Sending Emails to Parents

The Email page#

Click Email in the sidebar to open the email system. The page has tabs for: Inbox | Sent | Drafts | Templates | Scheduled | Archive | Group Archive | Trash | Settings.

Composing a new email#

1. Open the Email Actions dropdown.
2. Select New Email.
3. In the composer:
   • To — search and select recipients (individual parents, sections, or groups).
   • Reply-to email — defaults to your profile email, or enter a custom address.
   • Compose your message using the rich text editor.
4. Send or save as draft.

Other ways to send emails#

You do not always need to start from the Email page. Scoutworks lets you email parents from wherever you are working:

• Members page — row kebab menu → Message Parents (individual) or bulk actions → Message Parents (multiple members).
• Members page, Parents tab — Member Actions dropdown → Message All Parents.
• Events page — Event Actions dropdown → Message All Members or Message Attendees.

These shortcuts pre-fill the recipient list, saving you from manually selecting people.

Emailing the parents of the members you tick#

Wherever you can tick a list of young people, you can email their parents. It is the same action in each place, and it behaves the same way:

Tick the rows you want, click the button, and the composer opens already addressed. You still write the message and choose when to send it — nothing goes out on the click.

This pairs well with a filter. On a badge, filter to the members who have not finished it, tick them all, and write to their parents in one go. On the Members page, filter to an event or a section first — see Managing Your Member List.

One email per parent#

Scoutworks addresses each parent once, by email address:

• A parent with two of your ticked children on their record gets one email, not two.
• Both parents of the same child get an email each. Nobody is dropped.

Members with no parent on file#

A member with no parent email address is left out, and the rest of your selection still goes through. If none of the members you ticked have a parent email address, no composer opens and Scoutworks tells you No parent email addresses found for selected members. Open those member records and add a parent contact.

If the member list itself fails to load, you get a different message — Could not load members. Please try again. That one means a loading problem, not missing contact details.

Recipient selection#

When composing an email, you can select recipients by:

• Individual parents — search by name or email.
• Section — all parents in a specific section.
• Smart groups — ready-made lists such as All Leaders, All Parents and All Trustees.

Each parent-child relationship counts as a separate recipient, so a parent with two children in different sections may receive the email once per child if both sections are selected.

Ticking members and using Message Parents or Email Selected works the other way round — it addresses each parent once, whichever of their children you ticked.

Emailing your trustees#

All Trustees picks up everyone holding the trustee role in your group, so you can send a board paper or a meeting reminder without picking each person by hand. Group admins and leaders can both use it.

The group only appears if your group has trustees, so most groups will not see it until they add some. Anyone who is both a leader and a trustee shows in All Leaders and All Trustees, and still receives only one copy of your email.

Inbox#

If your group has an inbox address configured (visible in Email Settings), incoming replies from parents appear in the Inbox tab. Copy the inbox address using Email Actions → Copy inbox address.

What's next#

• Email Templates — save and reuse common email formats.
• Email History and Tracking — track delivery and manage sent emails.