Wicklow scout leader makes urgent appeal for adult volunteers as group faces closure

Cill Mhantain County Commissioner Dermot Moore has made an urgent appeal for adult volunteers in a bid to save the 17th Wicklow Roundwood Scout Group from permanent closure.

Mr Moore said the group’s numbers have diminished since Covid, with the younger Cubs and Beavers having been disbanded following the pandemic, and he is now advertising for adult volunteers to get the group back up and running.

“We had an older section of 12-14-year olds that are still hanging on, but they’re almost being wound down now as well, and there is a real danger of the group closing up completely,” he stressed. “So I’m trying to get the adults on board so I can re-launch the younger sections and rebuild the group.”

Mr Moore said the issue presently is about attracting volunteers before he can move on to look at fundraising to cover the costs of training.

There are now only 12 members left in the group, whereas at the height of their activities before the pandemic there would have been up to 70 members and they need to build back to those numbers for the group to justify its existence.

“Covid saw the biggest wind-down,” Mr Moore said. Leaders also left “because of work commitments, and you also had leaders whose kids aged-out and they moved on with their kids. So the first step is to get new adult volunteers, because once we have that we’ll have no bother getting the kids back involved and we’ll easily fill up the numbers.”

Mr Moore said he was involved with breathing new life into other groups in the county, helping to relaunch the Rathdrum group two years ago and the Delgany group in April, after both groups saw their numbers decimated because of the pandemic.

In the case of the Delgany group, it took 12 months of recruiting and training to bring 15 new adult volunteers into the fold.

Mr Moore, who has been involved in scouting for 10 years and has been the county commissioner for the last six years, said he needs to have the recruitment drive completed by September.

“Realistically, I need to get the adult volunteers in place over the summer,” he said, “and relaunch the scout group in September. That’s the timeframe. Otherwise, it will close completely and it’s that much harder to start from scratch.”

He said the threat to the local groups in the county is not a reflection on scouting in general, which he said was still “hugely popular”. In fact, being able to operate in small groups outdoors during Covid was one of the benefits for the organisation. The problem was it eventually acted as the “catalyst” for the adult volunteers to depart in large numbers.

“What happened was over Covid, people got used to the idea of being outdoors and outdoor activities, and actually scouting came to the forefront then, because we were able to work outdoors in small groups of six. And people were seeing the benefits of it then. So in terms of new members, we could have 100 people waiting at the door in the morning, but it’s getting the adults involved so we can take them on.”

One of the other issues hampering the drive to get adults on board for the Roundwood group is the lack of a social media presence, which Mr Moore admits hasn’t helped, but without volunteers, even maintaining a Facebook page is onerous.

He added that while Roundwood is the group that is currently facing the greatest threat, scouting groups throughout the county are in need of adult volunteers. The process is not overwhelming for anyone thinking of offering their services but it is still a commitment.

“There is a process,” he said. “An application, Garda vetting and then the training, which all takes about three to four months to get the volunteer into the conversation through to the final stage, so it takes time.”

To offer your services as a volunteer for the 17th Wicklow Roundwood Scout Group, you can contact Dermot Moore on [email protected] or call 086-8554262

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