Scouts Warned About “Souveniring” Badges

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29716, 9 January 1962, Page 13

Scouts Warned About “Souveniring” Badges

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, January 8

Badge-swapping is all the rage at the New Zealand scout jamboree at Waiora. Thousands of scout badges from every part of the world change hand every day in camp. In fact, competition has become so keen that the camp chief. Mr J. B. Mackien, today warned that any scout caught stealing badges or any other souvenir would be expelled from the jamboree. The visiting American scout. Jim Simmons, and other* have had badges stolen. A number of rare European badges are circulating in the camp. They have been "imported" by a boy who corresponds with a scout in Europe. These “collectors’ pieces” can fetch up to a dozen less valuable New Zealand badges. A bus load of girl guides from Hastings called on the Hawke’s Bay contingent this afternoon. The 20 girls arrived at 5 p.m. and had tea with the boys from their home province in Rees camp before visiting the other sub-camps. The guides are touring the South Island.

Scouts from Omapere, North Wairoa and the Bay of Islands, had a hangi this evening for other scouts in Rees camp. But this feast was only a preliminary for a big hangi they intend to hold for socuts from Australia, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Hong Kong, and Samoa, on Thursday night. This afternoon Auckland scouts gave, as part of their arena display, a re-enact-ment of the Treaty of Waitangi.