Info for parents

Our goal is to offer to your child a hobby which has values, purpose and goal. We raise your child together with you by our youth programme and scout method. To succeed in this, we need good communication with you. We need to know a lot of your child and part of it is discussions with you and information you share with us.

We leaders do this as a volunteer work and because of that is it very important that all parties in this try to follow common practices. I promise that best outcome in our job comes when we all do our best remembering that this for good sake and saving the world. We need you help and ask you to help us by trying to follow few simple practices.

 

1.         Communication and contacts

 

All the basic information is on this website. For us this is the number one place to share information. We also have Instagram and Facebook channels. Please follow us.

From this website you find almost everything you need. Please tag the link in your browser. On site there is:


We use WhatsApp-groups in weekly bases to send you information, heads up-messages etc. You can ask help or advice in the WA – group of the program and events of group. We try to answer asap. Through WA you can tell us if your kid is sick or cannot take part in the weekly meeting.

 

Our office(at)wildeagles.fi is an email where you can send private or confidential information of your kid (health info etc.), ask financial support etc. I as a troop leader and our youth program leader Susanna are the only who has access to this account. If you need contact other us personally or the other leaders our addresses are in form:

firstname.lastname(at)wildeagles.fi. 

Every leader has this email address.

 

Please remember that all leaders operate in the troop as volunteer workers. Because of this our response time in messages, emails or phone calls is limited. Our work, studies or other activities or time with our families or friends also takes time. Please try to avoid calling us during the working hours. We are not able to answer in messages during the day. We can read them, but necessarily not have a possibility to answer. Trying not to be blunt, but between 2100 hrs to 1700 hrs we try to concentrate in family, job or other activities and rest.

 

2.         The troop administration

 

Wild Eagles ry (WE) is a legal entity. This means that we have a constitution (on website), official fiscal year, administration and accounting. The board is responsible of operational and strategic planning, operations and executions of the decisions of the annual meetings. Troop leader is the chairman of the board. The board has six other members. The tasks and names you find from our website.

We have two official meetings in a year. The spring meeting in March is more making decisions of past years finance, hear the auditing report, activity report and decide membership fee of the troop etc. The autumn meeting in November elects the troop leader and the board, decides action plan for next year and the budget. All scouts over 15 years are obligated to take part in annual meetings and speak and vote there. Scouts over 7 years official troop members. Unfortunately, according to the Finnish law parents cannot represent their children in annual troop meetings.

WE is the only English-speaking scout troop in Finland. We have had a long journey since 1961 to this point from a traditional boy scout troop to international diverse scout troop. Scouting is organized in Finland by The Guides and Scouts of Finland. GSF is member of both world organizations: WAGGGS (The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) and WOSM (The World Organization of Scout Movement).  GSF is divided in eight districts. WE is member of the Metropolitan Area Scouts (Espoo, Kauniainen, Vantaa and Helsinki). In Finland there are about 70 000 scouts.

 

3.         Values, mission, and educational goals

 

WE is a bilingual, diverse and international scout troop. Our youth program follows the national scout program, UN SDG's and global scouting trends. We are open to everyone who agrees scout values and can speak English in our activities. We are committed to GSF’s Easy to Participate- principles and we are an audited Sustainable Scout troop. 

Our mission is making the World better place to live.


4.         Practical issues

 

This section has instructions, advice and policies of or activities. These are for all of us that our volunteer work, your kid’s participation, and our troop life is smooth and fun. These also helps you to manage and support your kid’s hobby.


Registration to events


We appreciate early registration in Kuksa. It starts for you looking constantly event calendar and ask kid or decide in the family meeting what scout activities you participate. We try to get vital information, dates, Kuksa links and venue in web site 2-4 months before they happen. For us it is very important to know how many is attending because of budgeting, reservations, transportations, program, staff and lots of big and small details. One issue is also invoicing. One week before the event is unfortunately too late for us. Normally the event is funded by the participation fees, i.e. we need payments the before or just after the event. 14-24 days after the event makes cashflow management hard.

