Ringing for Scouts' Centenary "Sunrise Celebration"
1st August 2007
A message from Peter Robson on behalf of the Central Council Public Relations Committee.
Dear All,

As you know this year is the centenary of the first Scout camp run by Baden Powell at Brownsea Island. This led to the founding of the Scout movement that has now spread throughout the world.

This Anniversary is to be celebrated by the Scouts throughout the year with many and varied events. The main focus however is around the Scouting’s Sunrise celebrations at 8:00 a.m. on 1st August. At this time Scouts around the world will be renewing their promise and publicising what Scouting has to offer in the next 100 years.

We would like to ensure that Bellringing plays a prominent part of these celebrations. We would also like to take this opportunity to recruit new Bellringers from the Scouts.

As you know from my articles in the Ringing World we would like to do the following:

1. Arrange celebration ringing at as many local churches as possible. This would need to be coordinated with the local Scouts and include as many current and ex Scouts /Guides as possible.
2. Arrange special ringing at those churches close to the sites of the Jamborees and Brownsea Island.
3. Encourage as many ex ringers back to join us for the celebrations (especially those who hold Scout Bellringing badges).
4. Arrange ringing displays and mini-rings at the 21st Jamboree in Chelmsford.
5. Invite the local Scouts to the tower and teach them so that they can join in with the celebrations.

The Scouting authorities are now notifying the Scout leaders about this idea and they are expecting to be contacted. At the same time we need to ask Tower Captains to contact their local Scouts and invite them to the tower. Hopefully Scouts will wish to be involved in teaching to allow them to join in the celebrations. This is an excellent chance for recruitment and publicity and should not be missed.

I am contacting all the Associations / Guilds via their secretaries. I would ask that you contact your Tower Captains and inform them of our plans. We need to be contacting the Scouts as soon as possible to allow as much time for teaching new recruits.

I am writing local PR Officers to ask that they arrange the local PR for this event. This information needs to get into local newsletters / Parish magazines / local Press. It also needs to get to local towers and local ringers to encourage them to be involved. One of our aims is to regain lapsed ringers, this can only be achieved by getting the message out into the wider community.

This information is also going out via email lists and contacts as well as the Ringing World.

Please get involved, contact your local Scouts, help with the teaching, arrange some ringing, talk to you Guild / Association about how you can help. We are always talking about needing new recruits to ringing – this is too good a chance to miss.

Peter Robson
Central Council Public Relations Committee
Email: Peter Robson