Spoons

The worth of a group is clearly the Scouting provided for the community, the depth and breadth of what is on offer.

The financial worth is often a combination of hard work and good fortune – being in the right place to take up an offer. This hard work is useful in building self reliance and a troop spirit.

A number of financial records exist in the archive which give details of money in (how it was made) and money out (how it was spent). These have been quoted in individual articles, such as those on Trek carts, where no other records of trek cart use exist for a troop, and in Raising the Wind under Structure/ District.

These thoughts were triggered by sorting through gear at the 54th HQ in Chesterton, now the District HQ. The first three spoons in the cutlery box were hallmarked silver. Not, I think, indicative of the real wealth of the group and probably not used as they had not seen silver polish for many a year.

The rest of the box were decidedly mundane, the only piece of note was a Chivers marked fork – Scouts worked at Chivers in both World Wars – but whether this is a memento from that time is very unclear. The experiences of Scouts in both World Wars can be found under Local History.

JWR