So this weekend all of the UK unit leaders are at a conference to find out more about the Jamboree.
I have found out that I am going to be flying in to NYC, from there we will be travelling to West Virginia followed by travelling to Washington DC for our big city experience for 3 days. We will then travel to Canada for our Ho-Ho (hosted hospitality) where we will stay with a Canadian Scout group for a couple of days before flying out back to the UK.
We have now seen the UK days sacks and holdalls which are full kitted out with the new UK Scout branding and the UK T-Bear mascot. The bags are coloured a red and blue which vaguely reminds me of the UK Guide uniform.
I am thoroughly excited to be going to Canada as well as the USA and I am going to have an amazing and incredible time.
No suitcases for us, but don’t forget your passport!
Sorry for the late blog post again, I am going to have to personally thank my friend for reminding me to blog (and reminded me her birthday is also this week).
So 1 year ago it was my unit’s first ever Jamboree camp. Shocking as it may seem it has felt like yesterday, the time has flown by. At this camp, we missed the Christmas lights, designed our badge and necker, came up with our unit name and sang some Christmas songs. On the first day of Christmas…
Now one year later, I was given the chance to go to a meet up of the other county in our joint unit and happily went along. I arrived after a long car journey to be welcomed by familiar faces all of which were once strangers to me.
Firstly one of our leaders went through kit to take out with us and what to start asking for Christmas (my list includes a solar power battery pack which is lithium ion batteries not alkaline as the airports will confiscate them). Another one of our leaders talked to us about the Jamboree in a bag and we discussed what activities people had already used and trialled with the different sections.
We also had a debate section where we were given a topic and my team ended up arguing for each side we didn’t agree with. This activity helped us to understand other peoples views on sensitive topics without us offending anyone.
Finally, we played some games. This included NESW (North, East, South and West) as well as a game where we had to transfer M&Ms from one side of the room to the other using straws and bowls. We also had a few other team building games including lining up in height order and then age order without talking.
I had a really great time seeing everyone again and I cannot wait to meet up with my unit for another training camp in January.
So this weekend I had the amazing opportunity to help collect money and fundraise at the famous Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival. If you haven’t heard about this carnival before it’s one of the largest illuminated processions in Europe, with a history going back hundreds of years.
After heading south down the M5 we arrived and unpacked at a small remote Somerset Scout hut which I would be staying in overnight.
After braving the park and ride we arrived in the bustling town centre. We saw a steel band, a samba band and an amazing giant bubble display. It started to get busy and knowing we needed food before joining the procession we wandered of towards the start, grabbing a hotdog along the way.
Walking around the corner to where everyone was lining up we were blinded by all the lit up carts, dazzled at how many lights each one contained. These were amazing – some of the larger ones were made of several long sections and had obviously taken a lot of work and time to create. In amongst these were smaller entries from around the country.
We found ourselves a gap to join in by one of the smaller entries and waited for it to set off. As we moved along I got the chance to collect change from some of the thousands and thousands of people lining the route. It was incredible being a part of it and seeing all the faces light up at the sights.
It took several hours to complete the route and once we’d done so I had a chance to see the rest of the procession as it also reached the end, but there was more to come.
The procession is followed by the squibbing. This funny sounding thing is where one of the streets was filled with 200 people each holding a long stick with a holder for gunpowder and when they were lit there was a fountain of sparks showering down the street. Bridgwater is one of only a few places in England to still take part in this spectacular tradition.
We started the next day with a traditional full English breakfast cooked in the scout hut, before heading off to start counting the money.
We arrived to a room already full of people and tables covered in small change. Before we arrived our individual collection buckets had been emptied into a single large bucket that was brought over to us. We were surprised at how large the pile of coins was when it was tipped out onto our table and then astounded when they told us there was a second bucket! We had no idea we had collected so much.
Then came the task of sorting and counting it all. Fortunately we didn’t have to count all the copper coins (over 5,000 of them) or the 5p’s as once we’d sorted them we had some scales and could split them into bags of about £20 each – when they double checked our weights none of our bags were more than 10p out!
