Papers of the University of Birmingham Scout and Guide Club

Address lists, 1964-1967; Annual General Meeting minutes and reports, 1946-1954; Chairman's files, 1966-1967; club programmes, 1947-1966; Executive Committee minutes, 1948-1962; Inter -Varsity papers, 1960-1963; log books, 1932-1959; Secretary's files, 1962-1965; Service Team files, 1967-1969; Treasurer's files, 1950-1967; "Witan" files, 1959-1969; Co-Co News, 1967-1969; Bulletin, numbers 99-104, 1964-1966.

University Scout and Guide groups were instituted to allow ex-Scouts and Guides to maintain contact with the movement during their years at university. In Birmingham, the Rover Crew was founded at the University in January 1929 as the 161st Birmingham group and a Ranger Unit was started not long afterwards, The University Scout and Guide Group was founded as a social link between the Rover Crew and the Ranger Unit and, when the constitution was redrafted in 1950, the Group gained its present name of the University of Birmingham Scout and Guide Club.

At first the Rover Crew and the Ranger Unit (and later, the Guide Club) were separate units which occasionally had joint meetings. The activities of the club included hikes and camps, discussion evenings and speaker meetings, outings, annual dinners and other events. Some members have also assisted with running groups, companies and packs in the city and suburbs of Birmingham. In the 1930s, the Rover Crew acquired its own campsite at Lapworth. The post war years included more joint functions of a social nature and inter-varsity meetings also were introduced. In 1947, the University of Birmingham club held the first inter university Scout and Guide Club rally which took the form of a camp at Beaudesert in Warwickshire and within a few years rallies were held every term. In the mid 1960s, the inter-varsity organisation combined with the inter-collegiate organisation and the Student Scout and Guide Organisation was officially founded in 1967. The University of Birmingham's Club has also been involved in international events. It has regularly sent representatives to witans which were begun by the Oxford University Scout and Guide Club in 1959 when it organised a rally to which foreign students were invited.

In the 1960s, the Rover Crew was disbanded and was replaced with a Service Team which offered help to the Birmingham county organisations of both movements. The Ranger Unit had been disbanded in the later 1940s and in 1966, the Guide Club ceased to exist when it was amalgamated into the Scout and Guide Club itself.

Reference: Marian J. Horn, The University of Birmingham Scout and Guide Club 1929-1969 (April 1969).

The collection is arranged by document type.

Permission from the Secretary of the Club is required to consult material less than 30 years old. Please contact the University Archivist for further information.

This collection was deposited in May 1969 by the Secretary of the University of Birmingham Scout and Guide Club; additional deposits are received on a regular basis.

A paper catalogue to file level is available in the Special Collections Department and at the National Register of Archives in London.

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the University Archivist, Special Collections. Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Further deposits are expected.