insurance etc and the way of the world).

I have zero time. I also don't like entertaining/looking after children that aren't mine.

DS would probably like scouts. They will not being going to it because the local groups require you to join a rota to volunteer to keep it going. Its basically an enlarged childcare swap - you look after however many kids 3 times a term in return for someone having your child the other weeks.

What I would prefer is something in the same vein but with paid, trained staff and no obligation for me to help. I would happily pay significantly higher fees for this to be made available.

I just don't want to help out at a scout group.

I know it's supposed to be, we checked, maybe that group in our weird small town, it was about 8 years ago

When my DM was a Brownie leader, there were no mobile phones or email. If parents wanted to moan or be otherwise demanding, they had to turn up in person. Plus no GDPR, DBS, health and safety, risk assessments, etc. She and the other leader spend a max of an hour a week on planning. It was a different world.

I'm atheist. So are the other scout leaders in my troop. We give all the kids a choice of promises. I was asked at my first appointments interview if I was Christian. I said no, and there was no problem. My second one (I left, forever. And returned to a different group 6 months later) never mentioned religion.

Our GSL is Christian, so there are church parades at the local church. No one has to go, very few do, usually those who go to that church anyway.

Oh and I'd agree in many areas its still heavily influenced by the church. All the groups where i live are dominated by church going families, the few none parent volunteers are always very churchy types so there's a lot of church related activities.

It’s time. The amount a leader is expected to do is ridiculous now. This just spills out to the parents and the kids, and as a parent I find it SO rare to find a unit with organised leaders. My kid is giving it a few more weeks before she decides to quit - she’s been in for 7 years.

I also refuse to personally get involved with Guiding anymore. A shit show from the top and an organisation being destroyed, not sure about Scouts.

It really isn't. We taught DS the secular promise for Beavers - his leader told him that was silly and he should say God instead. DS is only just turned 6 so he felt pressured into it

That's very wrong of the Beaver leader, and completely against the ethos of scouting - scouting is open to all faiths, including those with none, that's why there's a secular promise available! In my experience, it's not the way most groups are run.

I'm a cub leader, and the only time we mention religion is if we are finding out about different faiths as part of one badge, or when a cub makes their promise (and not always then, if they choose the secular version). We do take part in Remembrance Parade once a year, which includes a church service, but that is part of a larger community event, with many different groups taking part, and is totally optional.

I was a Woodcraft Folk leader for 3 years with some other parents so that ds and friends could have a group. I was pretty bad at it, didn't often enjoy it and my favourite part of every week was walking away from the session. It was exhausting beyond belief and i think doing it alongside full time work damaged my marriage. There was a genuine sense of satisfaction at providing something that otherwise wouldn't have run.

There was literally almost no help at all from the central organisation to make the groups genuinely inclusive- we had children with learning disabilities and limited language skills in the group - WF and its ethos is very verbal.

What i do believe is that there were far fewer of these sorts of opportunities in the past - maybe one per area. It wasn't expected when I was growing up that every child would be part of these sorts of activities imo.

My DS is a scout and loves it. We work long days and are only just home in time to get him there let alone organise activities and get there early. I appreciate the people who run it mostly have jobs too, I’m hugely grateful to them as we’re really not camping/outdoors/adventurous people but ds is so it scratches that itch for him. We certainly don’t use it as babysitting like a pp suggests. I think it’s such a shame that it’s dying out somewhat due to lack of volunteers but I can see why with long working days and commutes.

i left because of the gender stuff.
im not taking that safeguarding risk. I won’t be complicit.
I miss the kids and the comaraderie. I’d go back if they dropped the stonewall claptrap and got proper advice about the law and kids needs.

guiding is fucked. Scouts is a year or two off of being fucked.

they don’t see it at all.

idiots.

As a former leader, the bottom line is loads of kids want to do it, not enough parents want to volunteer as leaders, add in lack of experience of activities, hiding to nowhere. Also now parents want to pay for camps of dubious qualities for outdoor activities!

It's an hour a week and you have to drop and collect, it's hardly childcare 🙄

This.

