What is Witan?

A Brief History of Witan

Witan is a long standing SSAGO event dating back to 1959 when UK based student Scout and Guide clubs (who later went on to form SSAGO) hosted the first ever Witan at Gilwell Park, London. Student Scouts and Guides from all over the world were invited to this event which ran rather like a Moot or Jamboree would with Scouts/Guides from all over the world attend a camp hosted by one country. Witans were run every two years from this point onwards and generally swapped between Europen and a non-European location each time. However, the last of this style of Witan was held in 1991 when no organising committee was formed for the next event.

Since then a few efforts to revive Witan in its traditional format were made but were unsuccessful. In 2012 the first of the new style Witans was run - this time taking UK SSAGO to Kandersteg, Switzerland for an excellent trip. Witan had morphed into a trip abroad for UK SSAGO. Continuing this trend, here we are planning for the next Witan in 2016.

Witan 2012 to Kandersteg, Switzerland.

A Less Brief History of Witan... Can you help?

We are hoping to put together a history of Witan throughout time. So, if your club has any information about any Witans we would love to hear about them. Perhaps your club has an archive with a report on a Witan or maybe you are in contact with alumni who went to one? Whatever it is we would love to hear about it to add it to our history. At the moment we don't even have a complete list of all the Witans so literally anything is welcome to help us flesh out our timeline! Please contact Heather if you have anything!

If you experience any issues in the booking process, please contact webmaster@ssago.org.