So last night the news Scout leaders up and down the country had been dreading came.... no more face to face meetings for the foreseeable future.
It was met with mixed responses, "yay" that I wouldn't be rushing in from work and doing my usual 10 minute change, wee, grab the bits for the meeting and trek to HQ in whatever the weather throws at us dance that happens every week and deep sadness. The thought of not seeing the little turquoise ninjas for a few weeks - as noisy as they are and as much as some weeks we go home and vow never to return - they are still like an extension of our families. we grow to know them and expect the cheeky smiles and comments we know which ones will have remembered the permission slips and which we will still be texting mid-meeting once the payment deadline has passed giving them one last (2 last, 3 last) chances to pay for that trip. The trip that we now have to cancel/ postpone until the world gets rid of this virus and we can go on living again. That trip the leaders have spent weeks planning for, booking, arranging deposits, writing risk assessments and chasing money for.... that trip everyone's been looking forward too..... gone.
In light of everything companies have been fantastic. Tonight's event was cancelled by the organisers anyway as it was a mass gathering but that still means I've work ahead of me to refund the trip when we can get back to meetings.
Next weeks event was at a small local business, we've agreed to postpone that one so the Beavers have a treat to look forward to when normality ensues.
The last was a big one, they were off to watch a local premier league football match next month - well we know how that's currently working out! Again they have been fantastic, agreeing to return our deposit and let us re-book as soon as we can when things are back to normal.
We couldn't let them loose their weekly meetings as well so we had to put our thinking hats on to see how we could meet without it being face to face. We use WhatsApp a lot for last minute updates and sharing photo's on sleepover so that seemed the obvious choice.
I decided on a badge to work on, set up a new group and invited all the parents. I explained what we were doing (meeting via WhatsApp in normal meeting time) and told them any materials they would need to gather. A gentle reminder was sent 15 minutes before we started.
During the day parents signed up to the group if they wanted to join in during the evening. Those that didn't had no pressure to do so and didn't have to make excuses why they weren't there, they may have been at work tonight so Little Jonny wouldn't have come anyway, they might be poorly, perhaps the badge we did wasn't their cup of tea.
How did it go.......... I'll let you know in the next post :)
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