Parent’s Information

Everything you need to know and frequently asked questions about your child’s experience at 219th Birmingham Scout Group

If you have any further questions please contact us on info@219scouts.org.uk

Is Scouts open to everyone?
Yes! Scouts is open to all children, regardless of their gender, race, religion, ethnicity or their ability. If your child has any specific needs, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate those needs.

How old does my child need to be to join?
219th Birmingham provides weekly activities, trips and residentials for young people between 6 and 18 years of age:

  • Beavers for young people between 6 and 8 years of age
  • Cubs for young people between 8 and 10½ years of age
  • Scouts for young people between 10½ and 14 years of age
  • Explorers for young people between 14 and 18 years of age

How safe will my Child be?
Scouting is an extremely safe activity, all of our volunteer leaders undergo a vetting process on joining including a DBS (Police) check and are required to undergo initial training including Safeguarding, Safety and GDPR. First Aid trained leaders are also always on site. Read more about Safety and Safeguarding in Scouting here.

How can I contact the leader team?
Please contact us here.

Where do you meet?
We meet on Tuesday evenings term times at

St.Michael’s Church Centre17 Redstone Farm RdHall GreenBirmingham
B28 9NU

What time do you meet?
Beavers, Cubs and Scouts meet together at the same time on a Tuesday evening between 6:30pm and 8pm.

Although we all meet together, we utilise different halls and the outdoors to ensure each section has the space it needs for its activities.

Explorers also meet on Tuesday afterwards at 8:00 to 9:15, although many also act as young leaders and help run the sessions for the younger beavers and cubs.

Can I turn up on a Tuesday night to join?
In the interest of safety and safeguarding we ask that you please get in touch with us first if you wish your child to join us at 219th Birmingham. This is so we can complete the required joining paperwork prior to your arrival. Non-members won’t be admitted onto the premises until they have completed the joining process.

We have a closed Facebook group which is open to adults only (no young people allowed), and is aimed at parents of current Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers.  To join the group, please go to Facebook here, or optionally search on Facebook for ‘219th Beavers, Cubs and Scouts – Birmingham’. Please state your child’s name when applying to join.

We regularly post in this group pictures and information about what our young people are getting up to at the regular meetings and on camp, so parents are encouraged to join.

We also have a monitored WhatsApp group for communication direct with Explorers. This is to encourage Explorers to make more of a contribution to the programme and to keep them directly aware of Group, District and County events and opportunities.

How much does it cost to be a member?
Membership for Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers is £30 per school term payable by bank transfer, standing order or cash. We will confirm our banking details upon joining. Membership fees help us to pay for: our regular meeting expenses, equipment maintenance/storage, national and local membership fees to the Scout Association, insurance, and payment of rent to the church.

Can I pay per session?
We prefer a termly membership fee rather than an attendance fee as the membership fee covers fixed costs including our hall and storage rental, insurance and other overheads.

Are there any other costs?
The membership fee includes membership of the group and weekly sessions on a Tuesday night. Other activities and residential camps are charged on a per activity basis – however as a charity we do subsidise some activities so the charge may be lower than the cost price.

Adult Volunteers

All our volunteer staff help free of charge and are not paid for their time. This helps keep costs down.

How do I make payment?
Payments are accepted by electronic bank transfer to our Group bank account – payment details will be made available upon joining. Cash is also acceptable.

When is payment due?
Membership fees are due at the start each school term once your child joins the Scout Group. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate the group membership of any youth member where membership fees remain unpaid for a period of four weeks or more.

Do you offer any help for people struggling with finances?
Yes. If you do need assistance, and cannot pay your subs in full at the start of term, please speak to your leader or the Group Scout Leader in confidence as soon as possible to avoid the suspension of your young people’s membership. While we are a charity, we’ll always try to help as much as we can, offering extended payment plans and other financial assistance, if we can, on a case-by-case basis.

We reserve the right to decline a Young Person’s attendance at a paid-for event, such as a camp or other activity, if subs remain outstanding or a payment plan is in arrears, and we may use funds paid towards an activity to off-set outstanding subs.

Does my child have to wear uniform?
Yes, as a uniformed organisation all members must wear uniform to weekly meetings and uniform will need to be worn on arrival and departure from trips and residential activities.

You don’t have to purchase uniform straight away – you can give it a few weeks to make sure your child enjoys Scouting before you go ahead and make the purchase.

Uniform can be purchased from most school uniform shops or on-line such as from The Glasgow Scout Shop – for more information please visit – https://www.glasgowscoutshop.com/

Neckerchiefs can be purchased from ourselves for £5.00

We keep our administrative records, such as attendance, badges, events and personal details, and communicate with parents and scouts, using an on-line tool called OSM (Online Scout Manager).

When your child joins, we will send you a link. Please log in and complete the details and contact information,  We will use this information to contact you regards events and camps, and confirmation of attendance at events must be via the OSM parent portal.

Please make sure any special and medical needs are recorded including allergies, dietary needs and medication.

If your child leaves Scouting, their record will be removed from the database.

OSM is a scouting approved site that follows GDPR and we will not use your data for any non-scouting purpose. If you have any concerns regards your child’s data, please contact us on info@219scouts.org.uk