Today Scouts is the largest youth program in the world involving over 19,000,000 members from more than 100 countries all over the world. Scouts is all about having lots of fun! It also gives kids the chance to learn leadership, inititive and new skills, and make lots of new friends.
The Scouting Movement was begun in the early years of the twentith century by Lord Robert Baden-Powell (BP). In began when the town of Mafeking was besieged by the Boers during the Boer War when BP used boys to run errands and scout the enemy to free up all available men for fighting. When he returned to England after the war BP began writing a series of magazines for boys about his experiences during the Boer War called "Scouting for Boys''. Many boys began reading them and soon began to form themselves into Patrols and carry out scouting activities using the magazines as a guide. In 1907 Bp held the first offical Scout activity: a 10 day camp involving hunting, tracking, construction, hiking, etc. From these small beginning came the world-wide scouting movement.
Scouting is lots of fun. We often do activities such as bushwalking, camping, caving, abseiling, construction, survival, canoeing, bush cooking and rock climbing in a fun and safee environment. We also go swimming, ice skating, ten pin bowling and go-karting. In Scouting the fun never stops.
