Scouts is (or always was!) an incredibly middle class activity

[Greatballzoffire]

Just that. Our local one is full of very wealthy families, waiting list are years long & the children that could probably do with & afford scouts can't get in the door.
I always associated scouts as an inexpensive activity that all children can access. Ours seem to be predominantly full of middle class families who travel from other areas to our scout unit.

I don't believe that you are asked your class when going on the waiting list. It's open to all.

Obviously to go on the waiting list the parents need to have contacted the unit and put their child's name down. Again though, everyone has an equal opportunity to do that.

I'd say scouts around here is very inclusive.

Getting rid of waiting lists could be a solution, just opening it up to registration the school year they turn 6 (or 4 for Squirrels). In the areas with long lists you do need to know the system. But again, that's tends to come from who you know rather than class.

I’d just point out too that “class” in this country is a nuanced thing that is a social construct based on and recognisable by multiple things. Plenty of “working class” people with the accents to match have large bank accounts. Plenty of “middle class” people with the accents to match have no money and are using food banks right now.

if you’re looking at people and assuming they have money based on the social indicators we Brits use to categorise people in to class boxes then you may be missing the bigger picture financially for a lot of them.

We only allow families living in our village or the neighbouring one to come to my brownie unit - which means that the majority of the kids who want to come can do.

There’s a real mix in our area. It’s a popular group, there is a waiting list, and the leaders are mainly v MC. The kids themselves come from all sorts of backgrounds. All really nice kids, looking to do something useful and practical with their spare time. My son loved his time there.

Waiting Lists would still happen
They are as much to do with ratios and space as how soon you put their name down.

Groups can't just take an infinite number of children in

Yes it definitely does exclude some unless extensive fundraising takes place but this is then dependent on parents stepping up their volunteering efforts to help out the leaders.

Our local one is full of very wealthy families, waiting list are years long & the children that could probably do with & afford scouts can't get in the door.

Are you suggesting that the waiting list doesn't function equally for all families? Or that middle-class families are better at putting their child onto waiting lists rather than assuming they can join whenever they want to? I think there is some truth in the latter one.

We live in a small town & it's the only scouting group in a 20 mile radius. No catchment area.

At my sons beavers all I had to do was give them his name and date of birth to get him on the waiting list and then pay £20 a term subs when he joined (the cheapest club he does by far). I didn't have to disclose whether I was working, middle or billionaire. I can't see that process would preclude any type of class?

Not my experience at all - despite being in a very MC area the group DS joined did not reflect that and he got the shit kicked out of him for going to a “posh” private school 😳.

No chip on my shoulder about the costs. It is so affordable. I just feel that as it is so affordable I'm surprised that other non affluent children aren't involved in our local group. Out of 24 boys & girls, my son is more than likely the only working class child.

What it comes to overall is that Scouts (and Guides) need more adults to step up. Not just parents, adults in general.

Employers can help too... I know of several leaders who get time off for Scouting (need normal leave, special leave). DH gets an hour every Wednesday as preparation time if needs it. Another one I know gets up to 14 days a year... thats the week long summer camp sorted and a day before and after each weekend camp.

So you are angry that an affordable after school extra curriculur option is being hoarded by middle class families when I should be solely available to lower income families?

Ah, I think the problem is a shortage of groups in your area.

We live in an East London suburb and there are several groups within walking distance, including a Muslim group. There are still waiting lists due to population density, but nobody has to travel far. There is no priority for living close though.

Have you considered it wouldn’t exist at all if it wasn’t for the volunteers? We’ve had a few groups close because no one would step forward to run them. If I think of all the leaders I know, guess what? They are all middle class women and men 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Ours is very mixed as is the leadership team. I chair the Trustees and we work hard at fundraising/grant applications so we can cover trips and opportunities for all.

I think it's probably the latter, I didn't know either that there would be a waiting list. I went to join my son in beavers two years ago thinking we could just rock up & enroll.
They told me to go online & submit his application. 2 years later he got a place.
If I had known I'd have done it 2 years earlier but I didn't have an knowledge about how it worked..

A scout troop doesn't just happen as a spontaneous phenomenon. Volunteers create it. If there's a shortage of spaces in an area with a years-long waiting list then more volunteers are needed to step up and make a new troop happen. When I was a girl guide back in the late 80s the troop I was in was getting so popular it couldn't cope with demand so we bifurcated and half the pack stayed as the original meeting on Thursdays and the other half started meeting on Wednesdays and both were able to take in new members. The volunteer leaders similarly split across the two groups and took on new volunteers. That's what needs to happen in your area @Greatballzoffire and then there are places across all demographics.

It's probably a combination of several things, but boiling down to:

• A lack of volunteers to run groups creating a hard supervision limit to the number of scouts that can be supported
• Over subscription for the places available in the few groups in the area
• Self-selection of those parents prepared to wait it out on a list

One of my colleagues is a Scout Leader. They decided several years ago that if they didn't step up their children wouldn't have the opportunity.

Yes the leaders are very middle class.
They are fabulous, a few are grandparents who have been involved in the unit all their lives. The leaders are wonderful, so energetic & organised. My son loves it.

The good old community-minded middle class yes?

I'm an Explorer Scout leader (but have done Cubs and Scouts) - our catchment is socioeconomically diverse. We plan our activities to be low cost, and give 9 months notice of larger camps to allow for trickle payments.

I did find it very disturbing that the only people who were interested in attending the (ill fated) World Jamboree last summer were from very affluent households, who had the times/means/resource etc to fund raise £4K. I couldn't get anyone else to sign up, despite promising that the unit would help fundraise. When £100 for a passport is unacheivable, what's the point?

My kids are both in the Scouting and Guiding systems and it strikes me as very middle class.

I don't think it's a cost thing as it's the cheapest thing they do. It's partly because of the idea of prioritising an activity like that. Depending on the number of children in the household, extra curricular activities can be fairly low priority even when cheap. When I worked in a school, we tried really hard to get the FSM children to go to (free) after school clubs but there was often resistance to having a separate/ later pick up time.

The other thing is that you often have to to come up with certain items or equipment fairly last minute. You have to have a fairly organised and affluent house to produce a rolling pin/ apron/ camping equipment at very little notice. The help is there if people want it but again it's a matter of priorities.

There is a long waiting list for our cub and scout troops because the demand is high. Nothing to do with people travelling from outside areas or from an abundance of middle class families in our area. I'm not sure why middle class families should be less entitled to attend though. Places aren't allocated on a socioeconomic basis.

Availability is dependent on people volunteering as scout leaders and helpers. You could volunteer to help set another group up locally. That might help those children you mention that 'could do with & afford scouts' have a chance of attending.