Waiting List Updates & List Closure Announcement
Milton Keynes Scouts Milton Keynes Scouts
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Waiting List Tool Updates
New functionality was added at the weekend that corrects an anonymisation issue when record is passed to OSM, added a manual anonymisation button to help remove those who've replied to emails rather than click the link asking to be removed.
It also added the functionality to allow the waiting list reporting to be shared publically.
So I have a page together giving overviews of what a Group catchment is based on closest, 2nd closest, 3rd closest and Preferred Group.
it also provides a *live* view of the list at a District Level, which is what we report for Census.

The waiting list now stands at 2414, which is getting on for 2x our active membership.

This means that in some areas of the city, it will be 7 years on the waiting list before a child may get an offer of a place.
The decision has been taken to close the Waiting List to new registrations from 31st March 2023.
  1. How this affects your group?
    • You carry on using the District Waiting list as you do now, but manage Siblings locally. There are enough people on the waiting list to fill your sections for the next couple of years at least.
    • We will use a separate form for "high priority" registrations, such as refugees, Local Authority Care, and Fostering etc.
  2. What about Enquiries from the Scouts.org.uk website?
    • They will be directed back to InfoCentre, with an explanation as to why the list is closed, and to use the volunteering form if they want to jump the list.
  3. Why the 31st March?
    • As much as we want to close it immediately, it takes time to update the canned responses in the Helpdesk Software
Why are you closing the waiting list to new registrations?
There are a number of reasons:
  1. It's twice our active membership, and we're getting 1-3 registrations a day.
  2. In 2022-3 Census year, we had a net gain of 600 registrations (increase in 400, despite 200 young people being placed = 600)
  3. The number of "Where is my child on the waiting list?" enquiries is growing measurably which requires increasing amounts of time to respond to.
  4. *I* am running out of time as a volunteer to manage the waiting list service for all the groups.
  5. Our ability to grow Milton Keynes Scouts beyond the Groups we have is significantly challenged by a shortage of suitable venues where we need scouting embedded in communities.
  6. The areas covered by Youth Investment Fund do not have suitable or affordable solutions to make use of the once in a generation pot of cash to grow youth provision in Milton Keynes.
  7. The ability to support mass recruitment drive or even work through those parents who have expressed an interest, or would actively commit to long term volunteeering is not there.
  8. We have 192 people in Volunteer Onboarding that we don't have the resource to engage on, we can't grow the infrastructure to support growth, TA's, training capacity etc, they are a County responsibility.
  9. There is not the volunteer base to recruit from to support County recruiting into those supporting roles.
  10. If County cannot spin up the supporting infrastucture that's in its portfolio to support mass recruitment, there is no point embarking on it, because the volunteer experience is over(Mis?)-sold because of a lack of TA's, training course capacity/availability etc, which impacts the wider morale piece. Noone wants to sell scouting knowing it will be a sub-par experience.
When you take all these things into consideration it sucks, it really sucks, we've tried everything we can think of to address the astronomic growth potential of Milton Keynes as the City grows BEFORE it gets here. We've tried to make structural changes and process changes to ensure that growth doesn't break the existing volunteers or collapse the supporting functions under it's weight.
In my humbly considered opinion, that's now too late.
Ultimately I have failed, but I always knew I would. Milton Keynes is the scouting equivalent of the Koboyashi Maru.

So time to batten down the hatches, and work with what we have, until someone with a better, more viable and funded solution comes along.
Kind Regards,
Stuart
Growth & Development Lead
Milton Keynes Scouts
Milton Keynes Scouts
c/o The Quarries, Straford Road, Cosgrove, Milton Keynes
(c) Milton Keynes Scouts (<a href="https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/5032825/charity-overview">Charity number: 1150177</a>)