39th Colombo Scout Group
| 39th Colombo Scout Group | |
|---|---|
| File:Https://prepscouts.org/images/assets/nav/logo.png One hard to Match | |
| Type | Scout |
| Sections | Scout |
| Location | Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| District | Colombo |
| Country | Sri Lanka |
| Continent | Asia Pacific |
| Date Founded | 1939 |
| Website | [1] |
On its own, this remark by William Thomas Keble, the Founder of S. Thomas’ Preparatory School, may appear just one of many pithy observations during his years as a schoolmaster in early 20 th century Sri Lanka. It must have been to alleviate this stifled environment, however, that Keble ensured Cub Scouting was inaugurated at Prep School in June of the year of its founding in 1938, when the school itself was less than two months old. Picture, if you will, the romping grounds for those eight-year-old ‘Wolf Cubs’, as they were known then. Fort Rose and Holywell formed the school’s only buildings, with a few haphazard sheds accommodating other expanding needs. The neighbouring properties were mainly single storeyed bungalows, their spacious lawns dotted with coconut trees. The School grounds, and those at the Bishop’s House across the road, afforded ample prospects for games and activities. The distant horizon that underscored those picturesque sunsets, so keenly watched by the boarders from the spacious verandas of Fortrose, did not yet reflect the impending chaos of World War 2. The school’s longest serving staff member and later Headmaster, the legendary Mr. J.S.L. Fernando, would not even arrive at Prep School for another four years.
Mr. Keble could not have realised at the time that this small Cub Scout pack would go on to form a significant part of his broader legacy at Prep School.
There was sufficient interest among the boys in that first year for the 39 th Colombo Scout Group of S. Thomas’ Preparatory School to be formally registered as a Cub Pack in 1939. And through all the changing scenes of Prep School in the years since, through physical displacement, war, and civil strife, generations of boys have donned the dark blue and light blue scarf as members of 39 th Colombo, exerted an influence on all aspects of Prep School life, and gone on to be men of outstanding character and good citizenship. All of this in their quest to fulfil the final exhortation of the founder of the Scout movement, Lord Baden Powell, to ‘Try and leave this world a little better than you found it’.
39th Colombo became an active Troop once again, fully participating in all aspects of district and national Scouting life. It is not necessary here to dilate on the excellent standard of Scouting built up in the past 15 years, but suffice it to say that it is reflected in 39 th Colombo having won the Mayor’s Flag award for the best Troop in the Colombo District in 2016, 22 years after the flag last graced our Troop. 2016 also marked 39th Colombo finally entering the Northern Province by attending the Jaffna Jamboree in that year, thus having finally marked its presence in every part of Sri Lanka.
Scouting in the fabric of Prep School’s history is like an ocean iceberg- a very small portion of it is visible above the surface. Yet the scale of its presence beneath the surface is difficult to comprehend.