There are moments in Scouting when you realise—even after years of campfires, late-night planning sessions, and muddy weekends under canvas—that you still haven’t seen it all.

This is one of those moments.

A few nights ago, I found myself wide awake at an ungodly hour, doing what far too many of us do when sleep won’t come: scrolling mindlessly through TikTok. Among the usual mix of camping hacks, Scout Leader Memes, and nostalgic Scouting clips, one video stopped me mid-scroll.

Aglowing campfire, flames dancing against the darkness. And beside it sat a single empty chair.

The caption read: “A true Scouter knows what this chair means.”

After 15 years as a Scout Leader, I stared at that video and thought: “I haven’t got a clue!!.“

The Empty Chair Mystery

I’ve sat around hundreds of campfires across the UK—from bustling district events, Bushscout Skills Courses to intimate troop gatherings on survival weekends, from ceremonial closings to those quiet, reflective moments when it’s just you, your Scouts, and the crackle of burning wood under a star-filled sky.

But never, not once, had I seen an empty chair deliberately placed beside the fire.

Naturally, my curiosity got the better of me. I did what any self-respecting Scouter would do at 2am: I dove straight into the comments section.

And that’s where I discovered something entirely new.

A Seat for Baden-Powell

The responses came flooding in—dozens of them, from Scout Leaders around the world and beyond. The empty chair, they explained, is placed at the front of the campfire as a symbolic seat for Baden-Powell himself.

A gesture of remembrance. A nod to his enduring leadership. A quiet way of saying: “You’re still here with us, Chief.”

It’s a tradition that, apparently, many groups recognise and honour with reverence. Some Scout Leaders spoke of it as though it were as fundamental as the Scout Promise itself.

Yet in my 15 years of Scouting—through camp after camp, ceremony after ceremony—I’d never encountered it. Not even once.

The Beauty of Living Traditions

That’s what I love most about this Movement of ours. Just when you think you’ve learned every tradition, every story, every quirky custom passed down through generations of green and yellow neckers… something new appears from the embers.

I thought I knew the big ones:

The sharing of campfire ashes between old friends and new. The swapping of neckers as tokens of fellowship. The badge trading that turns every jamboree into an impromptu marketplace. The songs we’ve been singing since our own days as Scouts, lyrics unchanged, voices still slightly off-key.

But this empty chair tradition? Completely new to me.

And perhaps that’s precisely what makes Scouting so endlessly fascinating. Every group, every district, every nation has its own way of honouring the past whilst celebrating the present. We’re part of something both universal and deeply local—a global family with countless regional dialects of belonging.

Over to You, Fellow Scout Leaders

So now I’m genuinely curious, and I’m turning to you for answers.

Do you observe this campfire tradition in your group? Have you ever placed an empty chair for Baden-Powell beside your fire? Is this something you grew up with as a Scout, or perhaps something you’ve only recently introduced?

I’d genuinely love to hear your stories. Drop them in the comments below—let’s map this tradition together and see just how widespread it really is across the UK and beyond.

Who knows… perhaps this is a tradition I’ll introduce at my next district campfire. After all, one of the great joys of being a Leader is discovering that, even after all these years, there’s always something new to learn.

And isn’t that what Baden-Powell would have wanted? To keep us curious, keep us exploring, keep us gathered around the fire—always ready for the next adventure.

Until next time, keep the fire burning.