BushscoutUK at Gilwell Reunion 2025
Helen Russell • 14 September 2025
Gilwell Reunion is the annual weekend of programme ideas, practical skills and support for adult volunteers in Scouting at Gilwell Park, The Scout's HQ.
In August 2025, 55 BushscoutUK members provided their ever popular practical skills bases, with a mixture of taster activities from our skills days and innovative ideas that young people and adults love.
UK Chief Volunteer Carl Hankinson had nothing but praise for BushscoutUK
Teaching Tracking with a Murder Mystery! Who killed Percy the Pigeon?
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Pioneering Base? Or IKEA Showroom?
Forgotton your camp kitchen? All you need is one hazel tree - dinner is saved!
Did you get a selfie in our Bushscout-style selfie frame?
Was our BushscoutUK Manager Lee in ALL the pics?!
Thanks to Hannah Gill from ScoutRadioUK for letting our National Manager Lee waffle on about all things Bushscout!
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We are powered by 200+ dedicated volunteers across the UK. Here are some of the key people you might meet along the way, and how you can get involved.
We are throwing it back to the summer to celebrate one of our brilliant volunteers. Sarah spent her week at NorJam as part of team Bushscout.UK, and she has kindly shared what makes a jamboree such a special, unforgettable experience.
Autumn is the perfect time to get outdoors, explore the woods, and gather the ingredients for a surprisingly simple, and wonderfully scientific, craft project: making Oak Gall Ink. It’s a brilliant activity for Scouts, leaders, families or anyone who loves turning nature into something useful. 🍁 What Are Oak Galls? Oak galls are small, round growths found on oak trees. They form when a tiny wasp lays its eggs inside the tree tissue. The tree reacts by forming a gall, creating a ready-made home for the growing larva. They look like knobbly, woody marbles and are often found in abundance on the woodland floor in autumn. ✒️ Why Oak Gall Ink? For centuries, oak gall ink was one of the most important inks in Europe. It was prized because: It goes onto the page as a liquid It then oxidises and becomes permanent It can’t be washed off once dry It’s a fantastic blend of history, chemistry and hands-on creativity.
Learn how to make firelighting easy on your next Scout night. Bushscout.UK shares simple, safe and successful methods to help volunteers light fires with confidence — from Squirrels to Explorers and beyond.
The Global Bushcraft Symposium(GBS) is an international gathering to promote bushcraft, survival, and traditional skills instruction through the open exchange of philosophies, teaching methods and dissemination of best practices within these fields”. For2022 the Global Bushcraft Symposium was hosted in the UK in Wales. Attendees and speakers travelled from all over the world to the event, with some bringing themed camp equipment and activities by road and across the sea by ferry. The event consisted of several main talks, break-out talks, Skills workshops and themed camps, as well as lots of conversations and discussions about bushcraft and related skills. The theme this year was “lifelong learning” with the main speeches focused on this topic with details of how others had been on their learning journey and where it would take them next. There was a good mix of practitioners and academics covering different topics.