Copy of email sent to all members contact 1 in Parent Portal
Dear parents and carers
I hope you’ve had a great summer, despite the cooler temperatures and are raring to go with the new term. We certainly are here at 11th Folkestone Scouts! I’ve got a few important updates to share with you, so here goes.
Getting everyone back together safely:
We’re really pleased that nearly all restrictions have been removed with regard to face to face Scouting. We’ve reviewed the risk assessment for getting everyone back together safely and can now relax some of the processes. You will no longer get an email invitation to each meeting and you will no longer need to sign up each week. Please do check your Parent Portal account regularly and if you can’t make a meeting, it would be really helpful to let us know using the Edit button on the Programme tab for the specific meeting.
Quick link to Parent Portal:
[DETAILS]
We will still be asking for regular hand washing and sanitising throughout meetings and ask that everyone who enters the building sanitise hands on entry and exit. Parents and carers are now very welcome to come into the centre, however, please do not congregate in the airlock/hallway, but come into the main hall. The leaders will open the doors towards the end of the meeting to welcome you in. Scouts and Explorers, face coverings are no longer required unless the leaders let you know before hand (they must be used for any activity requiring physical contact – very few activities!). Full information on the website.
Membership Subscriptions:
As we start the new academic year, our membership subs are once again due. As you know, subs are £132 per year per member, split over 11 monthly payments of £12. The trustees reduced subs for the past 18 months to £6 per month – and our thanks to everyone for supporting us with prompt payments throughout the pandemic – as we were meeting sporadically, or online, or with reduced time. Now we’re heading back to normal times and regular weekly meeting, we need to return to normal. Trustees have reviewed our membership fee and costs and despite continuing rises in almost all areas of cost, we can continue to hold subs at the current level for the coming year. Looking at other club subscriptions in the local area we still feel, and hope you do too, that Scouts offers great value for money. I’ve set up the new payment schedule on Parent Portal for the year ahead and the September payment is delayed slightly (as it always is in September) to 6th September and then the 1st of every month thereafter. Please can you check Parent Portal to ensure everything is correct in your account. If you have any outstanding payments from last year, we’d really appreciate these being made asap.
Not returning?
If your young person is not planning on returning, please can you let me know by return to this email and I will close their membership of the Group which will stop any further emails from us or Parent Portal. It’s really important for us to know who’s not coming back so we know how many spaces we have to offer to our ever growing joining list.
Uniform:
Now we’re back to normal-ish, we will return to expecting uniform to be worn each week (as we are a uniformed organisation, after all!). If you’ve lost woggles, etc. please let your leaders know and we can replace, although there will be a charge. The section pages on the website have details of the uniform for each section with summer and winter alternatives.
Check your details:
Before returning, could I please ask that you log into Parent Portal and check the personal details for your young person/young people and confirm they are accurate. This is especially important around contact details and emergency contact – please remember that the emergency contact should be someone different to contact 1 or contact 2 – usually a grandparent, family member of trusted friend that we can contact if we are unable to get hold of contact 1 or 2 in an emergency.
Moving up/changing sections
If your young person is heading towards the upper age limit of the section, it may be time to move on. If it is, the new leader will get in touch very soon with details (or already has!). As a rule, the first week is always back to the original section, with the transition managed from there, so don’t worry too much if you haven’t heard anything by the first week back.
Well done if you made it to the end. That’s it from me for this month, unless anything urgent crops up. I hope to see you all very soon – I’ll be about for the first few weeks, so please do catch me if you need anything or, as always, email me at craig at 11th Folkestone Scouts dot org dot uk and I’ll do what I can to help.
Best wishes
Craig
Group Scout Leader
11th Folkestone Scouts