Ever since SuperTroop started, we have been battling with our desire to provide holidays to as many deserving holiday-makers as we can, while also making sure we don’t overload our volunteer team, or become unsafe on the week. As any SuperTroop family or helper will tell you, the fact that young people come back to our scheme year on year helps us really get to know them and provide the exceptional level of fun and care on which we pride ourselves. Not just that, but families hugely benefit from knowing that a SuperTroop holiday is coming round again every summer for their child - it’s a break they can rely on. We regular find that parents get more and more adventurous in what they decide to do during the week, transitioning from an anxious first summer always waiting for the phone to ring, to a confident third or fourth holiday, zooming overseas for a few days away from it all.
So there are really good reasons to have holiday-makers return to the week, for a number of years. But this does mean that new places are rare and it limits the holiday ‘turnover’ to occasions when someone graduates out of the week, aged 18. This is why, for new holiday-makers joining SuperTroop from summer 2024 onwards, we are going to limit their place to a six-year fixed term. We think this strikes the perfect balance between the benefits of a repeating, annual holiday experience, and our desire to maximise the number of new families who can benefit from SuperTroop in the future.
This policy only applies to new holiday-makers joining the scheme from 2024 onwards. We will honour the pledge to our original families, to offer a space to their young person until they turn 18. We don’t want to revert on that promise or change things for existing SuperTroopers, but we will be applying this new system to all new enrolled young people.
You can read more about our process for recruiting new holiday-makers on our Referrals page and ask questions by emailing families@supertroop.org
For now, we hope you agree that as many families as possible deserve to experience the magic of SuperTroop, and this new system will give us a way to expand our reach, without compromising the fundamental benefits of what we do.