to be stunned at the waiting lists for Rainbows/Brownies/girl guides

[Gigantaur]

I have been speaking to the county guides co ordinator.
Apparently there is such a shortage of adult volunteers to help out with the clubs that the waiting lists are huge!
she said that there are currently something like 50,000 children on the waiting list around the country.

She said that she has heard of people registering their daughters onto the list at birth. and that at one branch locally she has a girl aged 14 months on the list!
She told me that the chances are that I wouldn't get dd (5.8) into rainbows at all and instead she would just about get a place at brownies aged 8.

luckily I managed to get Dd a place at an almost local branch but still. Its such a shame.

it made me wonder why there is such a sudden shortage. Do you think it's because women are too busy juggling work and homelife to have time to spare? are people scared of being branded a "peedo"?
or is youth work simply not a fashionable hobby?

either way, im glad DD got a place, but i feel sad for those that can't.

It is definitely worth seeing if there is a local Girls' Brigade company. GB would NEVER turn away a disabled child and it is so rare that thee would be any waiting list. My girls are in GB and Brownies/Rainbows and they love them both. The activities are so similar and give such wonderful life experiences. I joined GB at the age of 4 and went on to be a leader. I had some of the best times of my life there and made the best friends.

Im another Rainbow guider here, currently with no asistant guider at our unit so relying on a parent rota, only hardly any of them can/will help so i am having to drag friends and family along.

And everyone sighs about there being no brownies in the village at all for the last 5 yrs, but no one is willing to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

It's the same around here with (no) Rainbows. Everyone would like Someone Else to start a Rainbow unit!

when my kids were small, the same group of parents ran everything..i once commented ,,all these kids seem to have the same 10 of us as parents..you name it, we ran it.

I think mismanagement of volunteers is a big factor.

If you take on a volunteer, you have to respect the fact that they are volunteers and make sure there's a good match between what they want and are able to do, and where you place them.

For example, I've never been able to fit my professional studies and work round volunteering with the Guide Association because every time I voulnteer, and explain my circumstances (i.e. unpredictable hours, not much time, but willing to help where I can), I without fail end up getting sent to a failing unit whose leader is leaving/has just left, who are desperate for someone to take over, and where there's no discipline and no structure, etc. Which I can't cope with due to aforementioned unpredicatable hours and not much time, and have to quit.

Or once you're in somewhere, the district is so over-stretched that they end up pressuring everybody to give more and more time, until it all gets too much.

Or they send you to do Guides when you wanted to do Brownies, or vice versa, because that's where they need the leaders.

I just phoned up our DC over Easter, thinking "this time I'm going to explain it properly and it's not going to happen", and I explained in great detail about my job and how not infrequently I have to work late without notice, and that I would have to ring up and say I couldn't make it, which she said was fine. She put me in touch with a local unit and I went up to visit. The scenario (surprise surprise) is this:

The leader is coming up to 65 and is going to retire, the woman who helps her wants to leave as well and, anyway, has no warrant. There is no immediate prospect of any more help, as the neighbouring unit has just folded due to no adult leaders. On arrivak I was introduced to the kids as the new Brown Owl who will be taking over the unit when current Brown Owl leaves. WTF?

You're right, Amanda, but I also think the difficulty we're grappling with is that so many of the new volunteers are in your kind of situation. Having leaders who attend as and when they can is great for providing extra support but it won't keep a unit going unless there is another warranted leader already there.

I'm loving the idea of compelling parents to be on a volunteers rota.

I'm sure the sessions will be hugely improved by the attendance of my hyperactive boy toddler, and my complete inability to concentrate on the task on hand due to needing to watch that he doesn't kill himself or beat up the Brownies.

Unfortunately my one babysitting slot per week is already tied up - not with 'me time', but volunteering at DDs school.

Yes, I understand your point, Piprabbit, but for many Brownie units (mine until recently), there are not enough leaders and unit helpers to meet the adult/child ratios which Girlguiding UK stipulates, to ensure the safety of the girls. So there is a choice - shrink the pack to the size that fits the number of leaders and unit helpers or call for parent volunteers. If every family joined the rota, they'd have to help on average once a term (or less).

