Greater Manchester East Scouts at the World Scout Jamboree
63 Scouts accompanied by 7 leaders along with over 20 adult International Service Team members are off to Sweden this weekend to take part the 22nd World Scout Jamboree.
What is a Jamboree?
Every 4 years tens of thousands of Scouts (aged 14 - 18) come together for a huge International camp for fun & adventure. With members from over 200 Countries, a Jamboree is more wide-reaching than the olympics!
The UK are sending approx 4000 Scouts & Adult leaders to Sweden, and 80 of them are from Greater Manchester East.
How did they get to here?
Greater Manchester East was allocated 63 Scout places and 7 leader places and 18 months ago all were selected over a selection weekend to represent Greater Manchester East at the Jamboree. Since then they have held countless training camps, social activities and fund raising to get this far...
... and it's the same for IST who too had to go through a selection process.
It all begins...
The GME members had a formal send-off and speech by the Mayor of Tameside, at Ashton Town Hall last weekend. In just a few short hours the first unit (there are 3 in total from GME - 36 Young People and 4 leaders per unit - we share some spaces with other neighbouring counties) will be departing Manchester to start the adventure.
The whole UK Contingent are first meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark and a celebration, activities and beach party before moving on to the Jamboree site itself in Kristianstad in the south of Sweden.
The Jamboree...
Whilst at the Jamboree site the Young People will take part in 2 weeks of adventure, fun and challenge. Creating international friendships that will last a lifetime through activities, global development projects, "Camp in Camp" and of course high adventure challenges!
The Units will be staying in sub-camps on the site (approx. 50 units in a sub-camp) and will be sleeping under canvas and cooking all their own foods.
The Jamboree is made possible by over 8000 dedicated adult members, known as the International Service Team (all volunteers) who do everything from cleaning the toilets, running activities, manning the warehouse and even running a full scale hospital on site!
Moving on - Ho Ho
Ho Ho stands for Home Hospitality, after the Jamboree the units will be travelling to either Poland, The Netherlands or Germany. Here they will be spending a few days living with Scouts and their families and experiencing first hand Scouting in another Country.
Follow the adventure...
If you'd like to follow the Scouts from Greater Manchester East on their truly adventure then head over to our Facebook Page where we'll be posting regular updates (look out for 'WSJ Info:' and 'WSJ Update' at the beginning of posts). You may also like to follow our Twitter feed, where we'll be retweeting lots about the Jamboree over the next few weeks.
