SCOUT NOTES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 169, 4 August 1937, Page 2

SCOUT NOTES

"HOBIN HOOjD"

COMMISSIONER'S LETTER •Dear Scouts, — Last week I was at Tauranga. A very tidy scout came up to me and asked if X would buy a ticket for their scout and guide concert. He gave me a programme as well and a jolly good programme it sounded. Scouts, cubs, guides and brownies all doing their whack. What interested me was that the concert was to raise funds to build a scout and guide hall. Other piaces have the same difficulties as we have. We all need homes of our own. A fortnight ago I suggested that each group should do something towards the scout hall- What is your group doing, and what are you doing yourselfp We have read ih the papers about the cainp in England of f.our thousand refugee children from Spain, but we hadn't heard that the guides, scouts and rovers were heipxng to 1-nn it. Oolonel Mellor, who was once scout master of Havelock North aud js now Commissiouer for Winchester (England), was working in the camp, and from his. doscriptipn things wero not boo easy to start with. lmagine a camp of four thousand and only one Iritchen (my own troop iikcs to have four kitchens for twenty-four scouts). Hemember too that mjrny of the children had been half starvea for months and wetre more like savages than ordinary bemgs, also none of them spoke English — ■ no easy mob to handle — but scouts and guides did great work. When volunteers were caliect for many scouts gave up oheir W'hitsun camps, and not a few eancelled their visits to one of the warships at Spithead for the naval review by his Majesty the King—a really big sacrifice to "make, The camp was only to be of a temporary nature and the refugees were later t° be sent to private nomes and smaller camps. bcouts were to run a number of these and 150 of the girls wero to be the guests of Bournmounth Ghides at their permanent caniping . grounds. Scouts and guides had again shown themselves ready to help other people at all times. — Yours ever.

[a]