The spiel I used to give when girls joined the waiting list was that our unit's survival depended completely on parents pitching in, as I could not run meetings on my own. If parents really could not commit to help at one meeting a term, then I could put them in touch with other units which had plenty of leaders and no parents rota.

The thing is though, that is the situation for most people and the movement has to change to accommodate that. I'm fully warranted, I have a rangers holiday license and quarter masters certificate. I've been in the Guides since I was seven. It seems mad to try to shoe horn me into an impossible role that I just can't deliver on.

Piprabbit .. dont take this the wrong way i am not getting at you personally ... I just want to use you as an example

When you run a brownie unit and you lose your guider to a new job or a uni place or whatever and you go to the parents .. you find everyone has an excuse such as childcare, shifts, no time etc. I know most if not all excuses are genuine but its still makes you want to scream .. yeah well I am a working mum and you expect me to find time to do brownies !

I think if someone really wants to help keep the unit alive they will find time instead of excuses

Girls'Brigade is at www.girlsb.org . The GB support centre is 01235 510425. They can give you the nearest company . Or you can email the support centre directly at
[email protected]
Sorry, I am rubbish at links. Good luck.x

"because we are volunteers"

extract from the disability act 2005

Now all clubs, except private clubs under 25 people (this means clubs which choose their members through personal selection and never involve the public) and voluntary organisations have to make sure they don't discriminate against disabled people. The Act says it's illegal to:

Refuse a service to a disabled person without justification
Provide a less good service to a disabled person without justification
Not make reasonable changes to the way services are provided for disabled people
Not make reasonable changes to the physical layout of the premises so access is easier for disabled people.

So you could fight this all the way Riven... if you dont get any joy I can imagine the papers would take this case up joyfully

I think, if possible Riven you should try to work with these people, not against them. They're not bad people, they're probably just afraid of something that they don't know much about that they are worried might destabilise something that's not holding together very well in the first place. The discrimination legislation wasn't really designed to force people into volunteering with disabled children against their will, which position I do have some sympathy with.

I think a more positive approach is needed to get the relationship off to a good start. At County level at least, there will be someone appointed to advise on including people with disabilities. He or she will have had training in this and will be able to help find ways to make the relationship work.

Maryz and frasersmummy - I agree completely. I really struggle to imagine a life which is so incredibly hectic that the parent can't spare an hour and a half for their daughter's Brownie unit once or twice a year.

Amanda - I also agree that it's daft to try to shoehorn you into a role that you don't want or can't manage. I'm sure the organisation would rather you helped out as and when you could than left in dismay! But the point I'm trying to make is that it would be hard, verging on impossible, to run a unit with a merry-go-round of leaders none of whom were there every week, as there would be the risk that some weeks none of the warranted leaders were available and the meeting could be cancelled at short notice. Every unit needs at least one leader who will (more or less) be there every time and that seems to be where our recruitment difficulties are greatest. Selfishly, I don't particularly want an assistant like the one I had until recently, who would text me just before a meeting to say she wouldn't after all be coming. I'll accept any help I'm offered, but what I really need is a dependable assistant so that if I fall under a bus on the way to the meeting, I know it can still go ahead.

dd4 name is on the raibnbows list and she is 17months old.

dd3 was 2 when she went on the list.

atm, i cant help due to having 4 dd's and dh working shifts. however i have put on the forms that i can help occasionally. two years ago, one of the leaders was in hospital for a while and the parents rallied around and worked out rotas to cover the ratio of adults to children. They wouldnt let me volenteer as was in my last months of pregnancy.

re: SN, dd's packs have children with various disabilities and SN attending. They range from mild to severe needs.

What about losing the 'belief in god' element? A lot of people are put off by overly religious units - Agnes Baden Powell said that service to god includes keeping your heart and mind open to the possibility of god - which is low key spirituality, but so many units are strict on things like church parade and prayer at meetings and aren't inclusive of other faiths.

It's a tricky one because many people in the movement are very religious and feel strongly that, at its heart, it's a Christian organisation. It also depends on the Church for many things.

Nobody can be forced to volunteer to do anything, it kind of defeats the point of volunteering.