My Jamboree Journey
Last week, I got my final badge from UK Contingent following the end of the 24th World Scout Jamboree. This was from completing the personal development award which I blogged part of my process here.
I love how it features T-bear as well as the design being a cute trophy. The only downside is the badge being difficult to sew onto my blanket.
My last World Scout Jamboree meet up camp stared with boarding the minibus and drinking custard – a tradition we have upheld since our very first camp as a unit. Soon, we realised we had no speaker to play music with so started playing I-Spy.
This did not last very long.
Soon, we got the radio on and began listening to BBC Radio 2 – at first the music was substantial until it soon became clear it was mostly 60s music (which none of us knew). We then proceeded to sit in silence for the rest of our journey.
That evening, it was patrol 1s cooking duty where we cooked hot dogs with onion – the onions were so strong that we were all in tears cooking. After supper, we watched a movie called Hot Fuzz before heading to bed.
The next morning we all awoke at 8 o’clock due to the sound of unfashionable music – to say the least. Personally I’m still loving golden hour from our journey up. We then waited for the rugby to be put on except that ITV hub seems to be down – due to the amount if traffic.
We watched the rugby – no spoiler but we lost which was disappointing. Nevertheless, we then played a game of ‘Pigs’ which some of our unit learnt on the Jamboree before doing some reviews. We reviewed our personal unit kit, selection process and then fundraising – which was followed by lunch.
After lunch we played an odd version of netball before heading back inside to review how many camps we had and whether this was substantial enough as well as reviewing our leaders leadership. Following this, we then listened to the county commissioner of Shropshire discussing the Queen Scout Award as well as other Scouting activities happening. We then a went back outside to play the odd version of netball.
In the evening, we were supposed to go on a hike to see a firework display except our dinner was running very late – I learnt a couple of new card games during the wait. After dinner (of chicken and … PASTA!), my patrol quickly finished washing up before we headed on a mini walk to try and watch the fireworks. We saw a few fireworks before heading back and eating pudding.
In the evening, we watched a movie of our World Scout Jamboree experience which included photos and videos from all of our pre-camps. Many laughs later, it was time to head to bed which was around 00:45.
The next morning, we woke up at around 8:30 and started to pack away. Breakfast consisted of pancakes with maple syrup – taking me back to Canada. This was then followed by free time as well as a whole unit reflection. We also played with frisbee and a a game of Ninja.
It was then time to say goodbye to everyone before we headed back home via the minibus. This was very sad with lots of I’ll see you very soon, before we grabbed some lunch and headed back home.
And so it’s not a goodbye, it’s more of a see you later …
Shortly before Christmas I went to another day long unit meet-up.
The day was a chance to find out more about where we were going, what we were doing and how we were going to go about it. As you may know we are off to New York as well as Washington DC and maybe even Canada. We were asked what we wanted to do on top of what the UK Contingent would arrange for us.
Some of the ideas we had included:
We also had confirmation about what kit we will be given and can purchase. One of our leaders said it was the best Jamboree Kit they have ever seen so we’ve got more confidence it’ll get there and back in one piece.
There were a lot of team building games but I had to sit those out as I was still recovering from my injury – I got to separate and fold raffle tickets instead.
As well as my injury our unit has also had broken arms, broken feet, sprained legs and loads more, hopefully we’ve got these out of the way before the Jamboree but they also told us about how good the on-site hospital will be.
Unfortunately I had to return Blue at this meet-up and found out he had missed the Christmas Meal the day before, although I did get a surprise Chocolate Santa in return.
I got another surprise from Father Christmas my own Blue Bear, who I have named Blue-Too. Blue-Too has found my Washington DC board book, which I got when I was nearly two on my last visit to DC and has been busy planning what he wants to see.
