A Scouts Own
Compiled by Gordon Greaves, Cairns Australia

Prayer - Venturer.

Lord, We thank you for letting us come once again to marvel at your creations. We hope that those in the group who are new to this activity will leave with the same sense of wonder that we always feel as we step into a cave.
We treat  these activities  as fun, but always with a sense of wonder at  the thousands  of years required to create even the smallest of the features at which we look. 
Help us  to preserve  your work,  both for  ourselves and  for future generations of Scouts and Cavers. Amen.

Yarn - Leader.

Beneath the  surface of  the earth lies a strange, magnificent world darker  than the  darkest moonless night. No rain falls. No seasons  change. No  storms rage. This underground world is silent as  a tomb,  yet it is not without life. Birds and bats fly with sure accuracy through twisted mazes of tunnels, while ghostly, eyeless  creatures scurry  along the walls. The floor is sometimes  the home of strange insects and micro-organisms. This is the world of the caver, as beautiful, alien and remote as the  glaciers on  high mountains.  And just as mountaineers are tempted  by summits  that rise  far above familiar ground, cavers are  drawn into  a subterranean wilderness every bit as exciting as any place warmed by the rays of the sun.
There are  thousands of  caves in  Australia. Some  are at the edge of  the sea,  carved by  the erosion  of the waves, while others are  lava tubes  created when the surfaces of rivers of molten rock cooled even as the lava beneath continued to flow. Most caves,  however, were  formed as rainwater, made slightly acidic by  carbon dioxide  in the  atmosphere and chemicals in the soil  over which  it ran,  seeped into fissures in soluble limestone and  gradually, over  thousands of years, melted out branching networks of tunnels and rooms.
Some caves  are too  tiny to  enter,  while  others  are  many kilometres in  length. Within  some caves  are chambers larger than the  biggest sporting  arenas, and shafts deeper than the tallest buildings. There are towering pillars, and expanses of colourful stone  folded as if they were massive draperies. The forces that  build a  cave work with infinite patience. A drop of water hanging from the point of a stalactite leaves a trace of mineral  residue when  it falls, lengthening the stalactite ever so slightly.
Scouting works the same way. Over your years in Scouts, slowly you accumulate knowledge. Much passes you by - some stays, and becomes part  of you.  Every experience  you have in Scouting, good or  bad, leaves  it's mark on you. There are thousands of Scouts in  Australia; some  are at the edge of the sea, others are in  the centre of the continent, dependent on a radio link for their  Scouting. Who  has the  easier time of it? The city Scout, who  has all the resources of the city - but all of the dangers that city life can bring? Or the country kid - who has none of  the pressures  of the  city -  but instead  an aching loneliness every  time they  realise that  the nearest  friend their own age is a day's journey away?  
Make your  heart big enough for all the Scouts in the world to enter - for they are all your brothers and sisters.

Prayer - Venturer 2.

If you know the Lord,
You need nobody else,
To see you through the darkest night.
You can walk alone,
You only need the Lord,
He'll keep you on the road marked right.
Take time to pray every day
And when you're heading home
He'll show you the way.
If you know the Lord,
You need nobody else to see the light,
His wonderful light.

Closing Prayer - Venturers.

(1) Into your keeping, O Lord, we commit ourselves. Help us to watch for  trouble and  choose the  right way.  Defend us with your mighty  power, and grant that we fall into no danger, and that all we do be pleasing in your sight.

(2) The  Lord bless  us and keep us; the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us; the Lord give us peace...

[Wait about five seconds...]

Thank you all for being part of our Scouts Own.