SCOUT JAMBOREE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 47, 8 November 1946, Page 5

SCOUT JAMBOREE

APPEAL LAUNCHED IN WHAKATANE

SEVEN BOYS FROM TOWN AND DISTRICT

A meeting of the Whakatane Scout Local .Association, which included delegates from Whakatane, Thornton, Edgecumbe and Awakeri, took last Monday evening at Edgecumbe, and agreed to actively sponsor the sending of approximately seven boys from the area, to the World Jambpree in France, next year. It was pointed out by the County Commissioner that the French Government had applied of its own volition for the right to hold the first gathering of yoHth since the war, a few miles out of Paris. The whole idea behind the Jamboree being to overcome as as possible, the intolerance and international hatreds which had been engendered by the struggle.

A number of objections to the raising of finance for this specific purpose were voiced by delegates, but the majority strongly favoured the move to send a representative number "overseas with the New Zealand contingent, which will be leaving these shores in June 1947. The Association as a whole pledged itself unanimously to support whichever boys were selected, and an executive comprising delegates from each troop committee was set up as. a selection committee. From reports it was indicated that approximately seven boys would be despatched, making a total of fifteen from the whole of the Bay of Plenty. The question of finance was discussed at some length, the official .figure per head being intimated by Headquarters as £2OO. This sum is likely to be • reduced by a Government subsidy which should be announced soon after the election. In any case, it is felt that the boys who will be nominated entirely on their own merits as scouts will probably be assisted fairly substantially by their own parents. . The problem of raising something like £I,OOO now lies before the Association, and this will be done by Scout efforts throughout the town and district, and also by canvass from house to house in most areas. It is felt that the representation will be one in which the whole district should be interested and further, that it may be regarded as a positive investment in the scouting movement by way of creating scouters of the future.