Gilwell Reunion – 100 Years of the Wood Badge

As a Scout leader, we get to do some training to improve our practical and leadership skills, with the main leader requirement being to earn the Wood Badge (see these earlier posts, where my friends May and Matt earned their Wood Badges). Once you have earned a Wood Badge you are a member of the 1st Gilwell Scout Group and are entitled to attend Gilwell reunions, which are held annually as a social leader gathering. I have actually earned two Wood Badges in the course of my Scouting service: once as a Cub Scout Leader in 1983 in Tasmania and then as a Scout Leader in Victoria in 2002 (the photos of my fellow trainees on both those courses are included at the end of this post). I haven’t attended very many Gilwell reunions (I am shy and forgetful of names and faces), but this year marked the centenary of the first Wood Badge course at Gilwell in England, run by Baden-Powell, and I decided that I’d attend. It was an enjoyable evening, with a highlight being catching up with my old friend Dy Turner, who was the Akela (main Cub Leader) at 1st Burnie when I was involved with that pack in 1987 and 1988.

For historical completeness, here is my Cub Scout leaders’ Woodbadge course, held in May 1983, at The Lea in Tasmania.

I switched to Scout leading at the end of 1995, moved to Victoria at the beginning of 1999, and in January 2002 did my Scout leader Woodbadge training at Gilwell Park in Victoria.