10th August 2024 - Red Rose 2024
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I have now returned from the Red Rose Jamboree. I am a broken, tired 
and sore man but I have had a great time. There was no desire to 
continue writing at the end of each day. A mix of the phone keyboard 
and tiredness made that a pain. 

Day 4 - Aqua day

Aqua day was simply a day spent on the water. My lot were doing a mix 
of activities such as sea kayaking, narrowboating, raft building, 
snorkelling and 'splash'. I got roped into going with the ones on 
'splash' and found it was just a load of water activities on 
Windermere, a lake. There were kayaks, paddle boards, yachts and 
other small craft to mess around on the water in. I should have had 
fun but instead I got the joy of sitting in a field. Good job I 
brought a chair! Well, I ended up snoozing all afternoon. Weather was 
glorious at least. I ended up having to discourage the singing of '9 
german bombers', an English football chant. Turns out some Scouts had 
taught my Explorers the chant. My main frustration was being made the 
bus monitor and having to work out who needed labelling as requiring 
special attention due to medical conditions. It is hard to get 70 kids 
to listen for their name and respond in a manner in which you can 
notice them. There was a quick turn around with the Explorers when we 
got back as they had to leave to go on Udder Chaos. 

Udder Chaos was an incident hike through the night. It was about 12km 
and the Explorers had to find a series of bases and complete 
activities for points. So many seemed to not complete it. I was 
rather chuffed that mine all managed to complete the hike without any 
navigation blunders. I should hope they did alright considering most 
had recently completed their Duke of Edinburgh Silver expeditions. 
They all crept back at 1am. 

Day 5 - Golden Day

Golden day was a celebration of Red Rose's 50th year of being a 
Jamboree. The morning was spent with a series of activities for the 
young people. Each sub-camp ran 18 or so activities where the young 
people could earn Moo Bucks. What the Moo Bucks were for, I have no 
idea still. However, those kids wanted them. I ran a stall about morse 
code where the group split into 2. One team sent a coordinate while 
the other sent back the name of the image at that coordinate. All 
comms were to be in morse code. This worked reasonably well and I had 
some surprisingly keen people taking part. The rest of the day 
involved a picnic and some futher activities. Sadly the rain hammered 
hard and turned the site into a mud bath. Toilets started overflowing. 
Not good! At least the showers were warm after the second day and so 
clearing the mud from legs was pleasant. I did spot someone I knew. It 
was a leader who took me away to the 20th World Scout Jamboree in 
Thailand back in 2002/3 as well as to Switzerland for a week in 
Adelboden in 2004. I had not seen this leader since 2004 so it was 
rather a surprise. Even more surprising was that he remembered me. 

The young people had some mega lie ins. Many did not surface until 
gone midday. Most were tired from Udder Chaos and the early mornings. 
Can't say I blame them. I was just jealous of their lying in. 

Day 6 - Platinum Day

Platinum day was spent at Waddicar, a Scout campsite in Lancashire. I 
had a fun job. I was to protect the fairground organ from mischievious 
Scouts. Alas, someone decided this was not an issue and so I ended up 
helping a friend with bubbles. Weather was again wet. Surprisingly, no 
one wants to play with bubbles in the rain. Another morning of sitting 
around. The afternoon involved wondering around and seeing what the 
young people could get up to. They could do axe throwing, archery, 
crossbows, air rifles, kayaking, water slide, zorbing, mini caving 
route, bouldering and lots more which I cannot remember. It is a nice 
site. A good mix of activities and great camping spots. The weather 
was annoying but what can you do?

Toilets continued to become dire. Leader toilets were leaking and/or 
blocked. Kids seemed to desire destroying their own toilets for some 
reason. We started playing a game - mud or poo? You simply looked at 
the walls of the toilet or the splashes on people's legs and had a 
debate. We also got the news that we needed to discuss something of 
great importance with our young people - that pooing in the shower is 
not acceptable. Turns out someone/some group of people had been 
regularly pooing in the changing part of the showers. Multiple showers 
affected each day. Disgusting bunch of reprobates! 