All the planning and resource acquisition etc. happens 3-4 weeks before and we make agreement and other financial commitments by not to knowing how many participants we have. That is a risky and uncertain in our financial planning. We hope that more early registration helps us to plan and execute the trips and events.

We promise to improve our communication and informing of the events. In the future we must close the registration earlier because the reasons above. We get financial losses of over resourcing the events. I kindly ask you plan the kid’s participation earlier according to our better communication and get adapt in earlier registration.

If you need to cancel the participation, please advise us asap. If your child has a medical cause to cancel, we return the fee. In other cases cancellation should be done in 48 h time limit. After 48 h we do not return the fee.


Information of your child


For smooth and secure meetings, trips and camps we need all the information of the kid’s health, medication, diet, allergies and other special needs. We know that all this information is strictly confidential and there are GDPR-regulations. We promise that all the sensitive information you tell us stays confidential and we do not save the information in our data bases.
 It is frustrating to ask diets etc. on every occasion, but no can do. For kid, you and we it is important that we know. Diets we ask while you register in Kuksa. Try to be as specific as you can when you register. Our food is always vegetarian or chicken (rarely), lactose free and we do not serve fish, nuts and sea food.

Allergies, medication, or special needs can inform us through the office(at)wildeagles.fi email. Especially if they are temporary and we have no previous knowledge of it. We remember a lot but is safer to send the info.

It is also very important to discuss with the group leader of your kid’s special needs or medical condition. We need to know how to handle or guide your children properly if something happens in weekly meetings or events. Some of us are educational professionals, but usually it is not the case. We appreciate all the information you can tell of your children to keep her/him safe.

Photographing permit is important information for us. We can avoid taking photos or videos of your kid if we know it. According to GSF regulations we can publish general photos or videos in our website, social media channels or publications if they are not close ups of kids who has a photo shooting ban.

 

Financial support and gear or equipment


Scouting is generally low-cost hobby. We know that it is not always the case. We have three kinds of costs in scouting:

 

Special info 


We call "trips" those events which last one or two nights and "camps" those which are three or more night. "Hikes" are 1-x nights trips. During the hikes we walk or ski 5-15 km per day and every stay night in different place. Usually in tents or lavvu’s.

 

To get financial support for trips or camps, please contact troop leader Mudi (Timo Muttonen, timo.muttonen(at)wildeagles.fi). For troop events he can make the decisions by himself. Troop event support is max. 50 % of the fee.  For support to district or national camps he can help you to contact right organization or person.

Gear and equipment costs are a substantial part of the scouting costs. We have a starting package for all who joins in. The package is a scarf, a badge to scarf and a badge to uniform, hoodie or t-shirt. The fee of starting kit is 20 €. It is a tradition that we wear scarf in every scout event. We have also a scout uniform and use of the uniform is not mandatory. Typically, trackers or explorers start to use uniform in formal occasions.

We are planning Wild Eagles clothing, but it has not been a priority. Hopefully we have some results of this in the end of this year.

Your kid can start scouting with a scarf and badges. After a while you can buy more scout gear. Usually, weekly bases you do not need any special gear. Please notice that we are in outdoors quite often at weekly meetings. In these cases, kids must have proper clothing.

When the overnight trips, camps and hikes are coming into the youth program, the costs rise. Basic gear list is on web site. Usually, younger scouts do not stay nights in tents but more in huts or other warm facilities. Summer camps are always in tents. Sleeping bag, mattress, back bag etc. are in the shopping list quite soon and of course kids are growing, and you need to buy bigger clothes and gear.

Finnish nature is quite hard. We have four seasons, and they vary a lot each other. We cannot emphasize too much that proper, warm and water-resistant clothing is the base of well being and comfort of outdoor activities. Please ask guidance if you are not sure of the outdoor clothing and gear. Usually, trendiness of teens and practicality of outdoor needs does not meet.

Unfortunately, we cannot support financially in the equipment, but lending is a possible solution. Ask help. We try get a solution.

I am open to all discussion of the troop policies. We need your feedback to improve Wild Eagles. When we execute our activities better your kid will have memorable moments in Scouting which last a long.


Yours in Scouting
Timo "Mudi" Muttonen

troop leader