Dear parents and carers
Hope this message finds you all well. Quick email from me this week. Most importantly, a reminder that I will be hosting a parents/carers information Facebook Live session on Thursday 23rd July at 7pm on our Facebook Page. Please do try to tune in (or watch the recording) as I will be going through the key parts of our risk assessment and plans so far for getting everyone back together safely. This meeting is really important for the planning process as it is a chance for you to share your thoughts, questions and concerns so we can make sure we’re addressing everything. The Q&A will be available throughout and the team will be on hand to answer what they can and we’ll use them all to add to our FAQs on our all-important web page. I’m expecting the session to be about 30 minutes.
That leads me nicely on the second point this week which is the web page. It’ll be going live on Thursday during the Facebook session and will be the place to go before every meeting. As a control measure in our risk assessment, making sure you all know all the details for each meeting such as arrival/departure plans, etc. will help to make everything that much safer. As these details are specific to each venue, weather condition and section, we feel the web page is best placed to make sure everyone can access that information as easily as possible.
Now is a great time to check you can login to Parent Portal on Online Scout Manager. This will be essential as we will need to know who is planning on coming to which meetings every week as soon as we’re at the stage of preparing actual meetings, so we’ll be using OSM with an event signup for every weekly meeting. Ensuring you can login now will make September that much easier. Check at www.onlinescoutmanager.co.uk/login.php and use the email address you registered with us. Any issues, please do email me or your section leader and we’ll take a look.
Finally, I just wanted to manage expectations. Just because we can go back to a limited form of face to face Scouting, it is just that – limited and with a lot of restrictions. As I’ve said all along, we will only do what is safe for all – members and volunteers – and everyone is comfortable with. That may mean shorter sessions, a blended approach of face to face and virtual meetings or may just stick to virtual for a little longer. This will all be on a section by section basis, so just because one section is back meeting together, another may not. This is all done to keep everyone safe and I’m sure everyone involved with the Group will appreciate and understand the rationale. As we are looking at a small group (or ‘bubble’ for want of a better description) approach, we’ll also be looking for parental support for supervision with some of the sections/bubbles. I’ll leave that thought to ‘mature’, but section leaders will be in touch early September with specifics about what they may need.
As always, thank you for your continued support, patience and reassurance – I have really appreciated all the feedback.
Stay safe.
Best wishes
Craig
Group Scout Leader