Youth organisation residentials: a straw poll

[momb]

I run a brownie pack.
I can't really poll the current parents because if I make changes it won't necessarily impact their daughters, so please lend me your thoughts:
The girls are 7-10 years old. We currently offer three residential opportunities a year:
One 'commercial' sleepover, museum or similar. Costs depend on price plus travel. This year was £80 for one night but was amazing: National Science Museum plus journey by train.
A Brownie holiday at a guiding house. Self catering, local, very inexpensive, cooking, crafts, messing about in the grounds/local woods.
A one night camp. Very inexpensive.

So, as a parent, would you rather we carried on with local inexpensive activities, offer more expensive activities (DLP has been mooted), just up the ratio of physical activities and increase the prices accordingly? I think that I'm asking what would the ideal mix for you as a parent?
Thanks

My dc are too old now but always counted on scouts and brownies to provide the inexpensive activities.

I am a great supporter of Brownies etc having been a unit helper for a number of years (before kids) and had my daughter go through (now a guide).
Personally I think you cannot beat a traditional brownie pack holiday. It's great if you can offer more than one a year - perhaps a weekend, and then a longer one. I think they are great preparation of camping when they move onto guides, as well as a great opportunity to get to know each other much better and have loads of fun.
I would not really see the benefit of the 'commercial' one you describe.
I think perhaps it is reasonable to swap one of the breaks every coupe of years or so for a more expensive trip - PGL etc.

I don't really see the point in the expensive trip unless it's a particularly great opportunity the girls wouldn't have. An alternative for something special and further away could be one of the national scout centres (they have indoor accommodation as well as camping). Then you could spend the money on activities whilst there, with proper instructors, and it would still probably be cheaper.

www.scoutactivitycentres.org.uk/activity/

No, I'm not affiliated in any way except having made my promise 15 years ago. But the centres look good.

FSS

We take our Cubs to PGL and they love it, so much the local schools yr5 have started going to, luckily to a different centre though. Our trip normally comes in at £90 for two nights, inc ferry, coach, meals and lots of activities. We also do local camps, reasonably cheap, and sleepovers foc. Most of our Cubs love camps, no matter what you're doing, but the activity ones are the most popular. and we are cheaper than school as the leaders pay for themselves rather than costing their places in, we get so many, normally 3, places then split the rest between the leaders

We've also done sleepovers in Museums, NHM was brilliant but very expensive so not a regular thing at all, Explosion museum in Gosport was also fantastic, and much cheaper.

A traditional Brownie holiday in a Guide House - I used to be a Cub Leader and we had some fantastic camps - at very, very reasonable prices (we were fortunate in that we had our own camp site a field with a tap ).

However I do appreciate that camps involve a huge amount of hard work for the Leaders - you really do need a big team of Leaders who know what they are doing.

But I genuinely think 'old fashioned, traditional fun' seems to be missing from so many childrens' lives these days that this is the sort of thing they genuinely like precisely because it is so 'different'. .

I would say go for the local inexpensive brownie camp type activities.

My children do the other type of stuff with school or specialist organisations according to their individual interests eg performing arts residentials/theatre trips.

I'm a Brownie Leader. We do wide variety of sleepovers. The NHM one is brilliant, and comes in at round £100, for a two day trip from Wiltshire. (self drive minibus, afternoon in London, pizza hut, sleepover, morning in museum, packed lunch and wander round Windsor on way home).
We do sleepovers in our Brownie Hut and some in other Brownie Huts £20 ish for 2 nights. We do PGL too, also about £100.
We do other as hoc ones as they come along.
Not everyone does everything, and there is something for everyone.
Locally primary schools have cut back on residential as a) we can do them cheaper and b) so many Brownies and Cubs have done so many sleepovers these days the school ones are no longer the learning experience (in terms of gaining independence, social skills etc) they used to be.

My DC like to do traditional camps. Sleeping in tents, fires, hikes, wide games etc. Cubs seem to do more camping than Brownies. Are there rules?

We don't camp with our Brownies because all four of our units Leaders work and we just don't have the time. Turning up at a indoor venue with a sleeping bag is much easier.
Guiders have to have a licence to be able to do a sleepover, and a different one if you want to do more than one night, and a different one again to camp. Expect Scouting have similar rules.

I'd say inexpensive traditional. Firstly because I don't want to find another lump of money out of the family budget. Secondly, because unless really exceptional, the DC to the PGL type holidays at school and I'd rather them do something different.

As a LIC, we prefer traditional pack holidays but we did do a sleepover at Deep Sea World last year for BBB.

Inexpensive vote here. DD is off to her first brownie camp at PGL center soon and is very excited. With Sainsbury vouchers it costs £75 a head which is excellent value.

My DC do Guiding and Scouting, and enjoy the pack holidays and camps.

DD did a 2 night camp at Chessington World of Adventure which wasn't much more expensive than regular day out there.

They enjoy the camps where other local packs join in too. Presumably if the District are organising, this makes less work for the Pack leaders?

My kids are coming up to Brownie age. I'd love a pack with cheap nights like you describe each year, and treat the more expensive one as something a Brownie would do once in their 4 years. (I've been on a science museum sleepover so my advice is remind adults to bring air mattresses and not to let kids pack up if they wake at 5am, because then at 5.30 they will be cold, tired, and unable to snuggle up again causing grief for everyone else. The scoutmaster with that group got quite an earful from some Brown Owls).
More cheap and cheerful events especially camps would be my priority.

Chippy the people at District level are the pack leaders too. It's not a different bunch of people! So, effectively it's more work for them - they have to run their own unit AND do the District work (I know, I am one).

NotCitrus, the NHM doesn't allow airbeds - they supply sleeping mats for everyone.

Yes, I take your point - but it spreads the load eg our scout district runs events, one of them is basically organised on their behalf by our troop, but the others our troop can turn up and camp, and run a base, and not have to worry about providing a full programmes of activities for the whole weekend.