I ended up in the adult hub with a friend to beat the grim rain blues. 
We had a couple of drinks while the other 2 leaders remained sober. It 
was a wonderful evening of laughing at the grim weather, grim toilets, 
grim shower poos and our grim singing along to the music. One of those 
evenings where your sides hurt almost as much as your mouth from all 
the laughing. 

Day 7 - Adrenaline Day

Our final activity day. Again, the young people were split into 
seperate activities. My lot did mountain biking, an adrenaline 
activity day at Honistor, mountain walking and scrambling up Conistor, 
geo-caching, winter sports and segway riding. Well guess which one 
lead to injuries... SEGWAY RIDING! Turns out that muppets who steer 
into tree roots will fall and hurt their thumb. Thankfully, the 
Explorer who fell showed that their thumb was fine by swiping through 
their stories or whatever nonsense they were watching in a zombie 
state. We did say that any injuries would come from the segways. 

The evening was spent closing out the camp and partying. We got 
ourselves dolled up in UV paint. I had swirls painted in different 
colours around my face. My beard was plated into 2 mini pig tails and 
the ends painted with UV paint. Once again, the weird communal 
feelings were present as we pranced our way along to the stage. There 
were 2 freak outs. One was during the closing ceremony from one Scout 
who I did not expect to suffer. She was heading towards a panic attack 
and so we got her out of the crowd. The other was at the end of the 
night in the sub-camp disco. This was a large marquee with loud music, 
lights galore and dodgy leader dancing. Turns out that this was rather 
triggering for one Scout and they had a bit of a melt down. We soon 
got him out of there and ended up having to get him calm through 
getting him to tell us his usual routine. This is an effective 
technique second only to the 'distract through getting them to help' 
technique for swift calming down. If you are aware of any other 
techniques to help people who are overwhelmed then please let me know. 
I am always looking for ideas and have a rather neuro divergant Scout 
troop and Explorer unit. We welcome anyone but the training is 
non-existant for helping people get the best for them. 

We had a bit of bother getting everyone back for bed. Our 3 night time 
ramblers ended up being the issue. Thankfully, their learning of the 
'9 german bombers' chant and sharing it with anyone they met was 
useful. We heard the chant from a far and so knew where to start 
looking. Our curfew policy was simple... If the music stops, come 
back. They should have come back but instead had joined a large 
cluster of gormless, hormone ridden hoarde of Explorers atop a hill. 
We found them surprisingly quickly considering. Their excuse was that 
someone had told them that there were no curfews that night. HAH! Daft 
sods. 

Toilets were truely in a state. Straw was put down to help with the 
quagmire people had to pass through to get to the toilets. 
Unfortunately, this just reduced the level of squelch to most of the 
boot as opposed to all of the boot. It also provided some horrible 
monsters with something to shove down the toilet and to poo on. What 
is it with these monsters? Why destroy your own facilities? [Insert 
many angry curse words of varying strength]. At least the weather was 
mostly fine. Odd shower but some sun.

Day 8 - Going Home Day

It was a struggle to get the Explorers up. I was packed away with tent 
down before any left their tent. I woke up at the same time as they 
were meant to. Ah well. We had a hard morning packing up but got 
everything back in with ease. Unfortunately, the fates decided to be 
mean and it had rained at 4 am. As such, the tents were wet. Then any 
hope of slightly drying the tents were dashed by 15 minutes of heavy 
rain which soaked everything. Sigh. 

The journey home was a struggle. Plenty of traffic and that minibus 
was hot. Throw in teenagers who last showered on day 5 after much 
protest and you have a smelly time. One removed their shoes and almost 
caused a crash from the gagging. We left at 1030 and arrived in 
Birmingham at 1530. Not bad. 

The jamboree was a great event even if the weather was pants. It was 
my fifth jamboree after 2002/2003 WSJ in Thailand, 2007 WSJ in UK, 
2008 Smuggler in Cornwall and 2010 Kilke in Finland. Why yes, I 
started working full time in 2011. How ever could you have guessed? I 
think all 14 of the Scouts and Explorers I took had a good time. They 
certainly grew as people over the 8 days. It always surprises me how 
much you notice people changing while spending so much time with them. 
The being forced to go on activities without knowing anyone else was a 
big hurdle for these young people but they managed. I had been put off 
trying to go on a jamboree with my current group as the cost is