Scouting and Guiding in Victoria - Scouts Australia - Victorian Branch

Victorian Branch

Scouts Victoria is a volunteer-based Non-profit organization that caters to the needs of young people throughout the state, providing them with educational and fun activities from the ages of 6 to 26, although adult leaders are often much older and still take advantage of these opportunities. Scouts also offer much support to their local communities at their own expense, from working at the local council festival to helping in the aftermarth of the 2009 Black saturday bushfires and 2011 Victorian floods.

Scouting appears to have started as early as 1907 in an informal way:

"The cradle of Scouting in Victoria was the Tooronga Rd. State School, Caulfield; where in late 1907 one of the pupils, Roy McIndoe, received from a friend in England, who had been a member of the experimental camp at Brownsea Island, some pamphlets which had been issued by the Chief. These he showed to his mates who immediately got red shirts, their father's old felt hats, formed 'patrols' and 'whooped round the place like Red Indians'. Later in 1908 when they received the first copies of Scouting for Boys, they settled down to genuine Scouting."

It is unclear which was the first Scout Troop in Victoria, but by the end of 1908, there were 11 Scout Troops in Victoria.

The Boy Scouts Association, Victorian Branch was incorporated in 1912 by Royal Charter of George V and the 1932 Boy Scout Association Act.

Victoria hosted the Australian Scout Jamboree (AJ2007) from 2–13 January 2007 in Elmore in regional Victoria. It was the first official worldwide Scouting event to celebrate the 100 years of Scouting.

The Branch is divided into 11 Regions: Bays, Eastern, Geelong, Lerderderg, Melbourne, Mt Dandenong, Northern, North West, Sunraysia, Western, West Coast. In early 2010, the Branch reorganised the Regions in and around the Melbourne Metropolitan Area, to align them with the State Government's main growth corridors. The new regions came into effect in April 2010, with the Rover Section now operating within the new region structure as of their July AGM's.