Scout/Guide leaders (or similar)

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

How are numbers looking compared to this time last year?

Last year we were a healthy, growing group. Beavers were at their max (14). Cubs and Scouts at the 18-20 mark (24 being the unofficial max due to size of the hut). Also housed one of the Explorer units.

We now have no Beavers, and approx 12-14 each of Cubs and Scouts. 7 Beavers became Cubs. And 5 Cubs became Scouts (but not all at our Group, movement between Groups at this age is common due to there being groups every weekday locally. We also gained from from other Groups usually).

Slight curiosity if we are normal. We do online meetings and met in person outdoors when we could.
Loss of Beavers was due to health of leaders, coupled with there being no interest from current members. We do have three five year olds on waiting list, for when situation improves.

Yes, that is the picture repeated in Groups across the country.

The census returns will be a sad read.
We've had groups cease to meet altogether. Most groups are hanging on, but your numbers sound at the healthier end of typical as far as our District goes.

That's reassuring and saddening at the same time.
We average 6-7 online. They want to be outdoors not on the computer.

My Brownies unit had to limit numbers to 14 (in order to meet face-face when we could. We’re still at 14, have 15 on waiting list and everyone turns up for zoom most weeks.
Having said that we make it fun and are not doing any of the prescribed brownie activities!

Our Cub numbers are identical to yours OP. We currently only have 4 Beavers and they’re all approaching Cub age.

Scouts are down from 14 to 8 but most only ‘attend’ erratically. We have 0 Explorers.

It is going to take so long to recover from this..😢

It's the adult numbers that are a worry too. DH and I (Scout leader and Cub leader) move away soon. GSL wants to retire. The Beaver leaders are unlikely to return. That leaves on Scout leader, a Cub leader wanting to retire, a Cub leader overwhelmed with work, a keen but new Cub leader, and an 18yo Cub leader trying to work out what he wants to do with his life next.
No young leaders currently.

We've lost most of the scouts. Cubs are holding, partly through Beavers moving up, and Beavers are doing ok, but we have no waiting list.

Way down.
Beavers 8 – Cubs 4 – Scouts 5.
A couple of years ago we were probably about 20 per section.

I don't think the YLs are attending online meetings, if we have any other than my two.
My just turned 15yo isn't attending the Beavers online meets, although he attended in person last term.
My 18yo, so no longer strictly a YL?, has been attending cubs online meetings throughout, they didn't have in person meetings last term.

Scouts haven't met at all since March, online or face to face - we've had a change of leaders and it just hasn't got going.

I'm a Cub leader. We've got no young leaders at all. They're struggling with it being all online. We're doing ok for leaders for the moment, but it will only take a tiny shift in someone's life to throw it all into chaos. We usually have 22 Cubs, but we're now down to 14ish online. We were getting everyone last term, but it's really dropped off now.

I was really sad to hear my childhood stomping ground of Downe campsite was being sold, but I suppose it shows the rocky times ahead for Scouts.

Our Brownie Unit is down to 16, although there's 2 I'm unsure about. Only 10 of those are meeting with us on Zoom though, the rest are keeping their place open with a census payment. Looking forward to seeing them again though, as we've had 6 come up from Rainbows that I've never met in person!

I'm not a leader, but my daughters have been part of Girl Guiding for the last 10 years (dd1) and 8 years (dd2)

Neither of them have taken part in any online meetings, they both struggle with this kind of thing and one of them in particular is very self conscious and suffers from anxiety.

Their Guide unit had around 12 members this time last year, the fantastic leader retired and was replaced with a Miss Trunchbull kind of character. Lots of the Guides have decided not to take part in the Zoom meetings. At least 6 have decided not to meet virtually.

I received quite a firm e-mail with regards to paying subs and stating that all the girls that don't make the payment would be removed from the active members and will lose their anniversary badges and won't be invited to rejoin once meetings open up again. Quite possibly the numbers will diminish greatly because of this, not the request for payment, but the tone of the email.

Dd1 (year 10) was set to continue with Guides as a young leader, however she will now be removed from the active members so this won't happen. She's not hugely bothered as she isn't keen on the new leader, I just think that this is the units loss, seems a shame.

I will find another unit for them to attend once they can meet again.

Whilst obviously it sounds as if your e-mail hasn't been phrased very well, the issue is that
If a child / young person is a member, then membership needs to be paid, and if the Group or section haven't got the reserves to cover this (not many will have) then it will need to come from parents

but

If a C/YP decides they aren't a member anymore, then neither association will be allowed to keep their records due to GDPR.

So, whereas your dd's Leader maybe could have done a better job of communicating, it isn't her decision, and most likely she is quite upset about it all too.

In usual times, a lot of Groups set subs at a rate that means the annual fee is collected each week. Or some groups have a big annual event (bonfire or fete or something) that raises enough to cover it. If people haven't paid subs across the year, and the big even has been cancelled, then the choices for many are limited - ask parents if they want to pay the membership fee, or unfortunately they can no longer be considered members.

How that is received is going to vary wildly depending on each family's financial situation, and maybe once people have given thought to how much their dc have gained from belonging to Guides or Scouts over the last 6,8, or 10 years.

My Guide unit is maybe down by 1, but has been pretty stable at 16 girls. We have around a dozen at online meetings each week and only two virtually never attend - although both sets of parents are still paying subs because they are really keen to keep the unit going; their daughters just aren’t up for zoom meetings. Of the rest, we’re getting subs from most but not all - it then I’m not chasing non-payers because I know some have reduced income at the moment.

