NEW IMAGE FOR BOY SCOUTS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31083, 11 June 1966, Page 17

NEW IMAGE FOR BOY SCOUTS

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) LONDON, June 10.

Sixty years of pointed broad - rimmed hats and sun-burned knees ended today for the world’s Boy Scouts. A new with-it image—“to show that the scout movement belongs to the 1960 s as much as the Beatles”—was unveiled in London today. Out go the long khaki shorts, the broad-brimmed Scout’s hats, and all the Boerwar type trimmings. Out too goes the world “boy”—“one of the most damaging aspects of our present public image.”

These proposals are the result of a 30-month study by a 24-man committee of scout leaders—all under the age of 45. “In” for the modern Scout (aged between 11 and 16) will be dark-green longsleeved shirts; long mush-room-coloured trousers, slimflttings and without cuffs; a green beret matching the shirt; and, when it rains, a green jerkin.

Senior and Rover Scouts will be called Venture Scouts —a name, says the report which is virile, active, and forward looking. It is planned to introduce the new look movement over five years beginning this October.

The report has been sent

to Scout leaders abroad, according to Sir Charles Maclean, the British Chief Scout. The Venture Scouts will wear a similar uniform to younger Scouts but with a different colour scheme—beige and brown instead of green. Sea and Air Scouts are also brought up to date. The report says that “Boer War” uniforms, Rudyard Kipling training books, jungle dances and “outmoded activities and Childish games” should be scrapped in a big modernisation programme. The report calls for more group activities with Girl Guides and a “sophisticated and acceptable training programme for boys of all ages.” The setting up of a joint committee between Venture

Scout units and Guide units is recommended. The 220,000-word report now will be considered by the association’s policy makers. The report says that because of shorts, scouting had been dubbed a juvenile organisation in which men dropped back to boyhood level.

Making recommendations for Cubs, the report says that although the Kipling jungle book theme should be maintained, as the imaginative background to introduce scouting to eight-year-olds, after the ninth birthday it should be phased out. All jungle' dances, the terms old wolves, palaver, tenderpad, council rock, rock council and leaping wolf are to be dropped.