Lancaster Guardian and Observer, Friday, 10 January, 1947
New Year’s Day Ceremony
23rd LANCASTER TROOP REVIVED
Scoutmaster Tom Hodgson chose New Year’s Day on which to invest Rowland Davies, Peter and Brian Butterworth, Bill Kirkby, Roy Guy, Alan Ward, and Maurice Carpenter, who are to be the revivalists of the 23rd Lancaster (Christ Church) troop. The day chosen was appropriate enough for a new beginning and calls to mind the fact that when District Scoutmaster Louis Wright inaugurated Scouting at Christ Church in 1937, he chose the eightieth birthday of the then Chief Scout, Lord Baden-Powell as the day of the investiture ceremony.
The troop, like many others, was temporarily suspended during the war owing to manpower difficulties, but the newly-formed patrols of the Owls and Curlews having absorbed the rudiments of the game as tenderfoots since last October, should now go forward with good heart.
Scoutmaster Hodgson, whose brother John has for long been the “Skipper” of the 21st Lancaster Sea Scouts, comes to the 23rd with previous experience gained with the old 6th, at Greaves, and the 16th, at Scotforth coupled with Rovering experience with the 32nd Cairo British Rover Crew during his five years’ war service.
Parents were present at Wednesday’s investiture and Scoutmaster Hodgson subsequently had the pleasure of unfolding to them and the Rev. C. R. Ridley some of his plans for the future, and what is more important still, enlisting their co-operation in the formation of Parents’ Committees. We wish the 23rd the best of luck in its new venture.
WOLF CUBS
A highly promising number of “Cubs,” put through their paces in no uncertain fashion on Sunday last, acquitted themselves well and qualified to receive their first certificate of proficiency and the Gilwell woggle.
The only way to be able to impart the romantic atmosphere of Wolf Cubbing which has its basis in Kipling’s “Jungle Books,” adapted by the late Lord Baden-Powell for small boys, is to be a Cub yourself, and on Sunday this is precisely what the Cub Leaders from Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham and Bolton le Sands attempted to accomplish. It is to their credit that they brought to their task a touch of realism which augurs well for the future.
The occasion was a District Training Course arranged by the North West Lancashire County Scout Council as a preliminary canter to the practical and theoretical Wood Badge Courses. The training, which took place at “Thorneycroft,” through the courtesy of District Commissioner J. Dodds Drummond , occupied a full day covering every aspect of Cubbing star tests, pack games, jungle games, yarns, investiture and going-up ceremonies, in three complete programmes.
Field Commissioner Charles A. Winn and Assistant County Commissioner (for Training), J. F. Leech, conducted the course on behalf of the County authorities, and they had invaluable help from District Cubmaster Mrs. M. Davies (Lancaster) and Cubmaster Miss J. Turner, of Morecambe and Heysham.
TRAINING AND GOODWILL
For some of us it recalled similar courses which Capt. and Miss Michaelson, of Blakeholme, used to conduct some years ago. The pressing need of the County at the moment is to procure the services of an experienced Akela-Leader to organise such courses. In the interim period they have to be sandwiched at irregular intervals when Commissioners Winn and Leech have time to spare from Scout training courses but from those who can manage to attend there is to be a practical Cub Course at Ennerdale during Easter.
Training apart, Sunday’s gathering fostered a happy spirit of goodwill between neighbouring Associations and an exchange of ideas, which leads us to express the hope that apart from County Courses, we should try to get together more often by arranging inter-Association Seeonee Packs that met all too infrequently before the war. – “AKELA.”
