Join in Jamboree at 10th Edmonton - Friday 18 February 2011
Delivering a Join In Jamboree evening for younger children in your district some may find highly stressful and hard work. Although I found it highly enjoyable and fun to give the next generation of Jamboree participants an insight to what they may experience later on their Scouting journey. We started by showing the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts the promotional DVD of what the Swedish jamboree is likely to be like. This gave them an idea of how big this camp is. Trying to explain to children the age of just 6 how many people 40,000 people are was the most challenging part. I think the best part for the Group was trying the Swedish food we had brought for them to try. It was a remarkable evening and hopefully inspiring many more young people to want to attend the world scout jamboree. Also a very kind donation was given to the unit which I think all of the unit members who were there, and Debi, were very grateful for and did not expect that very kind gesture. This reminded us of how much support all other group are to the very few selected to attend the Jamboree.
Rebecca Morris
Southern 50 Checkpoint 18 - Saturday 19/Sunday 20 February 2011
(Some of the GLN Jamboree Unit were walking in this challenge event whilst others staffed Checkpoint 18.)
We all met at 6th Friern Barnet Headquarters at 09:30 am. We packed up the minibus with all our equipment including a tent, lamps, a stove, and all our personal kit. We set off at 10 am on our way to the checkpoint destination. We went via High Crest School to pick up food and drinks for the walkers. Once we had everything, we continued onto the checkpoint which was in a Church car park. We began to set up the checkpoint and got it done very quickly in the wet weather as we worked well as a team.
It was important that we had the tent organised and tidy so that we could access the stove to make hot drinks for the walkers. We had to watch out to make sure none of them were too cold or dehydrated. We did this by making sure they all responded properly and weren’t too quiet, even though they were obviously going to be extremely tired! Being on the last checkpoint meant we had to pay special attention to the hikers as most of them passed us late at night. This meant they had been walking for over 12 hours and were becoming increasingly exhausted. We also had to make sure that after 4pm, all hikers were in groups of 4 or more for safety reasons. This was hard sometimes as understandably some walkers didn’t want to be kept behind to have to wait!
Many of the walkers were happy once they found us as it meant about 20 minutes of walking left! At any checkpoint, you have make sure the walkers have enough energy to continue, that their boots aren’t rubbing too much and that they are warm and dry. We have to assess each walker and ensure they are able to carry on, even if they say they are.
It was a challenge manning the checkpoint at times as at the beginning there wasn't much to do and it got quite boring, but then as the first teams began to come through, we all found our appropriate roles and I think overall we worked well as a team. When two or three teams came through at the same time it got very confusing writing down all the times they arrived and making sure we had all their tickets but we worked well and got it all sorted in the end. There were a few slip ups but everyone was willing to help out and sort them out quickly to tell central control. As the night went on we all became colder and more tired, so we began to take rests in the minibus in groups which let us have a quick power nap to rebuild ourselves!
Overall I really enjoyed doing it as we all pulled together and it was fun to take part in.
Gemma Agnew
Barnet Borough Scout District Ice Skating - Sunday 20 February 2011
After we arrived back at the scout hut we had to unpack all the equipment we had taken on that weekend, once that was done we all went home. It was nice to finally have a warm bath - instead of the cold shower we had when it was raining - after the long weekend. With all little bit of R and R we went to Alexandra palace where the group hosted a raffle for the Barnet Borough Scout District ice skating night. Along with the raffle we also sold the unit merchandise including the badges.
We all had a wonderful weekend and look forward to being in Sweden.
Charlotte Armsby
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