EuroJam – International Service Team (IST) Diary

EuroJam was the biggest Scouting and Guiding Event in Europe for 10 years. 12 action-packed
days from 29 July to 10 August 2005 at Hylands Park, Chelmsford, near London in the UK. There
were participants from 67 countries, with over 10,000 people on-site, the event was an experience
of a lifetime for Scouts and Guides from all over Europe and beyond.

EuroJam was also the first of many activities preparing for Scouting’s Centenary in 2007. The
Centenary activities will reach their high point on 1st August 2007, marking 100 years since the
first experimental Scout camp on Brownsea Island in 1907.

Hello I am Susan Baker a Cub Scout Leader from Angle Vale South Australia.
The following is my attempt to keep a diary during EuroJam I hope you enjoy it !
(you can see my photos of this event on the following website
http://homepages.picknowl.com.au/susan_baker/ )

Day 1 - 26/7/05
Arrived London a few minutes late and thought I would miss the first 8am bus to camp, but I didn’t.
I met a few Canadians in the customs line all dressed in their scout uniforms, I was wearing my
contingent shirt and Australian scarf. Was warmly greeted by a man in the arrivals area and
whisked off to the bus that was about to leave. The bus trip to the reception area (airfield) was
taken up by chatting to a number of the other people on the bus (about 10). We didn’t stay long at
reception before getting on another bus with a few more people who had driven themselves there,
so I spoke to them on the short journey to the campsite. At camp we were shown a place to pitch
our tents and I shared my plastic mallet with a number of people. Then we sat and chatted more,
before deciding to go for a walk to explore the campsite. It seems very empty as there is only staff
at camp until Friday (29/7/05). It also seems a little confused here, as no hot showers and no word
on job allocations. It apparently is difficult to determine the final job allocations with so few signing
up to work at EuroJam. I spoke to a few British who said they were the only people in their county
(sort of equal to an Australian scout district) to attend EuroJam as IST. It was suggested that this
may be because EuroJam(s) are not held regularly like other national jamborees and therefore do
not have a loyal following. The remainder of the day was spent doing more talking and more
exploring, with a little eating and an early night to bed.

Day 2 - 27/7/05
Discovered the showers still weren’t working, so went to breakfast early. I then picked up both the
General and IST Handbooks and went to the first IST training presentation. After which we were
told that the next IST training would be the job specific training tomorrow, so I offered to help with
any IT work. I was sent to the Information Management office and met John and Scott and a few
others. Spent the day (10am – 6pm) setting up the internet Café PCs (about 90 of them). Found
out when I returned to the IST sub-camp that the final job allocation list had been posted and I was
in the Logistics Team, which was my first choice. So I was happy, however a number of other IST
staff were very unhappy with the service team they had been assigned too. Also talk in the IST
sub-camp was that it had been hard to allocate people to positions because they only got about
1,000 IST when they had hoped to get 2,000 IST. I guess you really have to be willing to fit in and
work where ever you are needed.

Day 3 - 28/7/05
Today we had the logistics team IST training which basically told us this team is for the moving of
people. Tomorrow will be moving in day for the participants and so we have all been assigned
special meet and greet jobs for the day. I will be going to Luton Airport with four other people,
which will be a very international task as my group comprises Australian, British, Canadian and
American scouters meeting Europeans for the European Jamboree (EuroJam). However I’m still
waiting to find out what I will be doing for the remainder of EuroJam. And I have discovered that a
Work Roster is a Work Rota in the UK. So how many people have I smiled at and said Hello to (or
the people I have met so far) Anne and all her friends, Ron and his bunch of Canadians, two
Rick(s) and many more too many to remember them all. I’m finding it helpful to keep wearing my
Australian Contingent Name Bar as most people seem to be able to read it and then I don’t have to
keep saying it.

