Summer camp
World Scout Jamboree 2007 - Starburst Offsite Service Team
The 21 st World Scout Jamboree held at Hylands Park, Chelmsford in July/August 2007. It was 11 days in length and comprised of the opening and closing days, the Sunrise Day (Wednesday 1 st August to celebrate the 100 th anniversary of Scouting) and eight activity days. Three of the activity days took the Scouts offsite to Gilwell Park, to a water activity called Splash, and to Starburst.
Each day 3-4000 Scouts were taken to one of approximately 100 locations within one hour drive of Chelmsford to enable them to participate in a community service activity. Examples given in the publicity were revitalising overgrown community gardens, transforming playgrounds at special needs schools or cleaning up the environment. Each project was also given the opportunity to allow Scouts to take something back from the community; this might be a meet-and-greet, and walk in the surrounds or some fun activity. This latter part was called “Footsteps” (From here on the community service will be refered to as “Starburst” to differentiate it from Footsteps). On arrival at a site the Scouts were divided in two, half doing 1-2 hours on either Starburst or Footsteps, stopping for lunch then taking part in the other activity.
Initially, SAGGA had been invited to participate in the Footsteps activities at a number of sites. We also volunteered to run two complete Starburst/Footsteps activities (ReCycle) and later we also volunteered to assist with two further Starburst projects. For Starburst what we were doing was to provide adult support to direct the Scouts to do the correct job in a safe manner; for Footsteps we were to plan and run the entire activity.
The ReCycle Charity is based in Colchester
and collects donated bicycles from a number of sources including the
Royal Mail and the public. The bikes are assessed before being “flatpacked” (the
handlebars are turned and pedals removed) so they can they can be sent to
Africa to be purchased by the locals. We offered to replicate the ReCycle
activity for two Starburst projects; one at Eight Ash Green on the outskirts
of Colchester and one at Writtle just five minutes walk from the Jamboree
site at Chelmsford. Both locations were Scout huts. Prior to the Jamboree
and in co-operation with the Charity, we ran an advertising campaign to get
bikes donated by the public at local Halfords branches. Unfortunately due
to a problem beyond our control, the publicity in Colchester did not occur
so we only had about 20 bicycles from the ReCycle charity available to us.
In Chelmsford, we got a very good response with around 200 bikes donated – a
Scout hut full! 
It is also worth describing our “Great Game of Britain”. At several of the Footsteps activities it had originally been suggested that we run an orienteering event. For various reasons we decided that something else would be better – we are SAGGA after all. We devised a wide game that sent the Scouts in small groups of mixed nationalities from a base to a location marked on a map. There the Scouts would find a picture showing something British (a landmark, a person, an object). The picture also included some additional small details (a duck, a monkey, etc) that needed also to be remembered. On return to the central base the picture and its details had to be drawn before being sent to the next marker. Our objective for the game was that it would be simple to explain without the need for words; fun; needed minimal manpower to run it; and didn’t have a pre-defined end time. By running the same event activity at four different locations meant that we could duplicate the equipment needed – other than maps – and experiences and problems could be shared easily. In the end these criteria all seem to have been met and the Scouts did enjoy the activity. It was also helped by the fact it was sunny and dry every day.
There were three locations where we participated in both the Starburst and Footsteps activities: the two ReCycle events at Eight Ash Green and Writtle, and also at Danbury, a country park and education centre on the outskirts of Chelmsford.
Eight Ash Green Starburst: ReCycling for three days then clearing the overgrown areas at the front of the hut, the next door church and the church in the nearby village of Fordham (thanks to the local vicar for offering this extra work at zero notice).
Eight Ash Green Footsteps: Great Game of Britain.
Writtle Starburst: ReCycling bicycles for the first five days, then one day assisting clearing a ditch near the hut.
Writtle Footsteps: Walk around the village with a wide game (“Blindfolded sheepdog herding”) half-way. After several days the wide game was dropped and a visit to the local Co-op became the highlight.
