Scouts Queensland 2015 Scout Awards Presentation

Chief Commissioner, leaders and members of Scouts Queensland. It is a great pleasure for Kaye and me to welcome so many Scouts to Government House this evening for the annual awards presentation ceremony.

Today’s ceremony is a welcome opportunity to celebrate the commitment, energy and achievement of young Queenslanders. 

It is also an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate long-standing service by adult Scouts.

It is important that we mark these achievements in style, and with appropriate ceremony. 

Scouts Queensland remains a pre-eminent organisation for the personal development of young people in our State. 

The organisation’s programs and activities encourage our young people to acquire life skills by exercising both body and mind within a framework of volunteer service to the community.  

It offers young people the opportunity to exercise their sense of fun and adventure, and to acquire a sense of accomplishment and belonging.

The coveted Queen’s Scout and Baden Powell Scout Awards, for Venturer and Rover Scouts respectively, are the epitome of these ideals in action.  They are earned only by meeting a variety of substantial challenges over an extended period of time that test an individual’s skill, enthusiasm and commitment. 

I heartily congratulate those who will receive these awards this evening.  Receiving them will be, I know, a source of great pride and satisfaction. I thank their equally proud families and everyone else who supported them.     

I also acknowledge with pleasure this evening the individuals nominated to receive Silver Kangaroo Awards, which mark at least twenty years’ service to Scouts.

Without you and others like you who are prepared to volunteer considerable parts of your lives to Scouts, the organisation could not function and its benefits to the community would be lost.

I thank you all for your selfless service to Scouts, for the direct and beneficial influence your example has had on the young people in your care.   

As Chief Scout in Queensland, I look forward to presenting all these awards in a very short while.

And Kaye and I look forward to meeting you after the formal proceedings as we celebrate this important day with some well-deserved Government House hospitality. Thank you and enjoy your evening.