Day 4 - 29/7/05
The showers are working! Warm and good pressure, but they have a pull cord you need to hold to
get water. The bus to Luton Airport was late picking us up, but we arrived before the first plane we
needed to meet had landed. Met and greeted a number of groups throughout the day with the last
one being a group of 47 Hungarians at about 6pm as their plane was 3 hours late departing
Budapest apparently due to a staff strike. Actually they were the second group of Hungarians to
come through Luton Airport the first arrived on time apparently because the airport staff had not
walked off the job yet. After the second group had arrived it took another 4 hours to arrange a
special bus for them. However they were not upset, they waited, had group photos taken, ate food
they had with them and practiced a national dance they were going to perform at camp. Tom and I
rode back to the registration centre on the same bus and then onto the EuroJam site with them.
The other three members of our meet and greet group returned to camp on a previous bus in the
late afternoon, leaving Tom and I to meet the last group. I got into bed about 2am on Saturday,
luckily it was a day off for the Logistics team because no one needed to be moved around, but on
Sunday we will be back to being busy again I guess.

Day 5 - 30/7/05
No duties for me to perform today as all participants are settling into camp and getting ready for the
Opening Ceremony tonight, which was right next to the IST sub-camp. Also finally met most of the
Australian Contingent, Terry the contingent leader said he had been looking out for me for 2 days
with many sightings, but we had just not managed to come across each other since I arrived at
camp separate to the other contingent members. Anyway back to the Opening Ceremony, which
was spectacular as I expected for an event such as this which included gymnastics, BMX bike
stunts, singing of the EuroJam song, an old fashion London Double Decker Bus and scouts from
each of the countries attending taking part in a colourful flag ceremony. Also in the Opening
ceremony Peter Duncan (Chief Scout of the UK) abseiled down onto the stage making a dramatic
entrance. I find the EuroJam radio station to be pleasant, nice music and announcers, not too
young for me. I believe it is being supported by the local BBC radio station. I particularly liked the
commentary of the Opening Ceremony for those that could not see it.

Day 6 - 31/7/05
First day of activities! I found out last night that I had been assigned as a Logistics Team member
to one of the Starburst Activities. Starburst is the Community Service activity program and my job
is to scan everyone onto the bus and make sure they returned on the bus. Logistics require me to
barcode scan everyone on the bus except the driver and then leave the handheld scanner with the
team leader. If an accident should happen they could recall the list and know who was on the bus,
however this information is not being used for security purposes as scanning back into the
EuroJam camp site is not required on our return. So I spent the day at a School for Special
Children in the nearby town of Chelmsford where two Starburst staff (Debbie and Keira) were in
charge of the listed work. I have to admit it made me wonder why our Australian Jamborees don’t
have a community service element (at least I don’t think they do?). I should also mention the youth
age range for EuroJam was 10 to 17 years old because scouting ages are slightly different in each
country.

Day 7 & 8 - 1/8/05 & 2/8/05

Well the days are just racing by and we have now had three days of activities. If I can remember
them all, the participant’s countries through our Starburst Activity so far have been Britain,
America, Canada, Turkey, Korea, Moldova, Azerbaijan, France and Portugal. It is interesting to
find that sometimes there will be only one leader in the individual groups who can speak English
well which means they then have to translate for their scouts. It turns out that the IST restaurant is
using paper plates and plastic cutlery. I think this is great for staff, no washing up so helps stop
health problems due to poor practices. The food ok, breakfast choice is the same every morning
bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, warm tomatoes, baked beans, hash brown, cereals and toast.
Lunch is a “packed” one with sandwiches, chips, chocolate bars, water and sometimes oranges or
apples. Dinner is different every night, seems to be two main course choices with soup, dessert
and bread rolls. I seem to be falling into an eating routine with Tim (USA) and Margaret (UK) also
logistics team members assigned to Starburst as we have the same schedule.

Day 9 - 3/8/05
I got to sleep in this morning as no Logistics work to be done. However I had volunteered for work
in the afternoon on an activity called “World of Faces”, where photos are taken of a person and
then they attach it to a tooth pick and place it in a map to show where they are from. Beforehand I
visited a number of the national tents to see their special displays and activities set up for
Celebrate Europe Day. I have decided the best coffee at camp it from the Austrian Tent, very
smooth and a good atmosphere. I visited the international Badgers Club Tent in the evening which
included a quiz question sheet about previous World Scout Jamborees from their display boards. I
got one question wrong out of 12, but they gave me a EuroJam “badgers” badge for completing it. I
swapped a few contingent badges and checked out the best time to return to swap more. However
this camp does have one interesting guideline which is Adults can not swap directly with Youth,
apparently this was news to the participants as well. We were also given today a special white
scarf with a small printed badge on it and a pen too collect jottings from people we met today.

