Turnover (1964)
Do you ever look at the advertisements for sale? If you do, you will always see this item, "annual turnover," that is, the amount of money that passes through the business in one year. It is an important figure this, because it shows just how healthy the business is - how much trade the owner does. It is a very revealing figure.
This word "turnover" isn't always used to describe something relating to £ s. d. For instance every year our Secretary fills in a huge return to Headquarters, called the Annual Census. On it is shown every Cub, Scout, Senior Scout, Rover and Scouter who was a member of his particular group on the 31st March. This number, in Chester nowadays, is somewhere round about 900. When 1 first became District Commissioner in 1950, it was about 400. This could be called the annual turnover of the Scout Movement in Chester, so in the last fourteen years we have more than doubled our annual turnover. We must be a healthy business indeed!
Strictly speaking, there must be more than 900 people pass through our hands in any one year. Boys are joining and leaving all the time and I would imagine that if we counted every person who had been a member of the movement in any part of one year, that figure would go up a hundred or two.
And when you multiply that figure by the number of Districts there are all over the world, and by the number of years Scouting has been in existence,
57 of them.....well you'd need a computor to work out the fabulous number of people who at some time or other during their lives, have worn the distinctive Scout Badge. There is one gentleman in Chester who even today boasts that he was one of the first Scouts in 1907! There are '' dads'' and their sons in Scoutabout. Even the cast of Scoutabout is constantly changing - a number drop out each year, and a similar number join.
No wonder Scouting has made such an impact on the world when you think of the astronomic figures this line of thought might lead us to. And every one of those boys who has passed through our Movement has learned something - even if they only stayed with us a week or two—thev'ye learnt about the Scout Promise—to do our duty to God and the Queen, to help other people at all times, to obey the Scout Law. They've learnt something about public service, the daily good turn, they've learnt something useful to themselves and to others. And, of course, those splendid chaps who have gone right through the Movement, and gained their Queen's Scout Badge and their Duke of Edinburgh Award - they are the cream of the Movement, and examples of efficiency and good citizenship.
No wonder when I meet people who have been Scouts - and I often do - they are invariably pleased to tell me of the fact, and proud of it too!
V. E. STONEBRIDGE,District Commissioner (Chester District)
