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For all contacts within the group please visit the Contacts Page. If you need to contact the group and are not sure who you need to talk to please feel free to send a message to our Group Scout Leader who will be happy to pass your message on to the relevent leader or section.
3rd Reading is located in Emmer Green on the Caversham side. Please be considerate about noise and parking outside the hut since the hut is in a residential area and there is only limited parking available.
Top of PageWelcome to the 3rd Reading (St Peter's Caversham) Scout Group website. As the Group Scout Leader for 3rd Reading, I am proud to announce the re-launch of this website to sit alongside our group, which is one of the fastest growing in Berkshire.
We currently enjoy some of the largest section numbers across all areas of the group - these being Beavers, Cubs and Scouts. We always welcome new recruits, and our waiting lists are always very well subscribed, which goes to show our group offers the very best in Scouting!
Alongside our large waiting lists, we are always appealing for more Adult help and representation to allow the group to keep growing and provide Scouting services for years to come, so if you feel you would like to volunteer your services, please click on one of the contact buttons on the website.
3rd Reading offers the full Scouting programme and badge curriculum as laid down by Scouting policy, which is now much more modernized than some of you may remember - there is even an outdoor activity badge which can be gained by skateboarding and BMX biking! We ensure we always maintain the philosophy that Scouting is all about the 'out', and we hold as many camps and outdoor activities per year as possible, and as time allows!
As 3rd Reading continues to grow and move forward, I look forward and relish the challenge of working with all my fellow leaders and executive committee, and it is to them that I owe an enormous thanks on this website for making 3rd Reading what it is today - they should all be very proud of themselves!
I look forward to welcoming you or your family to 3rd Reading, either now or sometime in the near future!
Yours In Scouting,
David Morris
Group Scout Leader
Top of PageAs the worldwide movement of Scouting looks to its 102nd year in 2009, 3rd Reading looks to its Centenary!
It is quite something to think that 3rd Reading was at the forefront of the birth of the Scouting movement being founded just 2 years after the movement itself...
St Peter's (Caversham) Troop was registered in October 1909 and although in those days Caversham was in Oxfordshire for local government purposes, they were given the title 3rd Reading. Bob Christie joined the St Peter's scouts after the first world war. Bob remembers that they wore green shirts, dark shorts and a dark red neckerchief. No woggles in those days - instead a lanyard and whistle and patrol colours hanging from the left shoulder. Mr Robert Lunn was the first Scout Master - he was the headmaster of St Peter's School, School Lane, Caversham and it was there that the troop met on Wednesday evenings.
In 1921, the Summer Camp was held in Ostend in Northern Belgium - the destination that the current day scouts went to in the Scouting Centenary in 2007! Mr Dennis Slade of Morecambe Avenue remembered...'The Summer Camp was held in Ostend, with 32 members of the St Peter's troop together with the 1st Berks troop, camped in the Marie Henriette Park. They left Reading on the 27th July and 'roughed it' in Redhill Station, and then completed the journey to Dover early the next morning. On arrival in Ostend we found nothing had been prepared, owing to a misunderstanding, and slept that night in an open bandstand, but thanks to the efforts of the British Chaplain and the Belgian Scoutmaster we found accommodation the next day. What a far cry from our modern day trip in 2007, using 4 minibuses and the luxury of the channel tunnel to get us to Belgium in less than a day!
During the second world war years, the group numbers dwindled and all participating scouts joined the 22nd Reading which was kept going during the war years. Numbers were not high enough to re-start the 3rd until the spring of 1958, when Mr Richard Hawthorne and his new wife Rosemary began the new cub pack at Hemdean House School with 4 cub scouts. As numbers grew, it became necessary to find new meeting premises, and these were provided by Balmore Hall, being church property. As numbers grew to 24 plus in the year of 1960, it was necessary to form a Scout section for the older boys, and the first troop meeting was held on Wednesday 20th January 1960 with enough boys for one patrol.
As the group grew, so did the need for new premises, as they were still holding two sections on one evening at Balmore Hall. Nick Nicholls had recently joined the group as Scout Leader, and he set about the challenging task of finding a plot of land upon which a new Scout HQ could be built. This search lasted 6 years - six years of frustration, raised hopes and disappointments. Throughout all this time, his resolve never faltered. He and his worthy helpers continued to raise funds for their new HQ of the future. Nick was determined that somewhere in Caversham there was a plot of land upon which he would eventually build his dream.
Eventually in 1971, The Reading Education committee suggested a plot of land in Grove Hill - the site of a couple of run down semi detached houses. In the August of that year, the Reading Town Planning Committee said that nothing would be built on the Grove Hill site except a new headquarters for the Scouts. Finally on March 28th 1972, the Town Council meeting approved the sale of the land to the Scout Association trust.
The Building you see today was eventually completed and opened on Saturday 4th May 1974, by the then County Commissioner MMT Paxton, and dedicated by the Rector of Caversham, Canon JG Grimwade.
Peter Asquith joined the group as Group Scout Leader in 1975, and both he and his wife still live in Caversham to this day. Since then, and always, the group has gone from strength to strength at the Grove Hill Scout Hut, and much more history has happened. A very detailed history was written by Audrey Asquith to mark 75 years of 3rd Reading, and is available to loan at Caversham Library, entitled '3rd Reading - a short history'. We are hoping that Audrey and Peter will update the book with the last 25 years for our centenary in 2009.
Top of PageThis website is provided by the 3rd Reading (St Peter's, Caversham) Scout Group for information purposes.
The information on this site is created, edited and maintained from within the Group by the 3rd Reading Webteam which includes but is not limited too:
We would like to thank Project 76 for providing hosting for our site and also Google for providing our e-mail server.
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