Rovers in Australia
In Australia, the Rover section includes young men and women between 18 years to 25 years of age. Though it may be a small section of Scouts Australia it provides a great source of leader support and other service for the Movement. The section resisted attempts to abolish it, or even reduce the age range (Rovers famously threatened to pull out of Scouting entirely, surrendering the Rover Chalet on Victoria's High Plains and resigning as leaders and assessors for younger sections) as advocated in the "Design for Tomorrow" Committee's report in 1970 (unlike its British counterpart which disbanded Rover Scouts after the Advance Party Report in the mid sixties), but did modernise during the subsequent decade. It admitted women in 1975.
The next great step, self-government, came about in the mid-1970s with the Georges River Experiment (named after a Scouting district in New South Wales). Rovers proved that they could govern themselves, as their leaders stepped back to become Rover Advisers. Rovers took up the challenge and the section has grown for the better. It is also around this time that the section came to be known as 'Rovers' (dropping the word 'Scouts').
Australian Rovers provide active service to the all sections. Service in the community is also valued, with many Branch Rover Councils (the governing bodies for Rovers in each State and Territory) making annual awards to Crews who provide exemplary service to the community and/or Scouting.
Another notable feature of the Australian Rover section is the existence of "Lone" Rover Crews in several states, drawing their membership from across the rural parts of the country, or from Rovers who (because of shiftwork or other reasons) cannot be members of regular Rover Crews. Meetings are held by correspondence, with opportunities to get together at an annual Crew camp and major state or national Rover activities.
National Rover Moots are held every 3 years in Australia.
In 2008, the Rover section marked its 90th birthday, together with the 100th anniversary of Scouting in Australia.
Read more about this topic: Rover Scout
Famous quotes containing the word australia:
“It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.”
—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)