Danbury Footsteps: Great Game of Britain.
Danbury Starburst: Assisting the Danbury Outdoors Education Centre staff with their projects to build a field centre. Fences and styles were built and some clearance work done.
Orwell Footsteps: Great Game of Britain.
Castle Park Footsteps: (two days only) Visit to Colchester Castle museum
High Woods Footsteps: (two days only) Great Game of Britain.
Tiger Hill Footsteps: (two days only) One day assisting a meet-and-greet with Colchester Scouts; the second day a countryside walk
Thorrington Starburst: (one day only) Assisting with fence building activities.
SAGGA was also asked if it could host a reception party for all Starburst project co-ordinators.
The table below shows the amount of SAGGA resources allocated to each event each day:
|
Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
Sun |
Mon |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EAG (Footsteps) |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
24 |
EAG (Starburst) |
4 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
24 |
Writtle (Footsteps) |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
23 |
Writtle (Starburst) |
4 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
24 |
Danbury (Footsteps) |
6 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
34 |
Danbury (Starburst) |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
20 |
Orwell |
|
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
26 |
High Woods |
|
2 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
|
4 |
Castle Park |
|
|
|
2 |
2 |
|
|
|
4 |
Tiger Hill |
|
|
|
|
2 |
2 |
|
|
4 |
Thorrington |
4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 |
Total |
27 |
24 |
24 |
24 |
24 |
26 |
23 |
19 |
191 |
The number of people to send to each site was based around the number of coaches that were expected by each site on each day. This table shows the actual number of coach loads of Scouts received at each site:
| Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
Sun |
Mon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EAG |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
Writtle |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
Danbury |
5 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
Orwell |
|
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
High Woods |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
Castle Park |
|
|
|
2 |
2 |
|
|
|
Tiger Hill |
|
|
|
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
Thorrington |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Both Danbury and Orwell had days where one coach more than we had expected turned up.
Knowing that each coach should hold 45 Scouts means that we can sum these to show the number of Scouts that passed through SAGGA’s hands:
Coaches |
Scouts |
|
|---|---|---|
EAG |
8 |
360 |
Writtle |
6 |
270 |
Danbury |
29 |
1305 |
Orwell |
10 |
450 |
High Woods |
2 |
90 |
Castle Park |
4 |
180 |
Tiger Hill |
2 |
90 |
Thorrington |
1 |
45 |
Total |
62 |
2790 |
That means that near enough 10% of the Scouts who attended the Jamboree went through our activities.
There were more than 150 countries represented by Scouts at the Jamboree - every country of the world where there are Scouts. We kept a tally of which countries’ Scouts were present at one of our activities:
Algeria, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China (Taiwan), Columbia, Croatia, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Republic of, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Spain, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Zimbabwe
A total of 77 countries, half the nations represented.
The Starburst reception was held on the evening of Thursday 2nd. The Jamboree provided a marquee at Hylands Park and a small budget. They sent invites all organisers of all Starburst activities although without the inclusion of an RSVP no one had any idea of the number of people who would attend. As it turned out, about 200 people came and ate the nibbles we had laid on. Several of the 'core team' were responsible for this. About 20 SAGGA members attended and mingled with the other guests. It was quite interesting talking to people from villages, campsites, craft centres who all said the same thing that the Scouts were very energetic and enthusiastic doing their Starburst work and how everyone was concerned about running out of work before the end date.
A message received from Andy Ball, the Starburst co-ordinator for the Danbury site stated:
“Can you please pass on my sincerest thanks and gratitude to all involved in running the Footsteps program at Danbury Country Park and to the SAGGA members who helped with Danbury Outdoors. Danbury was a great success. The Footsteps program was well conceived, interesting, yet simple so easily understood, giving the young people a chance to mix with others from different countries. Not an easy task given the numbers at Danbury each day. Colin Urquhart was very impressed with the work completed at Danbury Outdoors.”
The sentiment of this message applies to all the Starburst and Footsteps projects that we participated in.