Friday 17th May

This weekend is the final time IST and unit leaders will get together before we head over to the USA – and I am understably very excited! But simultaneously not so excited about university exams on Tuesday.

An early start to get a car share down to Gilwell Park, but should all be worth it!

Saturday 18th May

An early tram to meet Soph and Edward at Toton Lane, then we were off down to Gilwell!

Soon after arriving we got the tent setup and were ready for our first workshop of the day.

We started with a big welcome workshop together in one of the main venues, where we found out some more general information for the Jamboree as well as generally getting excited!

One thing that quite surprised me from the opening workshop was the size of the Jamboree size… See below for a comparison from the Japan Jamboree site size four years ago in red to the USA Jamboree outlined in blue!

The rest of the workshops involved us being split-up into different groups that we kept as we went round, so we got to know each other a bit better as the familiar faces followed you as moved. The themes of the workshops varied from travel information to mental health help for when you’re at the Jamboree. All pretty useful and a good opportunity to meet new people!

Later in the afternoon the Jamboree Band were having an international group conference call to answer some questions and give us more info on what will be going on when we arrive at the site. It was a lovely sunny day so we decided to sit outside… The British weather reminded us how naive we are and we took shelter before my laptop got too wet!

After the workshops were finished, there was a chance to mingle with more of the adult UKC members over what can only be described as one of the best bingos I’ve ever done… Disney bingo! Where you chose 16 Disney songs out of about 50 and you crossed them off as they were played over the speakers. You could tell which songs were from Frozen and which weren’t…

And we then finished off the night with a big disco!

Sunday 19th May

There were a couple more workshops for us to attend in the morning, then it was time for the weekend to end. 🙁 It ended with a big group photograph that involved a scissor lift which was pretty cool! See if you can spot me…

That’s it until the Jamboree… I can’t wait!! 😀

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