Tamworth Scouts found first Rover group open to adults in 20 years at Oxley Scout Hall

Open to adults between 18 and 26, the city's new Rovers troop held its first meeting in the Oxley Scout Hall on Friday night.

For group chairperson, Thomas Leckie, it was a return to scouting after four years out of the movement.

"It's amazing that we've now got a Rover crew, I'm just so thankful for it," he said.

"I've missed being part of scouting. There's things that I would have loved to have gone to that I couldn't go to because I wasn't part of scouting. It was just too hard to go as a non-member.

"To now be able to come back in, now that we've got our leaders who have managed to get this going again, I'm so thankful for it."

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The third year university student said the achievement meant local kids could now progress through every level of the movement, from the earliest levels to the oldest.

Adult supervisor, David Engert, is in the final stage of scouting, serving as the group's Rover advisor.

He said founding the Rover group it was a "massive" milestone for Tamworth.

"I'm really pumped for this, like, to be involved in this happening and being part of it, it's massive," he said.

"I'm so happy to see this happen. Rovers was probably the best time I had in scouting. As an adult you can do heaps more stuff.

"There hasn't been a Tamworth crew for quite some time."

Region Commissioner, Brett Grimmond, estimated that Tamworth hadn't had its own adult group since the mid-90s.

Instead, the North West Region of Scouts had a single region-wide Rover crew.

With members of the group scattered across thousands of kilometres, it was a model that didn't work particularly well, he said.

He has high hopes for Tamworth's Rover group.

"One Rover crew on the South Coast and Tablelands built a group home for special needs people," he said.

"It really is, whatever a young person can imagine they can do."

For Rover Erin Startin, Friday night was her first time at a scout meeting.

Her motivation for joining was simple: her partner is Thomas Leckie.

"It gets me out of the house on a Friday night!"

Scouting kicked off for groups of all ages across the region last week, with the start of the school term.

Mr Grimmond said the agenda for 2022 is prettty simple:

"Around the region we're going camping. Lots of camping," he said.

I'm basically telling every leader in the region to get the kids out and get into the bush as much as they possibly can."

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