User:Kattikit/Birmingham University Scouts And Guides

Birmingham University Scout And Guide Club (BUSAG) was founded in 1929 as the Birmingham University Rover Scout Crew. The society is affiliated with the University of Birmingham Guild of Students and SSAGO, the Student Scout and Guide Organisation.

History
The Birmingham University Rover Scout Crew was founded in January 1929 as the 161st Birmingham Scouts, and a Ranger group, the 20th Birmingham Guides soon followed, with the Scout and Guide club formed as a social link between the two groups. For the first two decades there was relatively little interaction between the Scouts and Guides, occasionally meeting up for socials and camps. The split of university buildings between the Science and Engineering departments at Edgbaston from Arts in Edmund Street in the city centre, 4 miles away, enhanced the separation.

In the 1930s the Rover Crew somehow acquired a campsite at Hole House Farm, Lapworth, near Henley-In-Arden between Stratford and Warwick, and held many weekend camps there for over two decades. Club activities lapsed during the Second World War, for service in which, 35 Past Members were decorated. The 173rd Birmingham University Rangers had a camp at Hathaway Farm, Shottery, July 1932, where they slept in former stables, with knitting, country dancing, walking, swimming, boating and a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, with apparently much singing of taps. July 1933: Ranger camp near Knowle, similar to the one the previous year, with some minor rivalry between the girls based at Edgbaston and those at Edmund Street!

The club re-formed in the autumn term of 1944, active membership soon rising to around thirty active members, holding increasing numbers of joint Ranger and Rover events. Meetings were in both the Guild and in the Rovers den, an old prefabricated Nissan hut prefab to the west of the Aston Webb building acquired in 1945 [later taken by the Officer Training Corp. in the 1960s]. Birmingham attended many of the early inter-varsity scout and guide events, such as Oxford�s annual Halloween party.

Mascot
In 1975 it was decided that a Womble would be the club mascot, which four years later was named as 'Edgbaston the Womble'. From 1979 until the mid-1990's there were three Wombles, two of which later disappeared leaving the current head mascot Scarface.

In 2002, with the assistance of the PMA, many more Wombles were bought.

Activities
The club have many traditional activities that the committee attempt to ensure take place every year. These include Secretary's Cheese and Wine evening, Progressive meal, Annual meal, Teddy Bear's picnic and the Not the annual meal. The club do a wide range of activities that appeal to any student at the university. Other activities include camping, hiking, toboganning, bowling and trips to local attractions.

The club also attend ssago rallies each term. This is where all the ssago clubs descend on one campsite somewhere in the UK each term for a weekend camp. The last rally hosted by Busag was the Black country rally in 2009.