On 20th July a small crowd of District members got together at Frylands Wood Scout Outdoor Centre to present our previous District Chair, Lawrie Smith, with gifts from the District to recognise his outstanding service.
Lawrie was Chair of the former Ravenshill District from 1989 until 1992, before moving on to the chairmanship of the Frylands Management Committee until 2006. He then went back to the role of District Chair, first of Lewisham Manor (as Ravenshill had become) and then the amalgamated Lewisham District. He held this position until last year’s Annual General Meeting.
During his time he has successfully managed the governance issues in the creation of the new District from the two former Districts and done a great deal of work to ensure that the District has been financially stable. He has also raised large amounts of money to support our paid development officers and other projects. In 2012 the Chief Scout awarded him the Silver Wolf – UK Scouting’s highest award for good service – in recognition of his exceptional service to the Scout movement.
We also recognised Lesley Hine’s excellent work as our District Secretary over the last ten years, and took the opportunity to sample the delights of Frylands’ new Pizza Oven, which is proving very popular with our visitors.
The atmosphere on the day could not have been better: we had superb weather with sunshine dappling through the trees and the site was given an extra buzz by the large numbers of young people around the site enjoying the Frylands experience.