Scouting was started by Robert Baden Powell in 1907, so scouting became 100 years old in 2007. There are currently 28 million members of the Scout Association worldwide in over 200 countries or territories. The present Alrewas scout group has three sections, the Beavers, the Cubs and the Scouts which are run by a team of 9 leaders with a strong parent support group. We have been trying to trace the history of the 1^st Alrewas Scout group for the centenary and this is what we have found out so far. The 1^st Alrewas Scout group was first registered with scout HQ under this name in 1942 and it completed its first census in 1943 (See Figure 1). In 1943 there were 10 Cubs, 26 Scouts and 3 leaders.

                                                                          Figure 1: First Group HQ Census

The Scout master was Mr Walter Mead of Furlong Lane and he may well have run both the cub pack and the scout troop. The group was originally a church sponsored group, but in 1950 it changed its registration to become an open group (See Figure 2) and began to raise funds to build its own scout hut. The Group Scout Leader (the manager of a scout group) who pioneered this change and the building of the scout hut in William IV Road was a Mr Stanley Clarke. Press cuttings from the time record the fund raising activities of the group in 1951 and that their summer camp that year was held at Whatstandwell near Matlock (Figure 3).

However we know that the group existed for many years before 1942 and it is a bit of a mystery why we are only registered with scout HQ from 1942. We found out in 2006 that we were originally known as the 12^th Burton Scout group. A villager brought a flag to us that had been in his garage for decades and the flag bore the name 12^th Burton (1^st Alrewas) scout group.

Figure 2: Group changes its registration officially