Bishop Tells Scouts To Use Talents

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31879, 6 January 1969, Page 1

Bishop Tells Scouts To Use Talents

Scouts should take advantage of the many opportunities available fojr self-improvement, the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt Rev. W. A. Pyatt) said at an interdenominational service held in the amphitheatre at the “Blue Skies” jamboree site yesterday morning.

An enormous amount of knowledge was available in textbooks and from teachers, and it was up to the scouts to use it, he said. All of them had some talent, and they should “improve it, burnish it, and double it up.”

This could be done through apprenticeships, university courses, cadetships and technical courses. “You’re not expected to do it by yourself,” Bishop Pyatt said.

i “But we don’t reach an I achievement just for our own ! benefit,” he said. “Our achievement is handed back in :the life we lead, our service 'to our fellow men and our devotion to God. i “Then we are giving back our talents and being of some use to God and our fellow man," Bishop Pyatt said. The service was attended by most of the more than 6000 scouts attending the , jamboree; except for those on rostered camp duties. Lessons were read by the Governor-General and Chief Scout of New Zealand (Sir

Arthur Porritt) and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch (the Most Rev. B. P. Ashby). Offerings collected from the scouts before the service are to be given to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. The service was not open to the public, thousands of whom visited the jamboree site in the afternoon and watched the boys starting their activities. A country-and-western musical performance was staged for the scouts in the amphitheatre last evening.