Welcome back to another great year of Scouting. I hope your Troop Council brought their A game to their planning meeting because the year has already began with a rush. 1300 Scouts Venturers, Rovers and Leaders started by attending AJ2016 at Cataract Park. They joined with Scouts from all over Australia and from the four corners of the world to make up a bustling population of almost 11500.
Scouts were challenged with a wide range of on and off site activities for 10 days. They also faced other challenges such as which arena to visit each night, how to make time for all of their new friends, which outlet at the mall do they visit, cooking for their whole Troop and washing clothes in a bucket with a toilet plunger. One challenge they didn’t sign up for was the rain that occurred for the first four days. In true Scouting spirit though this didn’t slow any one down and the program went on with raincoat optional.
Leaders didn’t miss out on activities either with a number of day trips available on their days off and a number of functions to catch up with old friends or make some new ones. At Qld HQ we hosted a couple of functions for Leaders and at one of these the Leaders quickly set up camp in the nearest chair they could find. This was never going to last and so was born one of the largest speed dating sessions I’ve seen.
Jamborees are truly an event of a lifetime and I could go on and on about them. Instead of listening to me rant I suggest you talk to as many Scout and Leaders who attended as possible. Everyone’s experience is different and they will all have many tales to regale you with. In this age of multimedia there are a number of face book pages you can check out to see some of the activities and facets of daily Jamboree life, Taylar did a fantastic job of keeping the Qld Contingent’s Facebook page up to date so why not start there. 
One of the rarest Jamboree sights you won’t find on Facebook is that of a Joey Scout Leader teaching a Scout Leader the rolling hitch (or was it the other way around?).
I would like to thank all of the Leaders and parent helpers who have contributed to this life changing experience for the Scouts. Everyone has played a part and it has all come together at the right time to create a fantastic event – thanks.
I’d also like to extend a special thanks to all of the Leaders and Scouts who gave up their time to help with the packing and unpacking. 40 tonnes of gear is now safely back in the Q-store awaiting a little maintenance.
Scouter Skills Day
What’s that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men? After pawing over calendars last year to set dates for the Scouter Skills days it appears we have come unstuck with the first one conflicting with Butterfly and Operation Archer. An email will go out shortly with a new date for the first of these field days. While it’s aimed at skills for the Scout Section they are skills that can be utilised by any Leader so I hope to see many of you there.
“boy is supremely confident of his own power, and dislikes being treated as a child.” Sir Robert Baden-Powell