Student Scout and Guide Organisation
| Student Scout and Guide Organisation | |||
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| Country | United Kingdom | ||
| Founded | February 1967 | ||
| Membership | 880 (2017) | ||
| Chair | Joshua Smith | ||
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Website https://www.ssago.org |
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The Student Scout and Guide Organisation (SSAGO) exists to support Scouts, Guides, and people who have never been members of a Scout or Guide Association, who are students at Colleges and Universities in the United Kingdom and are interested in the aims, objectives, and methods of The Scout Association and Girlguiding UK. Many universities have a Scout and Guide Club affiliated to the University Student Union, although it is not necessary for a club to be union affiliated to be part of SSAGO. Where a University or College has no club, students can join SSAGO as Individual or "Indie" members.
Most clubs run a number of weekend and evening events during term and longer events during vacations. Each term one club organises a weekend open to all Club and Indie members of SSAGO called a Rally.
The oldest example of a Scout and Guide Club in the United Kingdom is the Oxford University Scout and Guide Group.
After leaving University many members of SSAGO choose to join the Scout and Guide Graduate Association (SAGGA).
Informal Scout and Guide Clubs have existed as early as 1915, when the first generation of Scouts grew out of Scouting age yet wanted to keep some sense of fraternity. Some early organizations at colleges were known as Baden-Powell Guilds and Saint George Guilds. A world equivalent to this exists today in the International Scout and Guide Fellowship, or ISGF. Some of the first clubs were set up in university towns, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and London. Inter-club activities were run intermittently until 1927. By 1920, Rover Scouts had been set up for people over 18 but many people were also part of Scout and Guide clubs. University clubs banded together to form an Inter-Varsity organisation while College based clubs formed a similar set-up. It was not until 1947 that inter-club meetings started again, and even then only for the Varsity clubs (those from universities, rather than colleges). Only two colleges (Loughborough and North Staffordshire) were admitted to Varsity. No other colleges were admitted, partially because of snobbery in the old red-brick establishments. The Federation of Scout and Guide Clubs in Training Colleges was set up in 1956 for colleges, and a year later it formed the Intercollegiate organisation. In 1967, the Intercollegiate and Inter-Varsity merged to form SSAGO due to the dwindling number of colleges as many became universities.
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