Huddersfield North District Jamboree Selection Weekend
I went on the Huddersfield North Jamboree selection weekend hoping to get a place. And failed. So I’m absolutely gutted. Urban Dictionary Definition for gutted:
Gutted:
1) Bad luck
2) Shame
3) Ouch
Eleven of us went, but there were only three places. They said I was too shy, so I’m gonna work on becoming more confident before the county selection . There’s going to be plenty more people there, so I’ll just make a conscious effort to connect with more people . I really want to go to the jamboree so I have to give it my best shot. The jamboree sounds awesome. The theme is “Simply Scouting” and they are focusing on three things that can summarise scouting: Meetings, Solidarity and Nature. I need to make sure I get a place with the county and use the feedback I got today to my advantage instead of sulking about it! Besides, if you read on you’ll see how fun this weekend was.
The weekend was composed of various challenges. Crazy, seemingly-impossible, difficult challenges that required thought. But we all got through them eventually.The first one was a scavenger hunt. We had to look for various items. I did absolutely rubbish on this challenge and only got a few of them. I should have put a bit more effort in I guess. Although I am kind of proud of a few clever things I did. One item was The Scout Law handwritten. I wrote down the words “The Scout Law” and got the point. We also had to do other challenges at the same time and I wasted over 20 minutes trying to pitch a tent in the dark. After this, we went to sleep and I discovered I could sleep better on the church floor than in my own bed.
The next day the main challenge was going to be something to do with manchester airport but it got cancelled because of some protestors. At 2:00 am the leaders planned an alternative challenge. We were split into two teams and each had to plan an afternoon tea event to be held at the church. We were given £50 and told whoever makes the biggest profit wins. My team chose to buy ingredients then bake cakes and buns and make sandwiches, and the other team decided to just buy buns from Sainsbury’s. We also decided we would hold a tiny raffle (with two prizes – A £4 cake and a £3 DVD!) which made us £45. We received£15 as donations standing outside Sainsbury’s, and we made exactly £100 from donations for cakes and buns (we were giving out the food and letting people pay whatever they wanted). We used facebook, called people, asked people outside Sainsbury’s and in the streets to come to the event, and the leaders also invited many people to come along. At the end, my team made a profit of £124, and the other team made £129. Everybody was suprised by how well we all did – even the leaders thought we would fail!
That night we split up into groups (we worked with people of a similar age) and cooked our own tea over the open fire. I tried to used a technique I read in a Ray Mears book but that didn’t really work, but we managed to get the fire going in the end. Then we built it bigger so it was hot enough to boil water and fry mince. We had Pasta Bolagnase, and it tasted great. For dessert we stuffed bananas with chocolate buttons then wrapped them in foil and put them in the embers of the fire.It was a bit goey, but it tasted nice. After eating we went on a hike which had challenges at every checkpoint – each was fun and interesting. After this, we slept in tents we’d pitched earlier in the day. I didn’t sleep well.
Today was also fun. We built our own assualt courses using pioneering poles and rope. They were quite simple but still fun to climb/vault over. After we had dismantled the structures, we got called in one by one to be told if we had been selected or not.
Although I’m extremely disapointed, this weekend was still amazing fun and I’m just gonna have to focus on trying really hard for county selection!
