Our group is 58 years old when we originally opened in 1965 we were.
Known as 1st Gwandalan scout group & our meetings were held in Gwandalan until most of our youth came from Mannering Park one of our first scout leaders was Mr Brain Collins & one of our first scouts at Gwandalan was Mr Steve Bisley a TV actor who played in a TV show called water rats.
In the early 1970’s we moved from Gwandalan to the community centre at Lake Munmorah which we rented for a while sometime during that period we changed our group name to 1st Mannering Park Sea Scout group.
In 1976 we moved into a house on Tall Timbers Rd. Chain Valley Bay the house was rented by one of our scout fathers Mr Tom Edwards from the electricity commission while we were based at the house we were broken into by a biker group one weekend they had a party & started a fire in the middle of the hall using our certificates & ribbons to fuel the fire it was the actions of the bikers that we lost many of our old records from the early days.
In 1978 we left Tall Timbers Rd. & moved into a 6m x 6m (20’x20’) room our group paid to have built on the back of the Mannering Park community centre in Dunvegan St.
When we were in our room at the community centre our scout troop grew to the biggest ever with 32 scouts in that small room with one leader & a parent helper/badge examiner.
Our parent helper Mr Brian Bradford never became a leader but never missed a night or camp in the 8 years he was with us.
We stayed in that room until we moved into our current scout hall in 1995.
We started to build our hall in Griffith St on the 1st of May 1993. On land leased from delta electricity.
Before building could commence the land had to be cleared it took two 2 months by volunteer labour to hand cut lantana & trees down.
Our workforce consisted of parents, youth, leaders, & friends of scouts from our community.
Our beautiful hall is a credit to all who worked on it.
Our group president at the time Mr John barrow was a major push behind fund raising & getting our new hall of the ground john was with the group from 1992 to 2005.
During the building we only paid for 6 trades on the hall they were the concreter, bricklayer, plumber, fencer, bobcat& bulldozer operator.
We spent approximately $80,000.00 on the construction of the hall & the money was raised through numerous fundraisers i.e., raffles, cakes stall 100 club’s winery trips country & western nights, & chocolate wheels
As well we received support from major sponsors to complete the hall over the year they were.
Councillor cliffs Russel Councillor Fred Keep Councillor Nan Wendon
Wyong Shire Council Charmhaven Lions Club Lake Munmorah Rotary
Doyalson-Wyee Club ltd Doyalson-Wyee, RSL Sub Branch
Lake Munmorah bowling club, joint coal board & department sport & recreation
We sold our room back to Wyong council & used the money for the final items in the hall. We moved into the scout hall early in 1995.
The commissioner for new castle & hunter area Mr John Grothem officially opened the hall in a formal ceremony on the 20th august 1995.
Our group has mostly maintained a strength of 30/50 youth members 3 section in our group (joeys, cubs, & scouts) this is not bad for a small community of 2,500 people.
In our hall we have 5 honour boards (Promise Challenge) for joeys, (Best Cub), (Adventure level cord), & (Australian Scouting Medallion) scouts &the (Queen Scout) venturers, 3 of the boards were donated by the workers of vales point power station in memory of Les & Robyn Craig who lost their lives in a car accident the Craig’s were leaders in our group from 1971 to 1976.
Shane Tapscott donated the Joey Promise challenge & the Australian scouting medallion boards.
Our activities are too many to list, but we have tried to run a camp or activity approximately every 6 weeks for our youth members.
We have had scouts attend the last 12 Australian Scout Jamborees since 1976.
Our scout troop won the Wyong Apex Camellia festival trophy for camping excellence for 11 years straight which started in 1977.
Ken Kelty is the longest serving leader in our group he joined the group in Oct 1977 as assistant scout leader,
1978 to 2006 he became scout leader.
1983 to 1991 he was appointed district scout leader to Wyong District holding dual roles.
2006 he was appointed district scout leader to central coast lakes district.
2011 he was appointed leader in charge of Mannering Park
2011 he was appointed assistant district commissioner holding dual roles to current day.
During ken’s 41 years with Mannering Park as scout leader he has taken scouts to 8 jamborees
Died on 13th April 2020, He was a great inspiration to the youth of our group, great friend, and mentor to us all.
