SCOUT JAMBOREE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23218, 12 December 1938, Page 13

SCOUT JAMBOREE

SYDNEY GATHERING AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVE LONG TERM OF SERVICE A record of 20 years' service as an executive officer in the Boy Scout movement is possessed by Mr. W. W. Thayer, of Honolulu, who arrived by the Aorangi yesterday en route to Sydney, where he will be the sole American representative at a jamboree to be held at Bradfield between December 29 and January 9. Mr. Thayer, who is the Boy Scout commissioner at Honolulu. intends to remain in New Zealand until December 23, when he will join the Wanganella at Wellington for Australia. "Continued progress is being made by the scout movement in the United States and our numbers are now ahead of the figures for Great Britain, where the organisation had its birth," Mr. Thayer said. 'Every village and hamlet has its troop and whenever there is a job of community welfare work for which assistance is required it is readity given by our members."

International in its scope, the movement has been examined by Mr. Thayer in many parts of the world. He lias travelled among the scouts of Japan, China and South America, and met. a number of scouting leaders on a previous visit to New Zealand in 1935. Ho was also a prominent, member of the American contingent at the international jamboree held in Holland last year. ■ The next international gathering of members of the movement was to be held in 1941, but the location had yet to be arranged, "Mr. Thayer added. He had not heard officially of the Centennial jamboree which was planned by the New Zealand authorities in 1940, and, in view of its proximity to the international assembly in 1941 and the long sea voyage that would .be involved, he thought it doubtful whether it would be attended by an American contingent. .. i -