We still had to stack and count all the other coins (along with a few notes, a screw, a chip, a packet of salt, some fairground tokens and a flyer for a gym!) . We spent several hours sorting, stacking and counting coins – almost as long as the parade had taken the night before.
It felt good to get it totalled up and back on the road home again. I still can’t believe what a great experience it was, and so different taking part rather than just watching. I hadn’t really thought about what happens to all the coins that get collected at these events so I have a lot more respect for the people that do this sort of thing .
I have been on another training camp with my Jamboree unit last weekend. On the Friday night, we travelled up on the minibus, jamming out to music for 2 hours and catching up with one another.
We arrived at the campsite after pulling down a very very bumpy lane. Once the minibus had parked up, we were told by one of our leaders that there were no proper toilets – instead it was a wooden shed with a hole in the ground which fed the soil. In the dark I was not prepared for all the spiders I was going encounter especially after Strategy.
State of the art toilet facility!
Before we set up our tents, we had to help the rest of our unit put up the cooking tents and say hello again. Apart from the disaster of me not being able to find my spare batteries and then finding them in the only pocket I hadn’t looked in I could help. We then got to set up our own tents before sitting around the campfire.
Pretty Fire
Around the campfire we had an introduction where we got new numbers to call out when someone would shout ‘number off’ and we’d count in order our new number. We got put into our patrols for the weekend and agreed on a time to wake up and start to light a fire to cook on.
I woke up on time to meet with my patrol to collect fire wood and start the fire. We collected lots and lots of wood as there is no such thing as having too much wood and we started cooking once the fire got hot enough. We cooked the eggs first, then some veggie sausage on a giant saucepan until I found a smaller saucepan so we could start the bacon. I was on putting the bacon onto the frying pan duty and saved my egg to have a bacon and egg buttie. Our patrol then washed up and gathered with other patrols, 20 minutes late, for flag break.
We would be doing 4 rota activities in the morning including; social media, personal hygiene, airport security and washing.
At the social media station we learnt about how landscape should be the natural photo shot with the photo not being staged and hence natural. So, our task was to take natural photos of the other groups without disturbing them.
At the personal hygiene station we learnt that our main goals would be to be happy whilst keeping clean by washing our hands and to always tell a leader if something is wrong. Our task was to be blindfolded with paint on our hands and to wash it off and to stop when we thought they were clean.
At the airport security station we had to work out what items we would be able to take in our holdall going to the USA from the UK and visa versa. I learnt that you can only take liquids of 100ml and your water bottle has to be empty when taking it through security.
Clean as clean can be
Finally at the washing station we had to make our t-shirts muddy and then cleaned them. First we rinsed them to get the majority of dirt out and off of them and then we used hot water with washing powder to wash our t-shirts and then rinsed them in cold water again. We then wrung out excess water and hung them up to dry and went to get lunch.
After lunch we got set the challenge to decide on what our patrol wanted for tea and decide on 2 people to go shopping whilst the rest of the patrol helped with the big bonfire/ campfire we would be having in the evening. By a fair game of rock, paper, scissors it was decided that I and a other person would go shopping. So, with our shopping list and £25 we checked the kitchen pantry and went to catch the minibus to the supermarket.
Look what we foraged!
After a quick stop to a scout hut to get extra utensils on the way, we arrived at Asda to go shopping. We got our trolley and were off. We met the vlogging patrol with their body camera and compared our shopping trollies. My patrol’s trolley contained; pasta, carbonara sauce, bacon, muffins, fizzy drinks and cheese. The other patrol’s trolley contained vegetables and noodles for their stir fry.
Not Spag Bol!
Once finished, we travelled back on the minibus to see the others had built a huge campfire whilst we had gone. As soon as we got back we started cooking our tea. Everyone wanted some of our carbonara and we served many of the VIPs who joined us. There was plenty to share round. We then washed up and headed over to camp break to finish the evening, to name our mascot bear and to play a few games.
After the games we had our massive campfire which the circumference was the size of a trampoline and the height of a traffic light. It went from freezing cold to boiling hot in the split of a second. We then did our sketches in our patrols as well as our campfire song.
The next morning we cooked pancakes with bacon and went full out on toppings. We then broke camp and had campflag where we were told we’d have to walk to the village hall to listen to the parents’ meeting. It wasn’t a long journey walking and we listened to the meeting while eating homemade cake. We said goodbye to our friends from the other county and then we were back on the minibus home – where we stopped off at the services on the way back quickly. We arrived back in our own county and went back our separate ways after our karaoke session in the minibus.
Blue helping with the washing
Our mascot’s official name is now Blue – in the photo you can see Blue having a go at hand washing our clothes.
Before the Jamboree, I set myself the challenge of visiting Brownsea Island. I achieved this last week when I visited my grandparents on holiday.
I arrived in Poole Harbour with enough time to catch the 11 o’clock ferry. In less than 20 minutes I arrived to my destination and, as if I was landing on the moon, I took one step for man off of the ferry and took one giant leap for mankind explorerscout84sblogskind.
Olivia with the Scout Stone
I found the Scout Stone engraved with the words, “This Stone Commemorates the experimental Camp of 20 boys held on this site from 1st-9th of August 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell later Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell Founder of the Scout and Guide Movement”. Olivia (the Rainbow from my Mum’s Rainbow Unit) and I took photos with the Scout Stone.
While at the Scout Stone, a group of Cubs came along waiting to have a group photo with it. I spoke to the leaders and told them who I was and what I would be doing – going to the Jamboree of course. I showed them my UK contingent necker which they were very envious of and I persuaded them to buy some of my badges. Who knew I would manage to do some fundraising whilst on holiday! I learnt that the group were camping on the island for their summer camp which I am very envious of.
The Neckers floating in the Trading Post
Being a dedicated badge collector, I had to visit the Trading Post. Inside there were Neckers ‘floating’ from the ceiling and badges were displayed from all across the world. A pin the map was covered with pins – this is where you use a drawing pin to pin the location you have travelled from. They had a UK map and a World map where there were pins covering every county and most countries.
I brought a necker, some badges and a woggle to commemorate my journey and spotted the Brownsea Island Units badges for sale – unfortunately I already had these. However, I learnt that the different colours outline of these badges represent the 4 different patrols.
I donated one of my unit badges to the shop and they were very grateful for it. They have many displays of badges including those from previous Jamborees.
Nature!
After my visit to the trading post, I also spoke to a Scout from Wales who was also camping on the island – I’m still envious of them too. They asked whether I would be willing to trade neckers with them, unfortunately I had to say no. I had only brought my Unit necker and UK contingent necker with me, which I would only receive one of.
Peahen
Being in the National Trust site, allowed nature to live peacefully. I saw many different species of animals, however I did not get to see the rare red squirrels which live on the island. I saw peacocks which did not have there tails up, peahens and peachicks (which are baby peacocks or peahens – depending on their gender). I learnt that even baby peachicks have feathers on their foreheads as well as the peacocks and peahens.
Beautiful scenes
On the way back to Poole, we thought that our ferry would go straight back to Poole harbour until we found out that we were on a tour around Poole harbour. I learnt that one of the islands is used as an oil farm and the oil gets transported back to the mainland via pipes underground. Another one of the islands held a £9 million house and in Sandbanks the houses are worth over £6 million.
Statue of B-P on Poole Quayside
After our detour, we arrived back into Poole Harbour. We went back into the harbour and we headed back to my grandparents house.
Whilst I was on the island I talked to many different people – some ex members of Scouting, members of the public and Scout groups – sharing with them all about my Jamboree experience.
I’ve read that at the Summit Bechtel Reserve there is also a Brownsea Island – I’m looking forward to seeing that one too!
For the older audience these were ‘reading, writing and arithmetic’ for the youth of today it means ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’. Sometimes there are 5 R’s to include Repair and Reinvent.
Recently I ordered the UK contingent supporters badges, I was shocked to discover that they are all individually wrapped. Inside two further layers of plastic bag.
In a World where we are becoming ever more conscious of the affects of our continued bad consumer habits and the affect that plastic has on wildlife to have them over packaged was a complete travesty. The 5 key principles of the 24th World Scout Jamboree are adventure, friendship, leadership, service and especially sustainability.
I try to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible.
Lots of restaurants now only give you plastic straws if you ask for them and many restaurants use paper straws, but these often coated in plastic. On a recent visit to a well known Asian based chain of restaurants I had a smoothie and it came with a paper straw which shows even big businesses are trying to cut down, (Although before I’d finished the drink the straw had disintegrated!)
Given our Unit fundraising badges aren’t individually wrapped I don’t see why these ones needed to be. Hopefully this can be rectified for future batches. How about it UK Scouting?
This week I have been helping the community by helping at my county’s Vintage Fair. On Scout Scarf Day (Wednesday 1st August), I wore my scout necker with pride whilst line painting out pitches – we measured out the distance of the paths and the roads and then painted lines on the ground. We also put up barriers in the afternoon to set out areas for the main event.
On Thursday we helped to park all the exhibitors into the pitches we painted on Wednesday. On Friday, we set up our free stall and helped to direct more people to their pitches and in the evening we watched as the vintage cars, tractors, fire engines, steam engines and trucks drive around the site.
On Saturday and Sunday, we helped to run our stall. There were a range of activities including splat a Scout (which was refreshing as it helped to cool us down from the heat), a donut challenge (where you had to eat the donut from the string without it dropping, using your hands or licking your lips), a tombola (where all the prizes were kindly donated by some of the stall holders), a balance the coin on the lemon (where if it held for 5 seconds or more you won 5x the amount you put on the lemon), a teddy tombola (where you could win a prize every time) and finally a surprise tube (where under every tube there was a different prize ranging from good to bad e.g. there could be a tin of mushy peas to sweets to toilet roll to bookmarks).
On Sunday, before my shift I looked around the fair and took photos with my camera. I saw a Dennis fire engine from Dorset, which we believe my Grandfather may have driven as a fireman. Mum says one of the “vintage” cars I took a photo of was newer than her first car.
I also saw the Poppy Parachute Team who raise funds and awareness for the Royal British Legion.
It’s been the first week of my summer holidays and I am already wanting to go back to school – where there is a set timetable and no kittens running around trying to trip you up.
My first week of no school consisted of seeing my friends, getting a new kitten and doing some homework (yes my teachers really did set me homework over the summer holidays). However, I did have an enjoyable time at my county’s Jamboree unit meetup.
We designed a menu for our September camp where I’ll be with my unit and found out that we will have to walk to buy the food to practice for the Jamboree site. We also looked thoroughly through our ‘Jamboree in a bag’ where I spotted an American football, flags, maple syrup, maracas and much more. I am already planning some activities I could do with different sections with the bag and have looked on the UK contingent website of activities I could do – I can’t wait to make a tipee with my Beavers and other local units around me.
I also found out about some unofficial news about the Jamboree. However, this is only a rumour but if it turns out to be true I’m going to be very, very happy.
After our month long UK ‘heatwave’ I can be glad to say that we have finally had two days of rain – yipee! However, I’m starting to miss the sun which is already preparing me for the heat out on the Jamboree campsite.
This week’s top tip is to frequently check the UK contingents website for any new information. I am enjoying looking at the ‘Jamboree in a bag’ section to look at all the different activities I could run in my local area.
I can’t quite believe that in 365 days I’ll be at the 24th World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia. It’s quite an exciting prospect but also daunting at the same time. Between now and then I’ve still got to fundraise the rest of my fee, pack (and you know how I like to be prepared!), choose all the extra kit I want, take my GCSE exams and complete my personal development goals.
My top tip for today is now that the summer has arrived so have the sales. It’s a good time to buy cheap summer clothes ready for next year’s adventure.
My summer holidays have officially started and I’m looking forward to going on plenty of adventures, I’m hoping to share some of them with you. In the meantime I need to go and play with my new kitten.
Then came the task of sorting and counting it all. Fortunately we didn’t have to count all the copper coins (over 5,000 of them) or the 5p’s as once we’d sorted them we had some scales and could split them into bags of about £20 each – when they double checked our weights none of our bags were more than 10p out!
