Topic: Jamboree 2011
Unit Leaders Weekend
This weekend I attended the first unit leaders weekend with my unit leader Stephen and Keith & Graham from the Birmingham / BSWE unit. The venue was the very plushly appointed Barcello Hinckley Island Hotel, where after checking in I discovered that my accomodation was in an executive room although I suspect that all the rooms where executive rooms …
and yes my name was spelt wrong on my room booking and name tag.
First up we got to meet the members of the contingent management team and the contingent support team. We had a presentation from two young spokespersons who had attended the 2007 Jamboree. They where just brimming with useful tips on how to engage with the youngsters who will be making up our units.
Fika
We will be actively encouraged to participate in Fika …
Now calm down and put the yellow cards away, Fika is the Swedish term for coffee and cake with friends. It’s Swedish for tea break one of my favorite hobbys. I look forward to coffee and cake at unit meetings, leaders meetings and every possible ocasion. I intend to devote my fullest attention to Fika.
Workshops
We took part in a number of workshops during the weekend
- Preparing for the WSJ
- Culture
- Fundraising
- Unit Leadership
- Selection of Young People
We now have a resonable idea of what we could expect to encounter at the Jamboree and how we are likely to get there. We know we are flying to Copenhagen where we will be staying for a few days before the Jamboree and then travelling by coach and overnight ferry to our home hospitality then flying back to the UK a few days later.
Oh and we got issued our unit leaders handbooks.
Swedish Government Budgets for Jamboree
Via Twitter
The Swedish government will give 15 MSEK to the 22nd World Scout Jamboree in Sweden 2011 – announced in the state budget today.
So 15M Swedish Krona is something like £13.5 Million. That’s the sort of government support of Scouting we’d all like to see more often.
And we are off.
Last night was the first meeting of the Birmingham Jamboree unit leadership teams. We have one and a half units so a team of four leaders and a team of two. To add to the mix we have the county team supporting us as well so a mix of people at the meeting. I’m in the full size Birmingham unit with Steve (our unit leader), Maxine, and John. Keith is unit leader of the half unit along with Graham his assistant.
I’m still a bit in shock really the big part of the meeting last night was mostly talking about selection of the youngsters to form the unit and being given wedges of paper to read through. The other big shock was of course the amount of money we need to raise to get the unit to the Jamboree, it’s not a small amount but we do have something like 677 days to do it so I may be swinging by with a begging cup at some point.
Theirs not a lot to do really until after the unit leaders meeting in Leistershire on the 3rd of October, we’ve got two places for the unit so i’m going along with Steve and hopefully there will be lots of useful stuff dished out at that meeting. Rumour was that they will even preview the kit we are going to be issued. How early is that.
I’m going to try and keep this site updated with my goings on as part of the unit so I have a record of what happened in the run up as well as the actual Jamboree like I did for the 2007 Jambo. It’s going to be a long journey I hope you’ll join me.