16,000 SCOUTS TO ATTEND PAN PACIFIC JAMBOREE

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Melbourne, Nov. 28.

   Domestic chores are being cut out of the routine of the Pan Pacific Jamboree of 16,000 Scouts due to take place near Melbourne from December 28 to January 9.
   Gone are the days of baking camp oven bread, shelling peas, peeling potatoes and watching barbecue roasts until they are "done to a turn."

   Food is no less important to the Scout of 1955 than it ever was but the organizers of this Jamboree have ruled that preparing food can take tune more profitably spent on the real aspects of scouting.

   Bread will be delivered ready cut and wrapped to the river flanked 1,000 acre Clifford Park camp in gumtree clad hills, 20 miles east of Melbourne. Shelled green peas and French beans ready for cooking will come from deep freeze units. Fish meal and sweets will be ready for the table.

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Feeding

   To feed the Scouts will cost an estimated £A80,000. They will use Government tents worth £A150,000 (£120,000 sterling), equipment costing another £A10,000 (£8,000 sterling) and five miles of specially made roads, water and lighting systems, and an 80 bed hospital costing another £A30,000 (£24,000 sterling).

   More than a year has been spent by Scout and Army leaders on preparing Clifford Park for the visitors and arranging the opening ceremony on December 30 by Governor General Sir William Slim, Australia's chief scout.

   To give the camp site official status, the State Governor Sir Dallas Brooks, Chief Scout for Victoria, pressed a button in October exploding a bomb which sent smoke spiralling above the giant boomerang arch which marks the entrance to the camp. This boomerang was one of the striking features of Melbourne's street decorations at the time of the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and he Duke of Edinburgh.

   Originally, plans were made for 12,000 scouts, but the response to invitations sent the total to 16,000, calling for an adult staff of 1,500 to look after them.

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Chief Scout

   Because of distance and expense, contingents from overseas countries are necessarily small, but representatives are expected to come from Britain, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Tonga, India, Pakistan, Fiji, Canada, Panama, South Africa, the United States of America, Hongkong, Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak, Brunei, British Solomons, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Vietnam, New Caledonia.

   The Chief Scout of the British Empire and Commonwealth, Lord Rowallan, will attend, making his first arrival at the camp by helicopter.

   Scouts from other countries will be met at their Australian arrival port by a Scouter to act as guide and interpreter when necessary.

   From the day scouts move into camp, they will be a self contained community representing a cross section of the 5,000,000 scouts of the world, all with the same ideals.

   Basically, the movement aims at the promotion of good citizenship by appreciation of civic duty, usefulness to others, and stimulation of interest in wholesome mental, moral, industrial and physical activities.

   The jamboree programme includes ceremonial parades and displays, exercise and relaxation, lectures, cinema shows, orchestral concerts, camp fire get togethers, swimming, hiking, and conducted tours to scenic spots and industrial centres.

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Own Newspaper

   Sea scouts will be taken to the waterfront, the mercantile dockland and to naval dockyards.

   In addition to banking and postal facilities, the scouts will have their own newspaper.

   After the Jamboree there will be two day and four day hikes with expert guides through some of Victoria's best walking country. There will also be tramps through country where the walking is not so good, but whose scenic beauty offers compensation.

   Girl Guides will not attend the Jamboree in a group but they will be there to give a helping hand in the canteens and souvenir shops and to cope with the 50,000 visitors whom organisers expect to go to Clifford Park on Scout reception days.- China Mail Special.