1st Ballina Scouts - Joining Scouts

Joining Scouts

Before your child can participate in any Scout meetings you will need to complete an "Application for Youth Membership" form (Y1). This gives automatic insurance cover for your child whilst they are a ''New Chum''“. All new scouts are known as a New Chum for the first six weeks that they attend scouts.

After the initial four weeks, the Group, together with your child must decide definitely whether or not he or she wants to be a Joey, Cub, Scout, or Venturer, respectively. At this time the Group Manager and Section Leaders will discuss a date for Investiture. On Investiture all fees will be required to be paid by the child’s parent / Carer / guardian.

Parent / carer / guardian will be required to complete a Prohibited Employment Declaration (M5) Form . This form can be explained to you by a leader. This will help ensure your child will be able to successfully participate in the 1st Ballina Scouts Group.

The 2012 1st Ballina Scouts Registration Day is due to be held on Saturday 4th February between 10am - 2pm.

Please click here to view our information flyer for the day: 2012 Scouts Registration Day (jpg).

Fees and charges payable when joining 1st Ballina Scouts are as follows:

NSW Branch Fees - $20.00

Registration Fee - $ 100.00

1^st Ballina Group Fee:

New members - $35.00. This group fee provides group hat, badges, woggle, scarf, cub/scout book and dilly bag for your child.

Existing members $10.00 for a group hat.

The term fees payable are $60 per child, irrespective of the number of weeks in each term. If there is more than one sibling however, term discounts will apply.

As you can see, the only ongoing fixed expense to yourself is that of the weekly subs which is paid whether your child attends the meeting or not.

Naturally with Scouting being fundamentally an outdoors-based programme, from time to time there will be pack holidays, camps,

hikes etc; normally over 2 or 3 days, which your child will no doubt want to attend. The cost of these activities is an extra expense to yourself but you can be sure that we carefully aim to keep the price of such activities to a minimum.

From the night he or she is invested, your child will be expected to wear full uniform unless advised otherwise.

Uniforms consist of a Navy Blue Shirt with respective colour panels for different sections. For both males and females navy blue shorts, trousers, culottes and blue/black socks can be worn. Enclosed shoes are to be worn for all scouting activities. Hats are not required as part of the official uniform but will be required for all outdoor activities (no peaked caps allowed).

Scouting is a voluntary organisation, and we do rely heavily on parent support. If you are not prepared to give this support, perhaps you should reconsider your decision to have your child join.

The support given will depend on the individual circumstances of each family. Areas in which regular help is needed are:

· Transport: Occasionally transporting the children to various activities included in our programme.

· Cleaning/Maintenance of the Scout Hall: It is important that the place in which our children gather be maintained in a clean hygienic fashion. Naturally the Youth Members are expected to clean up their own mess.

· Parent Roster: There are occasions when the Leaders can do with an extra pair of hands, eyes and ears. This is mainly needed when a Leader is working on their own. lf we call for a little extra help, it is good to know that there are parents willing to assist.

· Joining the Parent Support Group: This is not an onerous task - the really hard work of building the Scout Hall and providing major resources has already been done by past committees. It really only involves one meeting a term and helping to manage and maintain the resources of our Group as well as the occasional social activity. It is expected that every family will be represented on the committee for at least one term (normally two years) during their child's Scouting career. Don't leave it until your child is almost ready to leave.