CHANGE IN TRAINING SYSTEM OF BOY SCOUTS IN N.Z.

Wanganui Chronicle, 22 December 1950, Page 7

CHANGE IN TRAINING SYSTEM OF BOY SCOUTS IN N.Z.

An important change-over in the training system is announced by the Boy Scouts' Association. In (future, technical training of Scout leaders will be on a full-time basis under the direction of a qualified officer from the Old Country. The man who is to take over the newly created post ot Director of Training is Lieut. Commander John A. Harper, R.N.V.R., at present Scout Field Commissioner for Morayshire, Scotland. With the arrival of Lieut. Commander Harper in New Zealand in March, Mr J. R. H. Cooksey, of Rissington, Hawke's Bay, will retire after 12 years as Dominion Headquarters Commissioner for Training, a semi-honorary office under which he has organised the technical side of the movement with noteworthy results. Mr Cooksey will relinquish a movement already 20,000 strong, but capable of great expansion with the help of adequate numbers of trained officers.

Lieut. Commander Harper's assignment is to direct and inspire the training of such leaders. Thirty-three years of age, he saw continuous war service in the Royal Navy from 1939, when he joined as a rating. He was on H.M.S. Warspite in the' Mediterranean and served later at the Sicilian invasion. After a period o duty in occupied German ports he was demobilised in August, 1946. He is fully qualified in Scout and Cub work, and has had extensive experience in youth training in England and Scotland. His work in Northern Scotland has been a good preparation for the variety of experience he will encounter in New Zealand. Commenting on his service, the Gllwell Camp chief, Mr John Thurman, who was in New Zealand this year, humorously remarked: “Considering he is .an Englishman, what he has done in Scotland borders on the miraculous.”

Mrs Harper will accompany her husband to New Zealand, and they will live at the Dominion Scout training hearquarters, Tatum Park, near Levin. Mrs Harper is a Girl Guide officer, and has qualified in physical training and country dancing tor'women, being on the panel of evening institute instructors for London.