Scouting Expansion Planned

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 20

Scouting Expansion Planned

Scouting in New Zealand had been growing too slowly, and extending scouting into new housing areas had not been faced as it could have been, the chief executive commissioner of the Boy Scouts’ Association (Mr S. O. Field) said in Christchurch yesterday.

Mr Field is visiting Christchurch from Wellington to attend the Canterbury area scout conference at Mania-O-Roto. Ashburton, today. New suburbs outside the main cities had far too few scout groups to serve them, Mr Field said. The association’s national executive had set a target of 10 per cent expansion in the next year, and that would be one of the main themes of today’s conference. District recruiting campaigns would be held between now and the end of the year throughout New Zealand, and established scout groups would train and help to establish new groups. There would be no shortage of applicants to join the new groups—a snap check had shown many districts had at least 50 boys on their waiting lists, and one group in Auckland had a waiting list of 90 for its cub pack. “Until a boy can join immediately, when he becomes eligible at eight years of age, we are not doing our job as well as we should,” said Mr Field.

The expansion would need the full co-operation of local authorities, organisations and parents, Mr Field said, and new leaders would be needed from the areas where groups were to be established. Among the matters discussed at the conference probably would be the British recommendation that the word “boy” be dropped from the title “Boy Scouts.” The headquarters of the New Zealand association was studying the British recom-

mendations and would report on them later in the year. The use of the word “boy” was one that affected the movement’s public image, said Mr Field and too few persons realised that the movement dealt with many young men and had many able and valuable adult leaders. Mr Field, together with Mr P. Darracott of the Young

men's Christian Association, will represent New Zealand at the sixth World Assembly of Youth in Japan from August 10 to 21 this year. From August 5 to 9 Mr Field will attend the fourth Nippon Jamboree in Japan. The Boy Scouts of Japan were established in 1909 after a Japanese visitor had seen the scout movement working in Britain.