We have lost more than we’d expect to, but have probably gained more as transfers from Brownies - we are actively meeting (albeit online) and there are fewer competing extracurricular activities happening at the moment, so I’m getting feedback that Guides is popular as a way of breaking up the week.

I’m fortunate that our District is subsidising our census bill a bit to compensate for reduced subs, so it is balancing out. The financial repercussions of lockdown look set to continue well beyond this immediate period, though - I’m not sure how many people have yet realised that their income this year includes gift aid based on prelockdown subs levels, and next year their income will be down because a gift aid claim based on low subs is a correspondingly low amount... and units starting back with lower numbers will have to stretch their subs a lot further to cover hall rents - those won’t necessarily reduce proportionately, either!

I think that Guides and Rangers probably have it easier than Brownies, and definitely easier than Rainbows - my friends running Rainbow units have found it impossible to do that on an ongoing basis online + the girls just aren’t engaging in it, and parents aren’t willing to pay subs for an email of ideas. At least Guides are mostly self-sufficient once they’re online with us - we don’t need parents to actively support whatever we’re doing.

Camdenlurker we've had to send a similar email out to our members. We are providing scouting, every week on zoom, activities, buying resources and getting packs out. We've vastly reduced subs while not meeting face to face but ultimately we still need to pay our costs and we have the census coming up which is expensive (payment to the organisation per member covering insurance etc). We've had a few kids not participating in online sessions which is fine but we've had to ask that they either pay to retain their place or do out we can't just pay census for people who don't pay their subs, we can't afford it!

As a leader I feel so done. We've got really good turn out online and the kids seem to be enjoying it but I just can't be bothered any more. I've worked through the whole bloody thing, mostly clinical nhs, and I'm just done. Getting on zoom at the end of the day plastering a smile on and thinking of yet more activities to do is the last thing I want to do. I'll keep doing it for the kids because I want them to still be there when we are back face to face but it is hard.

We've still got good numbers, a few beavers have joined even without face to face meetings which is great. Most beavers knew us cub leaders from joint activities so have come up no problem so we've got around 20 cubs still active. Scouts is more thin on the ground and we've definitely lost some who might have gone to explorers but have not wanted to without being able to go visit units etc.

I wonder if that leader has been a bit literalist on the "You can't put members on the waiting list to avoid paying census" line . Also, if you know your DD's membership no. she is wrong about GG losing "previous service" etc and losing anniversary badges. As long as you keep your girls' reference numbers, if they decide to rejoin they can have their old account reactivated and it will update their service time accordingly.

I think a lot will flood back. Talked a lot to parents about this. They are sick of zoom but really want to return when they can. I think it might go the other way

I think they will - the children and young people.
My concern is the Leaders that have now spent (coming up for) a year not meeting F2F, and might think twice about wanting to start up from scratch again.
OTOH, a know lots of Leaders that are chomping at the bit.

I am an assistant scout leader I hate zoom with a passion and get quite upset running meetings with it. I can't wait for scouting to get back to what it supposed to be which is outside having fun and doing things together. I am not sure at the moment whether I can stay with it if it's going to be many more months of this.

Our Explorer Scout unit has taken a huge hit. The scouts ready to come up naturally don’t want to join a new unit online, our current explorers had a camp booked and sorted for all the local feeder scout groups last spring but we had to cancel with COVID. Hopefully we will be able to rebuild but it’s been hard to slog online and keep them engaged, especially with online lessons for school.
My beaver unit haven’t met at all. The leadership team all have small children. Getting on zoom is impossible at home with little ones around at bedtime, whereas f2f we could just leave the house! We are working from home around childcare, with work being done in evenings. There just isn’t time for us to be making up activity packs etc for the beavers, feeding ourselves and keeping us employed with clean kids is hard enough.it does upset me that we are compared to more active units, but it’s very different juggling work and a baby and toddler childcare compared to those on furlough/with older kids. There’s just not enough time for it all here.

My explorer can’t wait to go back to outdoors and hasn’t had that since March. Her leader has tried so hard but after all day online doing GCSEs she doesn’t want to be online. I am frustrated that they were not allowed to do any outdoor sept-nov. It would have made all the difference.

We’ve been asked to pay full subs too which I can’t really feel enthusiastic about. I feel head office should have been campaigning in some way to be outside - like football clubs etc were?

As Guides, we were allowed to meet outside Sept-Nov, but with no more than 15 girls in a group, and had to have two adults per group. We were lucky to be able to run two groups in parallel (we had 3 leaders and we managed to find one more volunteer to make the numbers work). But lots of units were running with fewer adults or had adults who were shielding/very vulnerable and they couldn’t make the ratios work, so they stayed online.

As a leader, I needed that short spell of outdoors meetings to keep my mojo up, and I suspect the Guides felt the same. We’ve kept our numbers up throughout the lockdowns, but I think that units who’ve not been able to meet at all will be much smaller when we do get to go back face to face.

That makes sense Jenny. I know my dds leader tried to get it up and running with a rota but it was stopped for some reason.

Does anyone know when outdoor activities might be able to happen again?

We haven't lost any of our scouts and still have a waiting list. Troop currently at 34 members and we get an average of 24 on our zoom meeting every other week. I hate zoom with a passion and really want to go back to face to face. Honestly I've had major wobbles about continuing with scouting but it's the age old problem - if I leave then we are short of leaders and scouts won't be able to run. We could easily have 2 scout troops if we had enough adults! Waiting lists for Cubs and beavers as well 🙁

We’re due to hear next week when we can start face to face meetings again - the NYA is issuing information next Monday, and Girlguiding usually take a few days after that. I’m hoping for outdoor meetings from the 29th, but not expecting them as soon as 8th March.