10th Chief Scout and 1st UK Chief Commissioner Appointed

I received a few phone calls and a couple of emails late last week to tell me that, Bear Grylls had been appointed as the new Chief Scout, and that the press release would be live this week.

Peter Duncan’s 5 year appointment as Chief Scout comes to an end this year.  Peter has brought the movement from the dark ages, when he took over the post 5 years ago pledged to drive recruitment and it worked, our UK numbers and in fact globally the numbers are up for the 4th year running.  Peter was also responsible to officially welcoming girls into the movement, a great step forward, he worked hard to tackle race and religion challenges and will be missed in the movement, I have been assured and hope he will stay involved.  Peter was the first person of ‘celebrity’ status to take on the role, all other Chief Scouts came through the ranks up until then.

The race was long to find his replacement, and in the end came down to Richard Hammond – a keen scouter who came right through the movement from a boy and Bear Grylls who eventually won the race.  The post is for 5 years and completely on a voluntary basis.

Bear Grylls will bring a wealth of ‘outdoor’ and ‘survival’ skills and go a long way to promoting Scouts as an outdoor, adventure organisation.  He is the 8th Chief Scout to have served time in the armed forces and the 10th Chief Scout to take on the role since Lord Powell created the movement in 1907.  Bear is the youngest Cheif Scout to have ever been offered the role.

The splitting of roles,

Up until now the Cheif Scout has been responsible to all UK Scouting and all Overseas scouting with the appointment of various head of movements around the globe, This appointment of Bear Grylls is different though, whilst his title is still Chief Scout for UK and all overseas territories, announced today is also the appointment for the 1st time of a UK Chief Commissioner responsible for leading the volunteers and programing in the UK.

This position goes to Wayne Bulpitt, a scouter from almost birth, he began as a Cub Scout at the age of 8, and worked his way up the movement with roles including, Cheif Commissioner for Southern England and Chairman of the board of trustees since 2001.

This means that whilst Bear’s appointment is fantastic and will go along way to shaking our boring image, the movement obviously thinks the job is bigger than one person, Bear’s role in my mind will be more of a figure head and leader whilst Wayne will be moving through the movement day by day, looking after the more mundane side of the business.

Which ever way you cut it, today is a great day to be a scout !

Are you ready to join the adventure yet ?