Last Thursday (11th June), members of Crawley District Scouts and 7th Crawley Scouts gathered on a local street in family groups to form a socially distanced guard of honour to pay their respects to Don Clements.
For those of you who didn’t know Don and his association to 7th Crawley Scouts, Don was the Group Scout Leader at 7th Crawley when Paul (the current GSL) first joined the leader team as Cub Scout Leader in 1997 and from whom he took over the running and management of the Group two years later. He had stacked up many, many years of dedicated service to the Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and, at that time Venture Scouts in Furnace Green and I believe started in 7th Crawley as far back as the late 1960’s.
In 2006 Don suffered two strokes and he retired from “active” Scouting at 7th but still organised the occasional District activity including fishing trips for older Cubs and Scouts (fishing was one of his major passions). For the last 10 years or so Don was appointed to the position of honoury Scouter as well as being one of three Vice-Presidents of Crawley District.
He received the Medal of Merit in 1997 and was awarded the Silver Acorn for services to Scouting in 2005. He will be missed by all who knew him.
The family have asked that donations in his memory will be in aid of Crawley District Scouts and if anyone wants to make a donation to send cheques payable to ‘Crawley District Scouts’ to Martins Funeral Directors, 38-40 Broadfield Barton, Crawley, RH11 9BA.
Our thoughts and prayers go to his wife Shirley and his children & grand-children.