SCOUT NOTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 2

SCOUT NOTES

(By “Rama.”) If your patrol can manage their Tenderfoot tests in so short a time after only three weeks’ preparation, they will probably be able to pass their second class in four or five months. Any good Scout will want to be firstclass, but you cannot become first-class until after you are second-class. In fact, to be first-class second you must be second-class first. At present they are Tenderfoots, that is to say, thirdclass. The reason why a new Scout is called a Tenderfoot is that he has a thirdclass pair of feet. A first-class Scout’s feet are not so tender. That is because he knows how to look after them. You will have nine second-class tests to go through. You will find that the first test tells you that you must have one month’s service as a Tenderfoot. Now some patrol leaders say that this is no test at all, because nobody could become a second-class Scout in less than a month, and that the test may therefore be passed over. This is not what the Chief wants you to do. He wants you to devote attention to the first test just as you do to the other eight. Under this test you will constantly revise your Tenderfoot work. That is to say, by the time you are ready to pass your second-class examination, you will know sixteen knots instead of six, ten Scout signs instead of four, and half-a-dozen ways of practising the Scout laws, learnt from actual experience. A tenderfoot is not a boy who has once passed his Tenderfoot examination in days gone by, but is a boy who could pass his Tenderfoot test at any moment with the greatest of ease. I feel sure that you want to be useful, and it is when anyone hurts himself that they need help most, but neither you nor anyone else will be useful if they don’t know the right thing to do; if they do the wrong thing they are just the opposite to useful. It is important that you know the right thing to do for the little accidents first, and I don’t suppose your patrol goes to camp without a cut or a scratch. So you fellows for your second-class test have to learn the right thing to do for these everyday mishaps and make a start to qualify yourselves .to render first aid.

And so week by week may we take a portion of the test and just see what has to be done and the reason for doing it, and by medium of these notes may we find that our tests are not such stickers as we may at first think.

It is stated that five Scouts and Scouters may be representing the Masterton troops at the Australian Jamboree to be held at Sydney in December of this year. A whisper has been heard that the Mo Katoa Group have a special stunt on hand. For further information watch Scout notes and please don’t blame me for whatever happens. St Matthew’s Rovers,have been practising hard for the coming hand-ball tournament, to be held in Wellington early this month (July). Here’s luck, Rovers!