Southern Region Jamboree Weblog

All Good Things……..
Even the utopia that is a jamboree eventually must end and the past 14 days have flown by like a leaf in the jetstream. One more day and the centenary jamboree is at an end. But even a hurricane Katrina can not blow away our great memories.

The high reported yesterday was 84 deg F and that’s a scorcher for this part of England. Today the forecast was for no rain (again) and mid 70s. There was a nice breeze all day and the temp was as predicted, much better for all of us. The number of new “jambo-ritis” cases amongst our guys seems to be less and those who got it early seem to be improving.

Larry, Charles and I were out early this morning to make our rounds. Greg was off on a tour of Gilwell and joined us midday at HQ. During our visits we presented each of our unit leaders with a very nice So Region jamboree belt buckle that Jennifer Bevis had designed. Each one is numbered and the leaders were warned that if one shows up on eBay we will know where it came from. I doubt that will be a problem. All of our leaders have definitely gone “above and beyond” in their service to their youth and I can honestly say that every Scout and Venturer has been given the opportunity for a top quality jamboree experience. Whether or not they had a top quality jamboree experience is up to each of them. Time will tell.

The Plateau subcamp was off-site today at Gilwell. All of the others were on site. Being the last day of program we are always concerned that the program areas start shutting down early and denying Scouts the chance to do those activities. A special “thanks” to the staff of our BSA exhibit areas that remained open and operating until the very end. That being said, many of our kids are getting very tired and a goodly number decided to hang around camp this afternoon and recharge themselves for the carnivals in each subcamp this evening. I wish that I could have been there to see it but our contingent staff leaders hosted a dinner for all of us off-site this evening so….but it was a nice event and our entertainment was provided by one of our SR scouts in troop 217 – Hughs Sumeral – from Greenville SC. He did a splendid job.

After our morning rounds I spent a little time mid-day at the “D.O.T.” (Remember that is an acronym for “Den of Thieves” and refers to the patch trading area.) As the jamboree comes to a close more and more participants and staff are interested in making a few swops to get souvenirs for their memory box. So things were hopping over there with hundreds of folks haggling and negotiating for the “best stuff.” Greg put a few pictures of this melee up last night.

I gave away the last of my USA flag patches and pins today to the visitor scouts. All total I think that I have given out about 3000 pieces. Each and every gift encounter has been fun and I know that many other of our Scouts and leaders have given away similar items as well. The last day of jamborees tend to be frantic with trading and friendship gifts in the subcamps and this one should be no exception.

Okay….I know that all of you have been anticipating what our daily designation for today would be. Yesterday was Hispanic in focus so today it was only fair to swing the pendulum back towards our host country. Therefore………today was……..(drum roll, please)…..

JAM-BRILLIANT!!!

We caught up with most of our “off-site” troops on an afternoon visit before leaving the jamboree site for our contingent dinner. Our primary instruction to everyone we saw this afternoon was not to worry about packing or campsite break-down today. Just enjoy the program and there will be plenty of time for packing up tomorrow.

Our new instructions for leaving on Wednesday has troops getting on their bus in order of airline departures beginning at 245AM. The last troop gets on a bus about 800AM. This helps the airport handle the large numbers of Scouts going out of country that day and also makes our logistics a bit easier.

I actually saved this comment as an ending for tonight’s blog even though it occurred earlier in the week. Our troop 203 from Dallas is camped adjacent to scouts from Germany. As I walked by their camps a couple of nights ago I overheard some scouts from our troop who were preparing to go to sleep call out to their neighbors…”Good night Germany. We love you.” And the girls and guys from the German camp responded…”Good night USA. We love you too but you have said it 5 times now. Enough, go to sleep!” Very cool that scouts from two countries whose historical relationships have not always been the best can sleep safely side by side in peace and love and friendship. One World. One Promise.

There may be my last blog. Tomorrow will be a hectic day for all of us. We will meet with our unit leaders early in the morning and then do a walk-about midday. After that we will need to pack up ourselves and prepare for the evening closing ceremony and after-party. Theoretically our jamboree will end at about 1100PM and then we begin mobilizing for our buses. There may not be any opportunity to post a report before I join them on the bus. I know that tomorrow – especially tomorrow night – will be a magic carpet ride. In fact, there is no other possible word for our final day than JAMBO-DACIOUS!!!!!
Eventually I will make a final posting. Perhaps like the young man I mentioned yesterday I will need to “sort if all out” before doing so. I know that I speak for Larry, Greg, and Charles when I say that it has been an honor to serve your sons and daughters on this adventure. In fact, it’s now 1130PM and as I blog we are all still up and sorting through our exit plans. Our other motto for the jamboree is….”we never close.”

I know that all of you are looking forward to seeing your young person. Expect to see a different young person than the one that you put on the plane. Let’s stay in touch!

Merci! Gracias! Thanks!

Semper Gumby!
This has been our motto throughout the jamboree prep period and now it becomes even more important as we begin our final three days of adventure. Loosely translated it means “always flexible” so I am sure that you can appreciate how this applies to our situation. My day started our splendidly when Larry and Greg found my little Gumby figurine in the grass in our staff tent. I guess that it had fallen off my shirt early in the jamboree during one of our meetings. That combined with my daily “Beaver bead” on my necklace gives me both encouragement and confidence that we will be able to meet whatever challenges we face through Wednesday.

Hot! Really hot! No other way to put it….when it gets in the mid 80s in England that’s hot! When I woke up about 530AM this morning in troop 217 campsite (sharing the common center area of Robbie and Fred’s tent) it actually felt a bit cool. Within 30 minutes it was already warming up and kept warming up until mid-afternoon. Who would have thought that we would be this concerned about sunburn and dehydration at this jamboree? That was our main concern last time in Thailand. Actually, a lot of folks including me were feeling (and looking) a bit blown out by the end of the day today. But a little sleep (and that’s all one can hope for) and perhaps a bit cooler day tomorrow should revive us as we head into the home stretch.
Two of our subcamps plus troop 216 were off-site today at Gilwell and Splash. Since I had made the rounds last night during their evening activities we decided to defer our visits until late afternoon. So Charles, Larry, Greg and I spent the morning and early afternoon “goofing off” except when we were needed. I spent some time over at what I call the “D.O.T.” That is an acronym for “Den of Thieves” and refers to the patch trading area. Actually the rest of the world refers to patch trading as “badge swopping”. It is not as pervasive as what we see at our national jamborees with blankets spread out along every road and beside every shrub. But the kids (and adults of course) do enjoy “swopping” and it has always been a part of the world jamboree experience. Our BSA “stars and stripes” neckerchief is very popular and many of our guys wish that they had brought more of them (but they were not cheap). Our relative disadvantage in swopping is that there are many more BSA scouts than most other countries and thus there are many many more of our patches out there. Okay, enough about patches.
My “beaver-cub scout-lick-of-ice-cream-for-badge” trade offer continues to be great fun for us as we chatted with some of the Sunday visitors. I spotted two UK boy scouts sitting in the shade looking a bit perplexed so I approached them with my usual badge offer. I then asked them if they had “chucked their leaders” and gone off by themselves. They said that actually they had gotten separated from their other two patrol members and had decided to just sit down and see if they came around. I offered to help them look around and they accepted. Then they remembered that their leaders had told them to rendezvous at the jamboree clock tower if they got lost. Good scout training knows no national boundaries.

Also today I encountered a group of Scout de France. This gave me a chance to practice my French since they spoke limited English. I learned that they were from Paris and meet on Tuesdays (just like my own troop). Perhaps I will convince Helen to let me visit them when we are in Paris later on this year. I think that I mentioned in an earlier blog that a lady I met in the French HQ had invited me to visit her 13th Century chalet in Loire Valley. So we’re all set!

Both the adults and scouts can earn a “friendship” award by completing a number of tasks at the jamboree – some alone and others with international patrols. More and more I see our guys trying to complete these items now that time is limited. Usually a fair number of them will succeed before the deadline on Tuesday.

My personal daily highlight was talking with four Scouters (three day visitors and one IST member) who had attended the 1929, 1937, 1947, and 1957 World Scout Jamborees (one each of course). The 1929 and 1957 ones were in England (although at different places), the 1937 was in Holland, and the 1947 one was in France. It was originally planned for 1941 but the events in Europe of which we are all too familiar delayed that one until the world war had ended. Each of these gentlemen were able to describe their experiences with gusto and each of them gave me their signatures for my little books of memories for this jamboree.

Continuing our daily designation that I talked about yesterday, I got an idea from the Hispanic guys in troop 207 from South TX. So today was JAMBO-BUENO CON PAPAS (I may not have the spelling exactly right on “papas”). Most people know that “bueno” means “good” and the literal meaning of “con papas” is “with potatoes.” But idiomatically speaking this would be translated as “all that plus French fries” so it means much better than just good. And everything that happened today confirmed the choice of our daily designation. Mucho!!

We did our final “walk-about” after 500PM and the temperature was much more bearable. We found several of our unit leaders sitting under the shade of trees near their camps but still with an eye on their turf. The food issue tonight was chicken breasts and the smell of yardbird cooking all around the subcamps and campsites was intoxicating. Apparently we are not at a loss for great cooks in our units.

There does seem to be some type of “jambo-itis” circulating and several of our scouts and leaders were being given antibiotics to help them overcome it for the balance of our stay. I guess when 40000 plus people live in close quarters for 2 weeks this is almost a certainty.

One of the comments on yesterday’s blog noted that one scout had described the jamboree as “Woodstock in uniform” – meaning without all of the negative elements. That’s pretty accurate actually. Interestingly enough, 10 days after we leave Hylands Park it will once again be the site of the “V” rock music festival sponsored by Virgin Records. I doubt that this event will be as much of a clean, fun, and healthy influence on this community.

Tonight at dinner, one of our other contingent staff noted that he had heard of another scout whose mother asked him to describe the jamboree. His response….”I am not sure yet. I need to get home and sort it all out in my mind before I say.” That’s true as well.

Tuesday morning (all too soon for some and none too soon for others I guess) we will meet with our unit leaders to discuss a four letter word….”exit.” We know that we will be boarding our buses for the airport on Wednesday morning at 400AM. This is a good thing as each passing hour on-site holds more and more mania once everyone begins heading for home.

There will be at least one more blog and maybe two depending on how frenzied the next 48 hours become. Thank you for your kind remarks re:my blog and I hope that my overview combined with the detailed recollections of your sons and daughters once they return to your loving arms will combine to give you a sense of what we have experienced together. As I have said time and time again….mere words cannot explain it.

And what, you are probably asking, might be the jamboree word for Monday? Okay, I will give you’re a hint. It is very, very British and very, very applicable.

Ciao!

Carpe jamborium!

With less days remaining than we have had….”carpe jamborium” is what we must do now.

I apologize for the late posting on the Saturday blog. I am typing it at 800AM in our BSA HQ after spending the evening/night at the jamboree site.

Amazing enough, our weather continues to be dry….and hot! Today’s (Sunday) forecast is a repeat of yesterday with temps in the upper 70s. I met a lot of local Essex scouts visiting yesterday and I gave them my email address and told them to let me know when it finally rains after we bug out on Wednesday morning.

All of our scouts are doing well with no major injuries. As expected we have had a few health situations but so far nothing that warrants serious treatment…at least to my knowledge. Everyone I see and talk to is simply joyous with the spirit of the jamboree and it is becoming harder and harder to identify our guys as tshirts and uniforms have begun changing hands and you never know what you might find one of our guys wearing around the camp.

I failed to mention a very very important item in the blog for Friday. I decided that each day of the jamboree from the anniversary should have a descriptive word. If you read the blog for Wednesday, you must agree that the ONLY word for the events of that day would be JAMBO-MANIA. As we returned to our routine program (if you can honestly call what we do routine) on Thursday things were absolutely JAMBO-RIFFIC. Brilliant!!! As they say around these parts.

Friday we kicked it up another notch and found that it was a JAMBO-LICIOUS day. Everybody I told smiled at that description and agreed it was “spot on.”

Saturday is the weekend, a fun day. So the word for Saturday obviously became JAMBO-LARIOUS! As the day progressed I attempted to measure the level of jambo-lariousity around camp and quickly discovered that it was impossible. The old mercury kept blowing out the top of the thermometer and when I tried to measure it using the Richter scale, even that was insufficient. So it truly was a jambo-larious day.

There is an emphasis at this jamboree about being eco-friendly and I gave some flag patches to a group of scouts who had taken a 7 mile eco-hike from their nearby home to the jamboree site for their day visit. Being Saturday, there were hundreds of families visiting the jamboree as day visitors pushing their strollers and walking with their little scouts (or future scouts). Larry has gotten really good at what we call “target acquisition.” He spots a group of scouts and I approach them with gifts of patches and pins. I may have put this in a previous blog so forgive me if I am repeating but my standard MO is to walk up to a small group eating ice cream cones and I ask…”who will trade me a lick of their ice cream for a badge?” Every time one of them will immediately offer me his cone and the adults will laugh. I tell him that he can have a badge or pin but I will not lick his ice cream. Then I tell him (or her) that they get to decide if their buddies get a badge. Suddenly he is everybody’s best best buddy and they plead with him to tell me to give them a badge. Of course, eventually all of them get one but it is great fun and we end up chatting about where they are from and what they are doing and I give the adults my jambo business card and a small flag on a stick for their meeting place and ask them to email me and tell me what they are doing after the jamboree.

Larry, Greg and I actually took a little break mid-afternoon and visited the Hylands House stable café for “tea time.” We had a lovely snack of tea and scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam. Very very British! Brilliant!

About 600PM, after the daily program ends and the visitors are off the ranch, the jamboree takes on a somewhat different atmosphere. Units and patrols are preparing their dinner meal, there are hundreds of small groups sitting around in the grass adjacent to campsites just chatting and trading patches, games of Rugby, football (soccer), badminton, you name it are being played by pairs and teams in the activity areas in each subcamp. Everybody is somewhat laid back and relaxing and getting their energy renewed for the later evening subcamp activities. It is a really neat time and last evening I enjoyed just walking around and soaking up the ambiance of the moment.

The guys from Troop 207 (South TX) invited me to eat dinner with them and we had a fabulous meal of quesadillas, rice with saffron, pasta and sauce, and an excellent Hispanic soup prepared by Mr. Cuellar and his scouts. As we sat and ate it was obvious that these guys have definitely captured the jamboree magic.

After dinner I continued my walk around the camp and a nice young lady from Cyprus called me over to the gateway of her camp to ask me where I was from. Like many jamboree encounters others of her troop joined us and for the next 15 minutes we had a lovely chat. The smaller countries are always amazed at how large is the USA and the number of our scouts. I assured her that “size does not matter” and that I was sure that the quality of her scouting program was just as good as ours. That pleased her very much.

The guys from Troop 212 (TN) had invited me to join them and several of the troops in their section of the Plateau subcamp for a “block party.” This was a spontaneous event that got organized by a couple of the troops at one end of the subcamp. They were pulling all of their patrol tables and benches out of the campsites into an open area and each troop was preparing special dishes using the regular issue food. By the time I arrived they were almost ready to start and I saw scouts and leaders from Australia, Japan, UK, Poland, and USA. The Aussie leader kicked things off and when he said “go” the kids hit the food like a pack of wolves. I walked around and chatted with many of the participants and they were just “over the top” enthused. This type of event is exactly what we hope will happen…..spontaneous events organized by the scouts.

After the block party I continued my walk around the subcamps as the sun set and the cool of the evening had rejuvenated the scouts for more activity. There was a huge party in progress at the Mountain Hub stage and karaoke going strong in each subcamp. And of course many many young people walking around in small groups visiting each other’s camps. I have to say that evenings at the jamboree are my most favorite time of all.

Yesterday, a lady who I met in a restaurant off-site asked me “what’s going on out there?” Thirty minutes later…..she probably knew more than she wanted to know about the jamboree. But she did continue to ask questions so I think that she was really interested. A fellow who was listening in on our conversation made the comment…”you make it sound like a utopia out there!” And you know, in many ways it really is a utopia out here for a fortnight. Probably as close as any one of us will ever get.

I already have announced the jamboree word for Sunday……but you will have to wait for the next blog to find out what it is.

Cheers!