Fees

Our membership fee is known as “Subs” (short for subscriptions). It is £120 per year, split into three amount of £40 which are payable in line with the major school terms i.e. in September, January and after Easter. Parents receive an email, requesting payment and containing payment details, soon after the start of each term.

Subs cover most aspects of being a member of 1st Chew Stoke Scout group. This includes our national subscription for each member to The Scout Association (which in turn meets costs such as insurance, public liability, and central resources to support activities), hall hire, badges, scarves and all Group-run activity expenses. The only additional costs are to attend optional events such as Camps or externally run activities.

Like all Scout Groups, 1st Chew Stoke is non-profit-making and entirely self-financing. Everyone working for the group is a volunteer – no one receives payment for the time and effort they put in. We do not aim to make a profit, and any funds are used for the benefit of the group, mostly to cover our running expenses such as hall hire. We review our subs fee regularly to ensure we keep it as low as possible.

Payment

We have recently upgraded our payment system, and payments are now made using OSM and GoCardless to set up a continuous payment authority (CPA). This will allow us to request payment directly each term and easily identify who has paid, saving the Group time and money. The CPA can be cancelled at any time.

Parents will receive an email containing a link to set this up – it can also be accessed in OSM via the Parent Portal using the Payments menu under your child’s name. Simply click the ‘Create Subscription’ button and enter your contact details and account number into the GoCardless form, and payment will then be taken automatically when it is due. You will need to click the ‘Create Subscription’ button for each child you have in the Group, but you should only need to enter your account details the first time.

Payments can also be made for Events as and when required.

Gift Aid

Gift Aid is a tax relief set up by the Government to enable charities to claim back 25p for every eligible £1 donation that is made to them by UK taxpayers. Every Scout Group is a charity, and we are allowed to claim Gift Aid on any subscription fees we receive. This means we can make your money go 25% further at no extra cost to you.

To claim Gift Aid, we need a completed declaration from each donor. We manage this using OSM, and filling in the declaration takes only a few seconds. Parents will be sent an email with a link to a short form where they can complete this declaration – we apologise for the bureaucracy and the small amount of extra work involved, but as Gift Aid can be worth over £2000 a year to us, I hope you appreciate why we ask. If you are not eligible (e.g. not a UK taxpayer) or just do not wish to sign up for this, you can indicate this on the form and you won’t receive any more emails.

We never want anyone to miss out on Scouting because money is tight – if this is the case, please speak to the group leadership team (gsl@chewstokescouts.org.uk) or section leadership team in confidence and we will try to help.

If you experience any problems with financial or payment issues, please contact our Treasurer (treasurer@chewstokescouts.org.uk)