AIBU to ask whether Guides trips abroad usually involve fundraising?

[Mumbythesea1]

My daughter has just joined guides. She is autistic but has found that the girls in her guides group are a lot like her which I’m pleased about as she never does clubs usually. We’ve just had details of the next guides trip which is abroad and is a cost of £1400 😬
can I ask if your daughter had been on one of these if they did fundraising to help pay for it?! We don’t have spare money that we can use to pay for this and have said we will help fund it as much as we can.
if your daughter did do fundraising what did they do?

It's very hard on your daughter to be offered a trip you can't afford, but that's life. There's no way I'd give money to a fundraiser for a child's holiday.

If she wants to go then she needs to earn the money herself. Babysitting, car washing or getting a Saturday job.

For scouts, there were sometimes trips abroad mentioned, but most trips were local camps with nothing like that sort of cost. The trips abroad (things like the global jamboree??) always seemed to include fundraising as part of it. In our experience only a small handful of scouts signed up to these ones, and they tended to be more at a district level.

One scout made “s’mores kits” nicely packaged and sold them at all the school / village fairs. That’s the only one I remember.

I agree with the other poster. I did buy a beautiful knitted doll that a teenager had made to fund a trip to the Andes, but that was because it’s lovely not just to give her money. I think it’s a life lesson. Not everyone can afford to have expensive holidays.

She’s only 11 and so lots of jobs are out because of her age. She wants to make and sell things but I don’t think we will get anywhere near the amount!

Yeah, Scouts did this one year. We paid a certain percentage and the rest was raised through supermarket bag packs mostly.

I’ve known people whose kids have fundraised for these kind of trips by doing car washing, garden weeding, gift wrapping and selling small crafts. It all adds up if they have a few months to do it! Good luck to your daughter OP.

Wow that's a lot. Is it something special like a jamboree or similar?

My DD was in Rainbows/Brownies/Guides/Senior Section for about a decade and from Brownies onwards went on occasional trips, but there was never anything on that scale. Typical trip was a weekend away either camping or in a hostel type place.

I would imagine that only some of the Guides will be able to afford that so if your DD doesn't go she won't need to feel left out. There will probably be something on a more affordable level eventually which will no doubt be just as much fun.

My daughter did an international guides trip. It cost £2300. The whole thing was paid for by fundraising. That was the whole point of it! She also applied for grants from local guiding associations. She did bakes sales, raffles, car boot sales and Vinted.

I would hope the Guide pack would be fundraising collectively for this.

Speak to the leaders and ask how it works and if the whole bill is being passed to the family. If it is then it's an honest conversation with DD to explain your finances. Can she use birthday/Christmas towards it from both you and grandparents?
Then it's cash washing, footie cards or similar, dog walking, gardening, can she iron? Lots of small jobs will add up over the months but you need a wide group of customers not to piss people off and think you are always after money.

Our Guides did a lot of collective fundraising such as bag packing in supermarkets (very lucrative), a stall at the Christmas market, car boot sales etc. Some girls also fundraiser by themselves.
Your local Guiding should have a hardship fund to support families who are a bit hard up so it’s worth talking to the Guide Leader too.

Perhaps a little young for an overseas trip?

Why doesn’t she start saving for the next one?

When scouts do the large international trips (so meeting up with scouts troops from across the world) part of the trip involves fundraising, both within the group and individually. These trips usually involve a selection process and you will be advised that fundraising is part of the trip expectations. There is the large jamboree that is held every 4 years, but there are other smaller ones too.

Other foreign trips eg skiing would be very much down to the individual going how they fund it, bit like school trip.

guide Leader here -
big trips like this are not the norm for guides
it’s day camps,
weekend camps and every few years an international camp in UK for a week -
most guides won’t go on all of these -
there is no penalty for not going
she’s just joined, this is a huge expense-
say no, and ask what other events they have coming up -
the guide leaders are volunteers, often with full time jobs and families -
they won’t be spending their free time fund raising - that’s the job of the guide and her family -
let this trip pass,

Some local charities/trust funds offer donations to help fund such trips.

We go abroad every second year with Guides. There's 200 to be paid by the family and the rest is grants and fundraising.

I agree that you should let this one pass. My kids are both in the Scouts and these types of trips come up every few years. My son was first invited when he was 11 and I declined because although he'd been camping with them many times I felt he was far too young to fly off without us. When he's a bit older he'll be more mature and better able to fundraise.

I think you need to be realistic so as not to upset her. If there is no joint fundraising type events being organised as detailed above, there is no way an 11 year old can raise anywhere near this amount. You see kids sometimes round here with a table out selling lemonade or cupcakes or their old toys to passers by but that can’t raise them more than about a fiver.

Yes usually A LOT of fundraising

It depends what it is. The ones I've known about had an element of mainly going to places where volunteer and support projects were much of the programme (as opposed, say, to things that only benefitted the participants like big waterparks or 101 percent fun/social with little real 'giving back'). The fundraising was a huge part of the experience, but 11 would be a young age to expect that.

My 12yr old daughter is doing an 9 day camping trip in mainland Europe this summer with scouts. They are taking a coach from Scotland to keep costs down and the scout group fund raising (through Christmas fair/bbqs/race nights) is covering 1/3 of the cost so we are paying around £600. She has been "earning" towards that by taking on some extra chores in the house. She is currently out supporting fundraising in the pouring rain!

When I was a guide myself, I would always go on weekend camps and after 12 started going on a week long camp in the summer.

It was sort of unspoken rule that only the eldest guides, those already helping to run games etc that would go on the international trips. I think probably about age 14/15 or older. It seems unlikely that at 11 all of her friends at guides will be going?

I’m glad she’s enjoying it! Guides is so much fun! Can’t wait for my daughter to start Rainbows!

Never knew a Guides trip that didn't involve fundraising.

My DDs did car washing, babysitting and all sorts of odd jobs (weeding etc) for the neighbours.

At no point did I say I expected her guides leaders to do any fundraising!
my daughter is thinking of ideas to do this herself

Actually in my experience, and the experience of most other posters, is that the group does fundraise. Leaders use it as an activity. Not expecting leaders to arrange the lot, but steer them in the right direction, tell them what works, arrange fundraising evenings etc. Parents can also be hugely helpful arranging group fundraisers!

Supermarket bag packs (get the Christmas slot if possible!), bingo evenings, fish and chip supper evenings, summer and winter fairs. All the usual stuff that school PTAs do.

Yes, agree - fund raising activities within the usual sessions, we are usually talking £100’s not £1k’s of funds raised this way -
and this kind of fund raising can really help keep the costs down for everyone for the day / weekend trips -
attempting to fund raise for a few to go on super expensive trips is ridiculous to me
the many girls who won’t be able to go -
funds
anxiety
access arrangements with separated parents sometimes gets in the way of girls attending weekend / holiday events, and obviously not a. Issue for leaders

it will always be a minority who go on these big international events -
I don’t think evenings planned around fundraising for these is justified -
guides is there for all girls and just not the more affluent ones