KEY POINTS:
After nearly 100 years of teaching children how to sew, tie knots and put up tents, the Guides and the Scouts are worried about their future.
A shortage of volunteers stepping forward to lead the organisations' weekly meetings has forced groups up and down the country into closure or amalgamation.
Some children are put on waiting lists, others are simply turned away.
The Scouts' Auckland commissioner, Steve Anderson, said the region now had only 41 Scout groups - about a third of the total seven years ago.
He said the problem was that the organisation could not attract enough volunteers to run weekly clubs. "It is a sign of the times and a case of everyone for themselves," said Mr Anderson.
The Waitemata Scouts group had gone from being one of the biggest in the country 10 years ago to finally being forced to close.
"We are particularly worried about the Keas group for 6- to 8-year-olds, where children are being turned away. They meet at 3.30pm and you cannot get parents available at that time."
Scouts national secretary Fred Moselen also put the closures down to a lack of volunteers.
"There has been a 50 per cent drop in ... Scouts over the past 20 years and it is because we need more leaders."
Scouting was "making a big effort to grow again", and had made changes in recent years, such as allowing girls to join, to shake off its old-fashioned image.
Guides and Brownies also face leader shortages, even though they, too, have made moves to update.
The days of dancing round toadstools are over for the Brownies, where 7-year-old girls are more likely to be seen rock-climbing than knitting.
Hobson Brownie leader Twinks Vitali said Brownies played a vital role in young girls' lives.
"They make friends with girls outside their school clique and learn from other cultures and backgrounds. They also learn life skills which are no longer taught at home because parents don't have the time."
But she said attracting and retaining younger leaders in Auckland were particular problems.
"Everybody is so busy that putting service back into the community is becoming less and less important."
The regional co-ordinator for Auckland Guides, Raewyn Miller, said there had been a solid decrease in the number of leaders volunteering to take the Brownies in the past 10 years.
She said the Ponsonby, Pt Chevalier and Mt Wellington units faced particular shortages.
"Some clubs have had to amalgamate because we would rather not close them and some girls have had to be put on waiting lists, but we really do not want to turn girls away."
Mrs Miller said the Guides organisation gave girls an opportunity to take on leadership roles and responsibilities from a young age.
A big focus was now placed on outdoor activities, and Mrs Miller said the annual camping trip was a highlight for most Brownies.
Community service also played a big role for the Brownies and the Guides, who had just finished fundraising to build a safe homework room for teenage girls in Uganda.
Guides communications manager Michelle Rousse said societal changes leading more women to go out to work had definitely affected the organisation. "Women have less time on their hands to think about volunteering."
But Volunteering New Zealand director Tim Burns said it was not the case that people were volunteering less.
"The last Census showed that there were about one million volunteers in New Zealand.
"People are still volunteering but they are doing it in different ways."
