Fundraising begins for scouts

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 513, 23 November 1993, Page 16

Fundraising begins for scouts

Eight Ohakune scouts have accepted an invitation to travel to the USA next year for a scout camp, as well as accepting the challenge of having to raise a total of about $24,000 to get there. The camp is sponsored by the Santa Clara County Boy Scouts of America and is situated in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at a height of 5000 feet. Gold was discovered down-stream in 1848 which sparked off the great Californian gold rush and the awesome beauty of Yosemite National Park is just one-and-a-half hours to the south. In 1992 the International Rendezvous was attended and enthusiastically endorsed by scouts from Denmark, England, Estonia, GermanyC^Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, South Korea and two scouts from Ohakune. The event is held every two years and next year they are hoping to encourage even more countries to attend. With scouting in America being for boys only, it is a major concession for them to even allow girls in scouting from other countries to attend, so Ohakune is go-

ing to provide for them possibly their first experience of this by having two girls and a female leader in the party. The scouts will attend the camp for a week participating in mountain man aetivities such as black powder rifle shooting, axe throwing and living in a teepee, as well as sailing, rappelling and rock climbing, archery,. motor boating, wilderness survival camping and much more. At the conclusion of camp, the scouts will enjoy a weeklong home hospitality in the homes of American scouts in the San brancisco and San Jose area, where they will get to visit all of the sights and places of local interest. Fundraising is to begin very soon with stalls and raffles at all of the upcoming fair and show days, a stock drive, selling of firewood, with the possibility of a monster auction early next year and maybe a craft fair organised for Easter weekend. Anyone who has any work that they can offer to these scouts in order to help them reach their goal can contact Grant Hays on 385-8297. The scouts are also on the lookout for any chipped or cracked plates that you may have in your cupboards, aluminium cans from all those Christmas parties and old car batteries.