Dear parents and carers
A very happy new year to you all and I hope you had the best Christmas you could under the circumstances.
The leaders met last Saturday, virtually of course, to discuss our plans for the next term and based on the fact we are still, at the time of writing, in tier 4 (although what Mr Johnson is about to say probably won’t change the plans for us anyway) we are unable to return to face to face Scouting.
As such, leaders have planned an exciting term of activities based around working towards some of the usual Scouting badges in each section as well as working towards some special limited edition badges produced by Kent Scouts. There’s also a competition with some pretty good prizes and the chance to take part in a County or National virtual camp for all sections. The leaders will tell you more, so it really will be worth logging on to find out.
All sections will run individual Zoom sessions this term at the more usual times as follows:
Beavers: 5.45pm Tuesdays (starting back on 12th January)
Cubs: 6.45pm Tuesdays (starting back on 12th January)
Scouts: 7pm Fridays (starting back on 15th January)
Explorers: 7pm Wednesdays (starting back on 13th January)
We will also be launching Badges@Home, which as the name suggests is a way to complete even more badges at home and when it is convenient to you rather than waiting for the weekly meeting. Again, the leaders will explain more about it, but you may notice it in OSM when you login.
January also sees the annual national census of Scouts, where I have to report the numbers for each section. This is also how they calculate our ‘membership subscription’ fee for the Group and this year is around £45 per member. We budget for this and build it into our membership fee, so no worries there, but I’d really appreciate being able to give clear and accurate figures. To that end, if you know your young person is not interested or is unable to participate in Scouting currently, then please do let me know so I can remove them from the system. If they want to return later when everything is a little more settled, again, please do let me know. Surprisingly, we are still getting daily requests to join the Group, so I’d like to have a clear picture of our membership and complete the census accurately.
We hope to see as many of you as possible at our virtual meetings over the next few weeks.
Best wishes
Craig
Group Scout Leader