Scout Notes

Southland Times, Issue 22998, 18 September 1936, Page 5

Scout Notes

(By

“Pathfinder.”)

Scouters’ Meeting. A good meeting of Scouters was held last Monday evening. Routine business was soon disposed of and the main business of the meeting, the visit to Dunedin on September 26, was settled. As not quite a sufficient number were available the bus was cancelled and it was decided to travel by train—up on the Saturday afternoon and back on Sunday evening. The Scouters are to meet the Dominion Chief Commissioner and other commissioners in the evening before attending the hobbies and handicrafts exhibition. On Sunday morning there is to be a church parade.

The commissioner reported that a Scout troop was being formed in Riverton so a party was arranged to assist this. It is likely that a rally will be held there on Labour Day, and some Scouts and Rovers may camp there for the week-end. Annual census forms were given to the Scouters to be returned to the secretary as soon as possible. As the 1940 jamboree at Wellington is to be discussed at Dunedin next week, some good suggestions for the Southland display were considered. Scouts should remember that it is to be a big affair and is not so very long to save up.

Wood Badges. At the recent Scouters’ meeting the District Commissioner presented the wood badges the following Scouters had gained: A. B. Lumsden, Scoutmaster Rawhiti (East) Troop; B. G. Wallace, Scoutmaster Southern Cross Troop, Scout wood badges; G. W. Alington, Cubmaster Rawhiti (East) Pack, and R. H. Alington, Cubmaster Gladstone Pack, Cub wood badges. The meeting heartily congratulated the Scouters on being the first in Southland to gain their badges. Four other Cubmasters have been through the training camp section of the badge and two of these are at present taking the theoretical studies. When these are completed they should obtain their badges after the four months’ application of their knowledge to their packs.

The Chief’s Message. The Chief Scout’s foreword to the Scout Year Book, 1936, is as follows:— I ought to apologize, but I don’t, for absence from England during much of the past year. I do not apologize because our association is not merely chartered for England, but for the British Empire, and therefore my duty lies overseas as well as at Home.

My journey to attend the historic Pan-Pacific Jamboree in Australia last year included brief visits to Aden, Ceylon, Penang, Malay States, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Newfoundland, and, incidentally, to our brother Scouts in tire United States of America. Thus I was able to see how far our ideals appeal and our methods are adaptable to the various Eastern races and conditions, and also how the movement stands generally in those Dominions. The situation can be summed up as wholly satisfactory and as giving one absolute confidence in its future and in its value to the Empire. That this is so is mainly due to the devoted work of the Scouters on the spot, giving unselfishly of their time and energies, often under most depressing conditions, in the cause of the Empire and the boy. They deserve all that we can give them from Home of sympathy and encouragement. The following report will show what progress has been made in the movement generally during the past year. The fact that there has been some decrease in numbers at Home is not to be taken as a depressing sign, but rather the opposite. After all these years of our existence other associations for boys have sprung into being and these, together with educational bodies, clubs and societies, have largely taken to our line of considering the boys’ point of view when framing their schemes. These counter-attractions, together with the fallen birth-rate, account to a large extent for a certain falling-off of numbers on paper' but there is no falling-off in the percentage of boys brought under good influences at the mouldable stage of their lives. Competition is good for us all, and the counties in the United Kingdom are ably seconding the efforts of headquarters to keep abreast, if not ahead, of the times in their schemes for developing a happier, healthier and more helpful citizenhood of the future.

Scout Badge. Mason: (1.) Lay at least four courses of a straight wall with a corner, in addition to the foundation and damp course. (2.) Make mortar and understand the use of a plumb line and trowel.