On behalf of Scouts Canada, I wish to extend greetings and best wishes to you and your families. We are living through pretty remarkable times. By way of introduction, I'm Geoff Priems, your new Group Commissioner for 1st Bayridge Group. During these times, our collective aim is to make Scouting a reprieve from the craziness, a refuge where kids can feel safe and explore perhaps more about themselves and the world we live in. We want to make Scouting a bonus for you and your families and not a burden.
The first thing I want to do is let you know that Scouts Canada is committed to providing a safe and quality program. We will be following all of the rules set out by Scouts Canada, the province, local health unit and city. In addition, in person Scouting for the next while is limited to outdoors only with a maximum of 2 cohorts of 8 youth (16 maximum). Scouters, helpers, parents do not fit into these numbers, but fit into the 50 person cap on activities. Camping has the limitation of one person per tent (no sharing) and no indoor structures, and thus is forbidden for Beaver-Scouts, and we are encouraged to be thoughtful before taking Cub-Scouts camping.
In terms of expectations, you should expect some weeknight meetings to be conducted online. We are making plans for some weekend day activities, to get us outside and into nature. For Beavers and Cubs, those in person meetings will likely not occur until October, as we wish to let kids settle into their school routines - and our Scouters need to help get their families settled too. We understand that you might already have commitments on weekends that you already have plans, but we will try to give you at least 4 weeks notice of our "in person" meetings. We may be forced to shut down again, on short notice, in keeping with health protection measures issued by the government. We will be reducing our Beaver (Monday) program down to a single Section (Thursdays) (combining both Colonies) due to the retirement of some of our volunteers. If this is problematic, we can look to move your Beaver-Scout to another Colony within the Kingston Area (please contact me).
We are very thankful for Scouters Jane Murphy (Beavers), Bill Razc (Beavers), Somnath Sinha (Ventures), and Melissa Johson (Group Commissioner) for their many years of volunteerism with the program, and are leaving these roles. They will be missed, and we wish them nothing but goodness in their lives.
As we go forward, I am asking you or someone you know (ages 14 and up) to consider volunteering with our Group. If you have spare time, then we will match up your talents to a job. We are looking for assistance with taking minutes of a meeting, to share opinions, to help to manage our equipment, or ScoutsTracker, to help dry tents, or to help make plans, to camp with us, or provide First Aid for us! Lots of jobs! We need you, and there's lots of time to complete the requirements to become a Scouter. We are in particular need of assistance now to help with our Beaver and Cub programs. Please contact me if you can help, or know someone that help - and I will be happy to follow up.I have asked your Scouters to provide a sketch of what they anticipate the next few months will be like - all things being equal.
On behalf of all of us, thank you for choosing Scouts Canada. It is an honour and a privilege to be allowed to work with you and your children. Let's continue to keep positive and work together. Let's all remember that we're doing this to have fun!
Signup Here: https://www.scouts.ca/join/register.html
Geoff
Further Resources:
Policies: Pandemic Program Modification Standards https://www.scouts.ca/resources/bpp/policies/pandemic-program-modification-standards.html
Supporting a Symptomatic Person Guideline
Procedures: Complaint Procedure
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