News / Trust assists scouts to travel to Holland
ALMOST 20 young scouts from Shetland are embarking on a journey of a lifetime when they travel to the Continent this weekend to take part in celebrations that will attract 12,000 scouts to the Dutch town of Roermond.
Scouting in Holland celebrates its centenary this year and Shetland scouts will join likeminded people from across the world to mark the occasion with a 10 day scouting camp near the banks of the river Maas, starting on Monday 26 July.
Shetland Charitable Trust has been instrumental in enabling the Hjaltland Explorer Scout Unit and the 1st/2nd Lerwick Sea Scout Group to go to Holland by awarding two grants totalling £3,000.
Shetland Islands Council has also tapped into its community funds to help the Walls and District Scouts to join the trip.
Team leader Tommy Goudie said that without the trust’s help many of the not so well off kids would not have been able to join in the experience.
He said scouting was as popular as ever as it ticked all the right boxes to prepare for life in the 21st century including promoting world peace, and as an all inclusive organisation teaching kids and teenagers how to live in an environmentally sustainable way and in harmony with nature.
“The camp in Roermond will be an experience we’ve never had before. For many of our young scouts this will be their first camp ever outside Shetland. It will be quite an experience with lots of different activities to choose from,” Mr Goudie said.
A total of 18 scouts, four girls and 14 boys, aged between ten and 18, plus five leaders will leave Shetland on board the NorthLink ferry on Saturday. They are due to be back in the isles on 7 August.
Mr Goudie added: “We are very lucky in having an organisation like the charitable trust. They have helped us in the past and we are grateful for the assistance this time. No other community has this sort of financial help.
“Without the grant money from the trust we would have been lucky if half of the scouts could have gone to Holland.
Shetland Charitable Trust chairman Bill Manson said he was pleased to see that a relatively small amount of funding had such a huge impact on a worthwhile cause.
He said: “Our Community Development Grant Scheme is a useful tool to help local groups fulfil their aspirations.
“I understand the local scouts will also take some reestit mutton to Roermond to promote Shetland heritage while in Holland.”
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