My Day as Batonbearer for The King’s Baton Relay
- Keiran Healy
- Mar 11
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Commonwealth Day 2025 marked the start of the Commonwealth Sport King’s Baton Relay as it started its journey across the Commonwealth from Buckingham Palace and I was privileged to be nominated by the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) to be one of the first Batonbearers to send it on its way.
For the first time Commonwealth Sport and the Royal Commonwealth Society have joined forces to deliver the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Plastics Campaign as part of the King’s Baton Relay – a programme that aims to prevent one million pieces of plastic from entering Commonwealth oceans and waterways, and providing a sustainable focus and lasting impact as the Relay is underway across all 74 nations.
As the Regional Coordinator for Europe, I’d been involved in the development of the initial concept of the campaign for several years and the partnership with Commonwealth Sport provided an incredibly exciting and unique opportunity to bring the idea to life and ensure meaningful action could be taken to help achieve the target.
Working alongside the incredible RCS and Commonwealth Sport teams – it’s been amazing to engage with so many passionate and interested partners from every corner of the Commonwealth – as we’ve helped to bring partners onboard to deliver this activity on every leg of the Relay.
Having volunteered with the RCS for a number of years – it’s been great to get involved with helping shape and deliver such an important programme that will help to transform and improve the natural environment in waterways across the Commonwealth – supporting SGD 14 ‘Life Below Water’. It has also been fascinating to learn more about the immense logistical and planning challenges that come with organising something as huge as the King’s Baton Relay.
Being nominated to be the RCS Batonbearer was a huge honour and surprise, I certainly carried it for the whole team who have worked so hard to make this amazing programme a success over the past few months.
The day of the launch was a surreal experience - with an early start volunteering at the Commonwealth Day Service held at Westminster Abbey, helping to manage the iconic flagbearers in their rehearsals. Once the Service was underway, I then hotfooted it over to Buckingham Palace to get ready for the launch with a quick change out of a suit & tie and into the Batonbearer uniform.
The team of four Batonbearers [Sir Chris Hoy, Gabriella Wood, Sammi Kinghorn and myself] then got the chance to meet His Majesty The King, who was incredibly interested in the sustainability element of the Relay and was pleased to hear there had been such support from the across the Commonwealth to get involved in the campaign.
We were then taken out to our positions at the front of the Palace – ready for group photographs and for me to receive the Baton from Sir Chris Hoy and pass it on to Paralympic champion, Sammi Kinghorn – a moment that really brought home the magnitude and what an incredible partnership the campaign is.
It’s been so exciting to see the campaign get underway with the first leg of the relay in Trinidad and Tobago – seeing our partners, the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, bring the campaign to life with their first plastic clean-up - and I’m really excited to continue to work with our enthusiastic partners and see the impact that the King’s Baton Relay has as it continues its journey across the Commonwealth to the Opening Ceremony of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games.
About the Author
Keiran Healy is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society and the Regional Coordinator for Europe and the Environment. Keiran has been a committed volunteer for the Royal Commonwealth Society for many years and was instrumental in the creation of the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Plastics Campaign.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Royal Commonwealth Society.