| Dear All, We hope you have all had a good summer, even if it was somewhat different to what you may have had planned! We wrote to everyone in mid- July with the good news that we are now permitted to resume activities and we were delighted to see many of you at our last set of meetings before the end of term and during some of the activities run over the summer break. At this point in time this remains the case and we are busy planning and preparing for a full return of the group for the Autumn Term. As with many organisations we have had to make various operational changes in order to meet the “Covid-Secure” requirements for youth activities put together in partnership with Scouting Headquarters, the National Youth Agency and the DCMS at Government level. There are therefore a number of things we need to let you know about the new Scouting Term which I have outlined below. Our re-opening has taken a huge amount of time to prepare and plan so please, please do your bit and read through carefully and ensure relevant information is passed on to the Young People themselves. There are also a few actions we need from you before we start back. Autumn Term 2020: Sections will resume weekly meetings as follows: Beavers- Tuesday 8th September Cubs (Tues)- Tuesday 8th September Cubs (Thurs)- Thursday 10th September Scouts (Tues)- Tuesday 8th September Scouts (Thurs)- Thursday 10th September Owing to maximum group size limitation we will be operating two groups each week running independently from each other. We have emailed each member individually to confirm if they are in Group A or B. Please ensure you know which group you are in when you arrive to your meeting. Consent to Participate: We are required by current Scouting rules to collect specific consent for members to take part in Scouting activities during this time. This permission will be collected once and will stand until the restrictions levels change considerably when we will seek update permission. Please could we ask for this short form at the link below to be completed on behalf of all members by midnight on Sunday 6th September 2020. Unfortunately without this consent in advance members will be unable to attend section meetings. https://9thmuswellhill.org.uk/return-to-scouting/amber-level-consent Membership: We are presuming all those receiving this email will be returning to 9th Muswell Hill this term. Those not returning should have given us notice by 31/08/2020 as per our email on 19/07/202 and in line with our membership policy. If you have not done this and are not returning to Scouting please notify us immediately. Juggling member numbers and groupings is even more of a logistical challenge than normal at the moment! As a reminder we ask for a term’s notice sent to the membership secretary (membership@9thmuswellhill.org.uk) if you wish to terminate your membership with the group. Failure to do this will result in the following terms subscriptions being charged in- lieu of notice. Attendance: During the disruptive period last term and whilst meetings were online we were more flexible with attendance for those not participating for various reasons. From 01/09/2020 we will be enforcing our membership policy again. This means members are expected to attend each week unless they have notified leaders in advance. If any member misses more than 3 meetings in a term without such notice they will forfeit their space in the group. This is out of respect to the leadership team, the committed members of the section and those on our extensive waiting list. We realise that for medical reasons, some members may not be able to join face to face sessions immediately. If this applies to you, we are happy to defer your membership and hold your place so you can join back in at a better time. In order for us to plan for this please let us know here straight away; https://9thmuswellhill.org.uk/return-to-scouting/shielding-member-notification Arrival: There will be no vehicle access or parking available at Scout Park and a one way system in place for pedestrians. Ideally members should be dropped off outside the gates and follow the signage to the meeting point individually where leaders will be waiting Where this is not possible, one member of the same household may accompany them to the meeting point, observing the one way system and social distancing at all times while onsite. Please avoid out of household contact including lift sharing wherever possible to minimise cross contamination A spaced queuing system will be in place for members to join as they arrive. All members will be asked to thoroughly wash their hands before the meeting begins. Departure: Leaders will plan activities to end in a prompt and scheduled manner to help support the managed departure of each group from Scout Park. All members will be asked to thoroughly wash their hands before leaving the session. If possible, members should arrange to meet outside of Scout Park and leave independently on foot. Where this is not possible, one member of the same household should arrive at Scout Park between for collection and join the spaced out queuing area in place at the meeting point. Members will be dismissed one by one at spaced intervals to either exit Scout Park or join their family member in the queuing area. Members and household members leaving the site should follow the one way system and observe social distancing until they have left Scout Park. Activities Activities, Camps Events: You will notice that we are not issuing very many dates for future events and additional activities in our programmes currently. At this point we are in the very early stages of being permitted to return to face to face Scouting and significant guidance has been issued by both The Scouts and National Governing Bodies for adventurous activities. We are working our way through this as well as discussing with suppliers, instructors and venues many of who are only just starting to re-open, many with significant restrictions. As a charity run entirely by volunteers, we must also be conscious of making both time and financial commitments for events that we cannot guarantee we will be able to go ahead. For this reason we are likely to programme and advertise events on a much shorter term basis for the foreseeable future rather than planning for the year ahead as we simply don’t know what that might look like. At the time of writing, nights away in all forms remain suspended but we are actively looking at ways we can deliver as many of our usual additional events such as off site activities and day trips as possible. Please bear with us- more information soon! Subscriptions: As we are now meeting normally again, Subs will return to the previous rate of £45 per term for all members of all sections. These will be collected via. OSM in the usual way and be due on Friday 11th September 2020. We are aware that some members may be experiencing additional financial challenges following the difficult circumstances of the last few months. The group has a hardship policy and fund in place and does not want finance to be a barrier to young people participating therefore last term we updated our hardship policy to cover subscriptions in view of the exceptional circumstances. The Group Executive has agreed we will do everything we can to support with subscriptions payments again this term for those in need of additional support. In order to administer this fairly and efficiently we would ask anyone looking to seek this support to complete the form at the link below by Friday 11th September 2020. A member of the Group Executive will be in touch to discuss confidentiality. https://9thmuswellhill.org.uk/group/hardship-fund Thank you for reading and acting on this information, we are really looking forward to seeing everyone again very soon and the section leadership team will be in touch shortly with details about the terms programme and details of the first session back. If you have any questions or queries please get in touch with myself or the section leadership team. Yours In Scouting, Dan Sheehan Group Scout Leader 9th Muswell Hill Scout Group |
Covid Code of Conduct- Amber Level:
