Explorer Scout 84

Where it all began

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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Recently, I went on a cyber camp residential and learnt how easy it is to hack into computers.

Under a controlled environment, we hacked into one of our fellow teams computer. With this we were able to open up a conversation between the victim and the hacker, make random lights on the keyboard flash, make the mouse go crazy and open up unwanted tabs.

We also learnt how to change the users password whilst not being logged into the computer and we made our thumb print with latex to use to hijack our phones finger sensor ID.

We got taught why to keep ourselves private online through a demonstration of having a picture of a Yellow Lamborghini, and having to find out who it belonged to and other facts about them. It was surprisingly easy to find out who the person was and their age etc. all through looking at one picture.

The 3R’s

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?

Planes, (Steam) Trains and Automobiles

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.

Rain Rain Go Away, Come Back Another Day …

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.

So the countdown begins …

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.

Jamboree Merch

On my unit’s latest Jamboree camp, Evolution, we got our new unit hoodies. They contained our name, our unit badge, our unit number, tea bear and the Scout Fleur De Lis.

We also received our unit’s ‘Jamboree in a bag’ which included a flag from each hosting country: Mexico, USA and Canada, maple syrup, a sombrero and many more bits. The idea of this is to go around to local scout groups and tell them about the Jamboree in hope they will grasp the opportunity when it is available to them.

In a ransom with one of the organisers of the UK contingent, we had to return a previously ‘borrowed’ tea bear cut out in order to be given our own UK contingent necker and badge. We were told to sew our UK contingent badges onto our uniform above the membership badge on your left chest, with the tea bear level NOT the tea cup.

My mum figured the best and easiest way to sew it on was to use a sewing machine and hence used white thread around the bottom of the badge and blue thread around the cup. Other people in my unit have been ironing them on which is one of my pet peeves of badges even though the badge is iron on after quick wash.

On our camp, we also received our fundraising badges and my own personal participator badge which has already been sewn onto my right arm on my uniform underneath all of my unit name tags, district and county badge and my Young Leaders badge.

I hope that some of this information is useful and I am willing to swap my unit’s badge with my blog readers.

Evolution: #stravolution part 2

Many apologies for not posting on Sunday I’ve been very busy recently – apparently one of my jamboree unit has a secret blog and I’ve been trying to figure out who! I’ve also been visiting family-a big shout out to my Grandma ‘Happy Birthday’ it was great to see everyone at your party. One of my cousins couldn’t make the party she was in hospital having my new 2nd cousin.

So last week I posted about helping out at Strategy well this blog post is all about Evolution. It’s similar to Strategy but is for Explorers, Network and their Guiding counterparts.

There were 15 bases including moving a flag pole, an assault course, the caving bus, don’t buzz the wire, axe throwing, belay systems, catch the bean bag in hat, total wipe out and move the golf ball thought pipes. It was a hot and tiring day but our patrol leader kept us motivated and we managed to visit 14 of the bases.

The evening entertainment was a band called The Lost and they were good.

There were several jamboree units there and I’m quite jealous of Unit 82s hoodies, they look great. Unit 82 also took along a paddling pool – seriously cool! I’m also very envious and secretly hoping we steal the idea of the woggles that Unit 81 have.

The food this weekend was yet again delicious and I loved the curry, but didn’t get free chips this weekend 🙁

We got to sleep in some tents from the last World Scout Jamboree so I didn’t need to take my own this time. I think I must have scared away all the spiders as even though I came prepared with my peppermint tea bags I didn’t discover any.

How did we do? We didn’t win but my patrol were in the top 30 out of over 100 teams which I think is pretty good given this is the first time we’ve done something like this as a Unit. It’d be great to do it again next year, maybe I’ll have worked out who the secret blogger is by then.

Strategy: #stravolution part 1.

My Mum says how times have changed since she was a Venture Scout as the last words she said to me when dropping me off at camp this weekend were “have you got your charger cable?” Does she not fully appreciate the Scout motto! Well she certainly does now as next time I go camping she’s threatening to get the plumber in.

Before I write about this weekend, let me tell you about last weekend, when I helped out at Strategy, a event full of activities and challenges aimed at Scouts and Guides. I thought I’d use this blog to give you an idea of what that involved.

I arrived on Friday evening and, after pitching my tent, went to find a job to do as this was a working weekend. Unfortunately there were no jobs to do at the time so I went and explored the site and then investigated the disco. After a tiring evening (I had come straight from school) I went to bed.

We had an early start at a quarter to seven to go and get our breakfast, before working on the packed lunch conveyor belt. We then packed our day sacks ready to ‘man’ the bases.

For the morning I was at the Catapult base, at this base participants could score up to 100 points by catapulting 5 tennis balls and 5 soft balls into a variety of targets like buckets (an automatic 100 points), a paddling pool (20 points each) and a roped off area (5 points each) with bonus points if they ‘accidently’ hit one of the Young Leaders.

After lunch I moved bases to a giant “buzz wire” game. This time they had two minutes to complete the challenge to earn 100 points, but lost points every time they made it buzz.

I helped checked off the wristbands of each person as they came through for dinner and then had other tasks such as being on “hand sanitiser duty” and giving out pudding. After dinner was over I helped out in the café, scooping ice-cream onto waffles and taking payment for ice-cream cones. Even though I was on the ice-cream stand I somehow ended up eating free chips.

Once our set tasks were over we played with an American football someone had brought (well the Jamboree is in the USA) and generally wound down.

When we got back to our tents my Spidey-Senses kicked in. One of my tent buddies had left the inner tent unzipped and we’d been invaded during the day. My skill at spotting spiders no-one else had seen was incredible and we finally got to sleep.

After another early start on Sunday I helped run an “Escape Room” style challenge where they had to solve the puzzles to open a bike lock. After lunch we helped pack up until finally I was rescued and got to go home and rest. It was a lot of rest which is why my blog was so late last week!

The weekend was a good chance to catch up with some of my Jamboree Unit and also find out more about what to expect for when we came back this weekend to take part ourselves.

To end part one of this tale you’ll be pleased to hear that, thanks to a battery pack and the previously mentioned charging cable, my phone just about had enough charge until I got home.

My chance to be fantastic 4 a meeting

Recently me and my fellow Young Leader, Giraffe, ran our own Beaver meeting. 25 Beavers turned up for one Incredible meeting. If you hadn’t figured out the theme from my pun well it was Superheroes.

The Beavers made masks by decorating a mask template and then colouring it in, they were all Super. They also got their own superhero names.

They played many superhero themed games including saving the good from the evil villains, doing superhero stepping stones and stuck in the mud but with villains as the taggers.

It was a very good night but seemed to go by in a Flash.