Today was an exciting day for Scouts in Wales as GWR helped us start celebrating 100 years of ScoutsCymru (Welsh Scout Council) by naming a train after Gill Clay, a Scout leader and granddaughter of Robert Baden-Powell.
If you were at Swansea station this morning you may have seen Scouts of all ages at a special event. As part of our centenary celebrations young people and adult volunteers joined Gill and her family on the platform in Swansea to unveil an Intercity Express Train, given her name by Great Western Railway as part of their Great Westerners Programme that recognises the contribution made by people in communities.
“Intercity Express Train 800021 will help to pay tribute to Gill’s commitment and celebrate 100 years of Scouting in Wales as it journeys through communities across the GWR network.”
There aren’t many people who can say they’ve been involved in Scouting from the moment they were born but Gill can. The eldest daughter of Betty and Gervas Clay, and grand daughter of Robert and Olave Baden-Powell, She has had many roles in Scouting and recently received the highest award possible in the Scouting movement, the Bronze Wolf Award, awarded by the World Scout Committee. The first person to receive the award in 1935 was Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Scouts. The 399th is Gill.
“My family started Scouts in 1907 and the skills shared with young people have stood the test of time and continue to stand them in good stead for their lives, their challenges and the choices they make for wonderful futures.”
Gill is currently a Beaver Leader in Cowbridge. With such a long history in Scouting, Gill has seen lots of changes but recognises that Scouting continues to be an amazing place to prepare young people for life. Scouting in Wales was devolved in 1925.
The train kickstarts our 100-year anniversary and as ‘GWR Gill’ left the station our Chief Volunteer, Rhian Moore shared a few thoughts.
“This year we are celebrating 100 years of devolved Scouting in Wales and this train, launched the day before Founders Day, marks the start of our celebrations. As well as recognising the Baden-Powell family’s legacy to Scouting we want this train to celebrate over 18,000 Scouts of all ages that are part of Scouts in Wales today”
You might be lucky enough to catch the train – Intercity Express Train 800021 on the GWR network (if you do, please send us a photo) but there are lots of other ways your group can get involved too.
Across the year there will be lots of celebratory events including parties and a new occasional badge that can be worn for 2025. There are also logos, patterns and templates for materials that will be available for groups to download soon.
We will be having a 100 years birthday party in June, and will share more details in a few weeks on how you can get involved and be part of the fun.
We’ve got some great celebratory digital designs that can be used on websites, email footers, posters or t-shirts. We have all the graphics in high quality format, so you can use them in a way that suits you. All the assets and templates will be available to download in March.
We look forward to celebrating our 100-year anniversary with all of you and can’t wait to share the stories of your local celebrations.
We’re preparing to order our badges – the design was done in consultation with groups across the whole country and we think it’s going to look amazing on your uniforms as an occasional badge for the year.
To help us know how many badges to order, please complete the form to give us an indication of how many badges you might like. We estimate they will cost around 75p +P&P
ScoutsCymru 100 Year badge pre order form