During the summer, a group of our scouts, along with 4 explorers and some leaders, spent a week at the Norfolk Jamboree, NorJam. Below is an account of the week written by one of the scouts.During the summer, a group of our scouts, along with 4 explorers and some leaders, spent a week at the Norfolk Jamboree, NorJam. Below is an account of the week written by one of the scouts.
On Saturday morning we set off on the long journey to Norfolk, to the showground where NorJam was based. We all had to get our security passes then we had to put up our tents, 10 in total. After tea there was the opening ceremony which had loads and loads of music (good) and speeches (bad). After that we all got into our tents and snuggled up in our sleeping bags to sleep (and chat for a while first).
On Sunday we got to choose our activities unless we had already had pre-allocated tickets. If we were not happy with what we had we could swap them at the ticket swap-shop. Even our leaders, Neil, Carlo and Jonny, were allowed to do some activities instead of looking after us all the time (I think Tina just did looking after). Some of us stayed in our tents playing Top Trumps while others went around the camp playing football and bought sweets and drinks from the tuck shop.
When we woke up on Monday morning the leaders had already got breakfast ready, cereal and a fry up, then it was off to our activities. After lunch at the camp site it was more activities in the afternoon.
On Tuesday Matthew, Sean and I went dry slope skiing, which was good fun. The others had chosen different activities which included a RAF Team challenge, line dancing, shooting, go-karts, T-shirt painting, leather carving and many more.
Wednesday was the day that our tent had to do the washing and drying up all day! Lunch was easy compared to the rest as we only had to do the plates that our sandwiches were on so weren't that dirty. It was quite fun though as we did a lot of talking while we did it. Later in the day Norfolk's local radio station came and it started snowing - well not really. But we were nearly flooded out as it rained most of the evening and all night and the wind was blowing a hooley.
After we had all eaten breakfast on Thursday, Neil told us we were going to be taking part as yellow team in an "It's a Knockout" game with other Scout Groups on our site. Most of the activities we did included water, therefore most of us got very wet, but it was okay as the rain had stopped during the night! Although it was close for first place we just sneaked through after a bit of license with the rules and winning extra points for serenading the helpers who were running the games. We all enjoyed ourselves. In the afternoon we played football and other activities followed by tea. The excitement of the week started to catch up with some of us and we all got sleepy quite early.
Neil started our Friday by waking up our tent because we had overslept. We all seemed to take ages to get ready before joining the others for breakfast (good job it wasn't our turn to cook!) and we did eventually catch up! All our group, except for Neil, went off to the Pleasure Beach at Yarmouth for the day. We all agreed to meet for lunch at 12 o'clock, but the leaders were late so we started our lunches without them! After having a good time playing on the beach and throwing stones in the water we went back to the Pleasure Beach. We had a fantastic time riding on the roller coaster and exploring the place as well as going on the dodgems.
I knew that I was going to be invested at Norjam (I have only just moved up to Scouts) but I didn't know until just before the closing ceremony that it was going to immediately after. A Scout Leader from a District in Yorkshire invested me, with the rest of the troop watching, on the way back to our camp. When we arrived back to our sire we prepared to sleep under the stars as Neil had taken all our tents down during the day while we had been in Great Yarmouth, thanks Neil! Although I felt a bit nervous because I had never slept out in the open before, I was really excited as well.
I woke quite early on Saturday morning because it had been so hot during the night - and I hadn't been eaten by the wildlife in the night. But by 7 o'clock most of the others were up as well. For breakfast we had egg and sausage but as this was the day we were off home, Tina wanted all the spare food eaten up as well. She left it all out for us to help ourselves, among the things we ate were apple pies, apple crumble, more sausages (cooked!), angel delight (but we had to eat that before Neil spotted it), chocolate muffins and more fried eggs.
We then had the long drive back before meeting up with our mums and dads and saying goodbye to the leaders at about 1 o'clock. Thanks Neil, Tina, Jonny and Carlo for making it such a great time for us at NorJam.
(Written by Robert: Sept.06)