Day 10 - 4/8/05
So my days are back to a certain routine with Starburst from 9:30am to 4pm return. Then a walk
through the Plaza from Gate 2 to the Logistics Hut to say hello we are back and onto Lake Geneva
(IST sub-camp) for a rest and dinner with the evening free. But I need to get up at 6am to have a
shower and breakfast. It has been the warmest weather so far about 20C. We had another group
of Portuguese at the school today and they seemed very interested or at least their leaders were,
because we had an interesting talk over lunch. I can’t believe the number of different EuroJam
shirts around. There seems to be a different shirt for every department and sub-camp. Also
unexpectedly I find myself AJ2004 shirt spotting, so I often stop and ask if they attended AJ2004
and so far they all said yes! Some even said they plan to attend AJ2007 and all said nice things
about Adelaide and Australia and our jamborees.

Day 11 - 5/8/05
Today we had the first really wet day which seemed to make the participants a bit stir crazy
because they could not stay outside while at the school, but at least we had the hall available to us.
While on Starburst I have tried to make myself useful by providing First Aid support when needed
and monitor the garden equipment.

Day 12 & 13 - 6/8/05 & 7/8/05

So my days are still the same routine with Starburst from 9:30am to 4pm except I have caught a
Cold! Yuk! So I went into Chelmsford on the camp shuttle bus to go to the chemist, because I did
not want to trouble the Camp hospital staff over a simple cold.

Day 14 - 8/8/05
My Cold is really bad today barely made it through the last day of activities!

Day 15 - 9/8/05
Today participants were packing up camp and there was a Closing Ceremony to join in with in the
evening. So I decided to go into Chelmsford, but I could not get on the first bus because it was full
of scouts, but I thought the bus was only for adults? I waited the hour to get on the next bus to
Chelmsford, which turned out to be fortunate because I was on the same bus as a few other staff I
knew. We had lunch together, visited a local church and did some shopping, before returning in
time for Dinner.

Day 16 - 10/8/05
Well today is Participants Departure Day, but I was given the morning off to get over my cold a bit
more. I was suppose to be on a bus loading shift from 6pm to midnight, but I arrived to find out that
I wasn’t needed as all the participants had left camp by then. So I said goodbye to the Logistics
Management Staff and went back to the IST sub-camp to join the Farewell Celebrations. But there
was one last thing to do which was to fill out the extensive IST camp questionnaire. I guess this
information will be used for the IST conditions at the World Scout Jamboree 2007 being held here.

Day 17 - 11/8/05
Today buses have been arranged to move the IST offsite so I will be leaving camp for Baden
Powell House in London. There is a lot of activity as the jamboree has to be gone quickly as there
was already equipment arriving for a concert which will be the next event at Hylands Park. I guess
like most jamborees when you are staff you may not get to see everything but you can always try.
Some people may say why do you pay good money to work at a scout jamboree? My answer is for
the experience as there is nothing like it. I guess the most interesting part is the people you get to
meet and talk to. You don’t always remember their names but I still remember the conversations,
everything from in depth scouting topics to light hearted discussions about each others countries.

What next?

Hylands Park has been reclaimed for now! In two years time the site that was EuroJam will
become part of the Centenary World Scout Jamboree 2007. This event will be a truly global
gathering in which 40,000 people from up to 200 countries will join together in celebration of the
first 100 years of scouting and look forward to the second century of the world’s largest youth
organisation. The theme of the 21st World Scout Jamboree in 2007 is “One World, One Promise”
which captures the aspirations and hopes of young people for the future. And they are looking for
8000 adults to join the International Service Team for this event.

So if you or someone you know would like to join the IST adventure start by
contacting your Branch International Commissioner for more information.

To join the World Jamboree IST you must be:

• at least 18 years of age by the start of the event.
• a member of a recognised WOSM national contingent.
• able to speak at least English or French.
• available in the UK from the 24 July – 10 August 2007