It's an hour a week and you have to drop and collect, it's hardly childcare 🙄

Not the point. The biggest reason scouts is so popular is its SO cheap. Compared with music lessons (30 quid an hour) or sports clubs (a tenner or so) its usually affordable to far more, purely because of the volunteer element.

I'll be controversial saying this, but i actually don't think its massively "valuable" as an extra curricular activity to kids who are from homes with active outdoor lifestyles either. Very few kids continue it to an age where it becomes valuable in terms of extra curricular on ucas etc, and the skills learned in the can easily acquired at home, few of them are developed to any level of tangible proficiency. Its predominantly just a fun, undemanding social activity.

Same problem round here.

I do think there has been a decline in a sense/obligation you “should” volunteer.

My parents both worked full time, but both volunteered for various things (meals on wheels, church accounts, PTA etc). They still volunteer now (as do my aunts and uncles).

Hello just to cheer you up ive just volunteered! I am DBS checked for my job and i LOVE admin and accounts so im hoping to start with a back office role while i figure it all out.

My mum was an arkela and died last year so although i work FT and have two kids, i now don't have any relatives to care for

For parents with literally no other support, an hour of someone else looking after their child is childcare all right.

When ds was at Beavers I did the termly support slot, it wasn't a lot though it was a struggle to get anyone to do it. But the leader was ridiculously stressed because there were far too many kids. I think groups should be max 12-15 tbh.

My parents both worked full time, but both volunteered for various things (meals on wheels, church accounts, PTA etc)

Were they doing work emails in the evenings and at weekends?

Working life has changed utterly in a generation. My DF had quite a high-powered job and did work long hours but, once he has home, he was home. Emails and mobiles existed for the last 10 years of his career, but it hadn't become the norm for everyone to be constantly available.

I do voluntary work with a charity for disabled people, but I have to do it during annual leave - it would be impossible at other times. I couldn't commit to anything needing regular input. I think many people are the same.

And I wouldn't touch the Scouts/Guiding anyway because of safeguarding concerns.

Sadly it looks like woodcraft and dropped safeguarding in favour of gender woo, so they're out too.
#no thank you.

DH regularly answers work emails in evenings and weekends. He's been known to send them at 2am. He has a very high power job and can work really funny hours. But he does it around scouts.

In terms of the gender woo, I'm GC and all the leaders know, they know the issues and also know the rules. But the rules are more flexible and discretionary in scouts so safeguarding can be kept an eye on all the same. DH wouldn't do it if he thought it had gone like guiding to the core...

I don't think it's dying out everywhere. In Italy it's very lively! Perhaps the UK organisation needs a shake up.

I am a regular parent volunteer at my DS’ Beaver group for a year now and don’t enjoy it anymore. I leave after the hour feeling like I’ve had sensory overload with the relentless screeching, running around and not listening that a significant minority do each week. Of course I’m not told if there is a medical reason that some kids behave like this but I have to say I’m done in after an hour. I could never be a primary teacher!

DS is due to move up to Cubs in the next few months and I won’t volunteer anymore (although I volunteer in two other places already) except to be an occasional helper. The Beaver Leader asked me if I could continue to volunteer there and just bring DS along even after he’s moved to Cubs - absolutely not, we have a busy life and it’s time that other parents stepped up. I have also wondered if they will delay offering my DS a Cub place so they can keep me volunteering at Beavers for longer, however I have just found out that his classmate with a January birthday has been offered a place starting then so as my DS is February I will be contacting them if I haven’t heard by early January.

There has been nothing remotely religious about this group, nor was I asked any such questions by the interview panel either. Ultimately the Scout movement will probably die out because everyone wants it their own way and won’t compromise.

There's seems to be a vibe that many parents/people generally are somehow inadequate because they do not wish to give their time for free, and an assumption that this means those people are "takers" not "givers".

I am not a "taker". I want to pay for the cost with money not time.

Interestingly we have the opposite problem with our school pta. A hell of a lot of people think offering their time is a fair substitute for offering money. But actually, we need money. We can actually help the school far more if everyone simply hands over cash, than if we run god knows how many events at a low profit margin.

I'd imagine scouting could be the same. I would expect the only way it can survive is to get people to pay the real cost of the activity and pay leaders.