International Jet-setting Scout Leader Makes The World His Home
|
Gerry Pope plays a mean guitar. |
|
Gerry Pope’s battered passport has world-wide Scouting adventure written all over it. As Assistant County Commissioner for International Activities since 2003, he has travelled almost twice round the world and he knows exotic locations almost as well as his home town of Biggleswade. His experience of international jet-setting is a godsend to Scouts with itchy feet. And he’s something of a master at Trivia Quiz Questions. He can tell you where you can buy things with a baht, what Thailand was called before July 1949, which city is home to the world’s longest road bridge and where you can buy Viagra-flavoured ice cream. (*See below for all the answers.) Back in 1964, Gerry started his long Scouting career with the 6th Bicester Scout Group and later joined the Scout Troop of the 108th Beds RAF Henlow Group when his family moved to the county. He has camped alongside canals in Holland, in the pine forests of Denmark and Sweden, up to his knees in Swiss snow and visited the EU headquarters in Belgium.
Gerry at a Scout camp. As our man with the winged feet, he has attended World Scout Jamborees in Thailand and Sweden with a quick trip down the A414 to Chelmsford in 2007 thrown in for good measure. Under his care, Bedfordshire’s overseas Scout adventurers have travelled to Mongolia and the Great Wall of China, climbed Mount Everest, helped the organisers of the Le Mans 24 hour race in France and hugged giant Anacondas in Peru. Gerry admits that he has never visited the North Pole or Antarctica and, unlike Chief Scout Bear Grylls, he prefers his food conventional and cooked. He’s also a mean player of the guitar and enjoys a good camp fire. There’s full list of overseas adventures on the Bedfordshire website and Gerry is ready to come to meetings to talk about trips abroad and how to get the best out of them. *And the answers to the trivia quiz? The baht is the official currency of Thailand, Thailand used to be called Siam, the world’s longest road bridge at 55 kilometres is the Bang Na Expressway that runs south from the outskirts of Bangkok and Viagra –flavoured ice cream is sold by roadside vendors in Zagreb the capital of Croatia.
Battered passport Some of the overseas adventures awaiting Bedfordshire Scouts in 2012 29th Asia Pacific Jamboree, Sri Lanka, February Intercamp Germany, May Titanic centenary experience, Poland, June Punktcheha, Switzeralnd, July Hosterbro Jamboree, Denmark, July National Jamboree, Holland, July 13th Korean Jamboree, South Korea, July Nices 2012, Holland, July Wurterberg, Germany, July Roverway, Finland, July Michigan Camporee, USA, July Explorer Belt, Poland, July Drop in experience, Poland, July Community Project, Botswana, July/August Techuana, Austria, August 6th African Jamboree, Burundi, August 30th Arab Jamboree, Syria, August |
