Packing and Preparing

One week to departure.

This blog is set up to allow fellow scouts and friends to hear of our experiences while at the World Jamboree. There will be 30,000 scouts from nearly every country plus 10,000 adults at this event.

Four Scouters from the Heart of VA Council are preparing to be part of the 8000-person IST (International Service Team) at the World Jamboree. Sam Saunders, Chip Delano, Mike Ballato, and I signed on to help behind the scenes. We'll be leaving on Friday July 20th to prepare for the event that starts on July 27th and goes until August 8. The Southern Region contingent includes an ASM and 11 youth from our council. They will be traveling and camping separately.

This Jamboree is special as it marks the 100th anniversary of scouting in the place where it all started. A coordinated worldwide celebration will occur on August 1 to mark the date when Lord Baden Powell took scouts on their first adventure to Brown Sea Island.

While communication from the Southern Region has been great, the communication from the English Scout Association has left us in the dark on a few things - like what job we'll be doing when we arrive. It makes being prepared a challenge.

Anyway...It should be quite an adventure. My hope is that we'll have occasional access to the internet - to post reports. We understand that internet service will be available at some level. However, with 40,000 people vying for it, we can't predict how often we'll get access. We'll maintain "rigid flexibility" and see what happens.

Mark Larson