Dear Parents,
First of all apologies for this last minute communication, but since the Prime Ministers announcement on the lockdown last Saturday, the Scout Association has been in consultation with the National Youth Agency to understand what this means for the delivery of Scouting in England. The result of these consultations has only just been made known earlier this afternoon and I am afraid the news is not good. The following is the formal announcement from the Scout Association:
"Following the announcement of a four-week lockdown in England from Thursday 5 November, the National Youth Agency (NYA) has now issued guidance about what this means for all youth sector activity. From tomorrow, Scouts and all other youth activities will move to Red readiness level.
This decision by the Government means that there can be no face-to-face activity with young people or adult volunteers. Only online meetings can be delivered until further notice.
We appreciate this is very short notice and is disappointing for many who have worked so hard to get their sections back together, and had fantastic plans for their young people over the coming weeks. We also understand and sympathise with those who now have the difficult task of cancelling meetings. We can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing. Please be assured we would’ve liked to have given you as much notice as possible but this is the earliest opportunity. The NYA website will be updated to reflect this change at 4pm today. We expect these restrictions to last until 2 December, when the lockdown is currently scheduled to end in England".
Hopefully though this will be the end of lockdown and if the current low level of Covid-19 infections in Mendip remains the same, or even better drops, then we should be able meet again on Thursday 3rd of December. In the meantime 5th Frome will endeavour to keep Scouting with on-line meetings and provision of tasks for our young people to undertake during the month ahead. Your section leaders will be in direct contact with you regarding this.
As soon we have more definite news about restarting we will let you know either by e-mail, via our web site or social media,
Kind Regards,
David.
David Hoare
Chairman - 5th Frome Scout Group
https://www.5thfromescouts.org.uk/