The Covid Year
As we all know, the end of 2019 saw the Covid-19 virus emerge in China and it wasn’t long before the virus was spreading across the world. After its arrival in the UK, the country was put into lockdown to reduce further spread.
Lockdown had many restrictions, the one which affected 2nd Renfrew being the rule that there were to be no inside meetings.
This left a few options – stop meetings of all units, or have all meetings online, or meet outside (when allowed to do so, as long as sanitisation and social distancing regulations were adhered to).
To ensure that all leaders were involved in any decision making, Colin Hogg, Group Scout Leader called a leaders’ meeting and posed the question “how do you think we should deal with our meetings?”. The leaders unanimously agreed that it was important to keep all sections running and initially opted to do so by Zoom.
This continued from March 2020 until the normal summer break in June 2020. However, as time wore on through the summer holidays it became clear that returning to what we called normal was not going to be soon. At that point, leaders agreed that when the sections resumed after the summer holidays they would meet outdoors. When the decisions were made to restart outdoors, meetings were all in tandem with the Scout Association’s regulations regarding the need for risk assessments for all sections and adherence to the Association’s risk warning colour schemes.
Preparing the Covid risk assessments was no mean feat as they were to be completed for all sections of the Group and in line with the Association’s risk requirements. These assessments then had to be submitted to, and countersigned by, the District Executive. It was only once the risk assessments had been approved by the Executive, signed and returned to the Group, that activities could begin. The colour schemes and associated risk assessment needs were:
- Red – meeting online only; no face-to-face (all sections).
No Covid risk assessment needed. - Amber – meeting online; small groups outdoors (all sections).
Covid risk assessment needed – we provided one large assessment which covered all sections. - Yellow – meeting online; small groups indoors and outdoors (all sections).
Covid risk assessment needed – we provided one large assessment which covered all sections. - Green – all activities resume in line with Government guidance.To bring cohesion to all this, we provided one large assessment which covered all sections
We haven’t included a link to our Risk Assessments as they’re not an exciting read, but thought it would be good for everyone to know that we communicated with Adults, so that everyone knew our Covid and Social Distancing rules. Letters, dated 15 August 2020, 28 August 2020 and a reminder regarding social distancing, can be read using the hyperlinks for each item.
When we were able to meet outside some of the times were adjusted to benefit from daylight and programmes were arranged to suit our ‘new normal’.
As the weather became colder the Beavers moved their meetings to Zoom, but the Cubs, Scouts and Explorers kept going through the winter, definitely looking forward to spring and some warmer nights.
Meeting outside the halls meant the Beavers had the unusual situation of a Hallowe’en party on Zoom.
Believe it or not, Christmas was an outside party. The Beavers managed to brave the weather for this one as they had games, a bonfire and hot chocolate to keep them warm. They also had a large screen set up so that Santa could join by Zoom, as he had Covid restrictions too. Santa was delighted to meet the Beavers as he hadn’t had much experience of Zoom and he enjoyed the visit as much as the Beavers did. Not many Beavers Zoom to Santa, so we are indeed a very fortunate Beaver Colony. (There’s more about what we’ve been up to in general in the Beavers Section of this website.)
We reckoned unusual circumstances called for a bit of initiative and hope the novel nature of these parties will be a talking point at our 125th anniversary.
In addition to the above, our outdoor nights included:
- Fireworks
- Games nights
- Toasting marshmallows
- Keep fit – good when the weather was cooler
- Badgework
Activities by Zoom included:
- Cake making
- Armpit Fudge. This sounds absolutely revolting, but the Beavers like it!
- Making rockets
- Scavenger hunts (alphabet or colour based) about the house
- Spot the difference
- Kim’s Game
- Knife, Fork, Spoon
The Cubs and Scouts/Explorers met on Zoom during the first lockdown, but once able to meet outside there was no holding them back. They were equally ingenious with the programmes for both indoor and outdoor and covered:
Cubs:
- Quizzes (indoor)
- Talent show (indoor)
- Badgwork (indoor and outdoor)
- Games nights (outdoor)
- Nature walks (outdoor)
Scouts/Explorers:
- Wide games
- ‘What 3 Words’ (see Maps display for more information)
- Backwoods cooking
- Incident hike
- Renfrew Monopoly (designed by one of our leaders)
- Litter pick service activity in conjunction with Renfrewshire Council
The arrival of spring let the Beavers meet outdoors, so once again our whole troop was taking part in outside meetings. We were delighted when we could go back indoors, with Covid restrictions in place, and it was great to be warmer and drier.
While we catered for online and outdoor meetings, we thought that we should do more for our young people, particularly the Beavers and Cubs who could be struggling with lockdown over the summer of 2020 and perhaps a lack of getting out to play.
We therefore decided to produce a 2020 Summer Activity Pack which we advertised to all our Beavers and Cubs. In addition to receiving a pack, everyone who signed up for one was given equipment they’d need to undertake the pack’s activities. (A copy of this pack will be uploaded soon.)
These packs were very popular, so when lockdown was on the horizon for Christmas 2020 we produced another pack, again primarily for Beavers, Cubs and their families. Like the previous one, items were included for the activities. Once again, it was a popular venture with lots to do to keep everyone occupied during the Christmas holidays. One family even told us they were still playing ‘roll your Christmas dinner’ in March!
Although we were out of lockdown by Summer 2021, we decided that 2021 Summer Activity Pack wouldn’t go amiss, so, like the others it was prepared and advertised, but this time included some slightly more difficult tasks so that older family members could learn as well.
Covid is still with us and will undoubtedly be for some time, but during the Covid year we’ve shown that the leaders are prepared to be flexible and the young people too, as we all do what we can to ensure that we have some normality in our lives. As a troop we’ve been extremely privileged during Covid in that parents and guardians have allowed their young people to meet outdoors, and the young people have come along. They’ve come along to such an extent that we’ve seen our numbers increase.
We’ve also been fortunate to have very understanding neighbours who never complained about the noise levels.
As we have noted on other displays, we’re extremely grateful to more people than we can mention for their support, in this case during the pandemic.
