Akela’s Scouting journey

Last year, three 1st Claremont leaders were presented their Wood Badge. “Akela” Ian Webb had this to say about his Scout career so far.

My Dad brought me to 1st Claremont to join Cubs 38 years ago, when I was 8, and I can still remember coming into the hall and meeting Akela, Vivien Marks, as well as Craig Mitchell who was the Seconder of Tawny Six, and Gavin Matz. Craig lived in Cavendish Square, and we became good friends all the way through Scouting and later I was the best man at his wedding. David Knight was a few years older than me and was at Scouts, as well as David Evans and Simon Grantham who are here tonight. They all had nicknames that I may accept bribes to reveal.

After Cubs I joined Eagles Patrol at 1st Claremont. We did a lot of hiking, which is still one of my favourite activities, and I went to Cederberg Adventure several times, went kloofing down the Wit Els River many times, camped in Elgin and on Delheim wine farm. We took part in Kon Tiki, Rayner Trophy and Gordon Shield, and the best we did in Rayner was 3rd place, so I have to congratulate our current Scouts who have now won Rayner and Gordons both for 2 years running – they are doing brilliantly.

When Craig, Gavin and I were around 19 years old, there were no Scouters to run the Troop, so we stepped in to run it, along with Mike Zeederberg from Gauteng. I had just finished my Springbok Scout badge and Craig was just back from the army, and had a yellow kombi and a huge trailer that was very useful for camps but used a huge amount of petrol. We had a lot of fun and I’m sure the Scouts did too.

Believe it or not I started my Wood Badge training way back in the early 1990s, but life intervened and I never completed it, although I did stay involved at 1st Claremont in various roles in the Troop. As a young adult, I started the national Scout website (in 1995, can you believe that the web has been around for that long), and attended international Scout events in Sweden, Norway and Chile. I was also on the team that hosted the World Scout Conference in Durban. At the conference, I was between jobs
and mentioned to Ray Saunders from the World Scout headquarters that I was unemployed, and he offered me a 6-month internship at in Geneva, which was another fantastic opportunity. As you can imagine I could talk for hours about all these experiences that Scouting has given me, but I promised to keep this short.

I’ll end by mentioning the thing I’m most proud of, and that’s being part of restarting Cubs at 1st Claremont in 2014 and running the Pack since then as part of a group that has gone from strength to strength in that time. I’m pleased to finally receive my Wood Badge but it’s not the end of the journey as I now have two children who are part of the same journey. It’s been fantastic so far, and I am very grateful to many, many people along the way for being part of it with me. I’d like to thank you all and wish you well in your Scouting journey.