NORTHDOWN TE RANGI

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21216, 10 December 1938, Page 10

NORTHDOWN TE RANGI

Preparations are now well in hand for our annual camp to be held at Raincliff during the coming holidays. The site for the camp is a fine one and has all the facilities for the making of successful camping. As far as we know at present, nearly all our scouts are going under canvas, and this is a new experience for most of them. However, under good Patrol

Leaders they;will sooon be able to make themselves efficient and prove that they can become good campers. St. Peter’s troop are joining in with us again this year under their assistant. Jack Shipman and there will probably be about 30 in camp. The scheme of activities has been arranged by the Court of Honour and the boys are looking forward to a jolly good time. One recruit, R. Chapman was invested at the Den, during the last parade and four others are ready for their tenderfoot tests. A couple of hikes have been held recently, one at Northdown, under Scouter and a Rover. Tests and scouting games occupied most of the day. The hike to Brassells Bridge was the responsibility of P.L. Albert Rickard and the opportunity was taken during the afternoon of having a dip at the excellent pool by the bridge. The troop are proposing to hold a swimming evening shortly, when some of the scouts will attempt to obtain their swimmer’s badge. PHYSICAL FITNESS “The idea that bodies of young people need no further supervision after 14 years of age, because the academic education of their minds is adjudged to be adequate for worldly needs, is ludicrous; unsuspected deformity or disease can develop at 15 as readily as at 13. and requires treatment just as prompt. The complete absence of any scheme of dental treatment for adolescents is, indeed, a grievous defect in the very foundations upon which physical fitness should be built. “There is the lack of the ‘spirit of willing personal discipline in pursuit of an ideal.’ Physical fitness is just such an ideal; and until our young people realize that its pursuit is not a mere game, but that it is something worth achieving for its own sake, and that (as in the case of most things in life worth having) success is the only possible in return for a certain measure of selfsacrifice, the results will be disappointing. The Scouts and Guides have learnt this truth, so eloquently expounded in a recent letter from Lord Baden- , Powell.” 1 —Mr Norman Bennett, in a letter to the Editor of “The Times.