A week-long camp with our friends from Foston and around the world
On Saturday 1 August, after a much-anticipated build up, ten of Caythorpe’s Scouts, three Young Leaders and three volunteer Leaders joined forces with Scouts, Explorers and Leaders from 1st Foston in attending the Poacher 2026 International Jamboree at Lincolnshire Showground.
Unlike recent summer camps, the only weather report for the entire week was ‘glorious sunshine’!
We were delighted to meet with our ‘buddy’ Group, 25th Dunbar from Vancouver, Canada, and lend them a mess tent, sleeping tents and our cooking equipment. It’s a bit tricky to bring over all that kit on a plane!
With our tents pitched (some then taken down and moved, a handful of times) and camp set up, we completed some of the admin (handing out activity tickets, Americas Sub-Camp neckers and lanyards) and all went to get our personal QR codes scanned against our ID bracelets. Scout camps have certainly stepped up in terms of the tech being used. The ID tags contained each individual’s emergency details as well as their age, and then at age-restricted activities the young people were ‘scanned’ before entering – stopping anyone sneaking into activities restricted to a higher age bracket!
We enjoyed a fabulous evening meal of fajitas, catering for our new Canadian friends too, before assembling for the amazing Opening Ceremony at 7pm. A disco followed – some stayed and some came ‘home’ to our camp.
As night fell, Scouts and Explorers were ushered into their tents and encouraged to get some sleep ahead of what was to be an absolutely brilliant, if not a bit tiring, International Jamboree.
The joy of an International Jamboree is the sheer range of activities on offer for our young people. There are far too many to mention here, and you can see a full list here: https://poacher.org.uk/experience/activities-list/. The off-site activities ticket office drew large queues most days, with destinations including the water park, aqua park, visits to Lincoln, Lincoln Zoo and even a sky-diving experience in Birmingham!
There was also a full programme of lunchtime events in the main arena, including a wonderful performance by the RAF Voluntary Wind Band and ‘Horse Boarding’ (look it up – who knew?!). And in the evenings there were discos galore, including a delightful Silent Disco and a Hawaiian disco night.
It’s safe to say that there’s never a dull moment at Poacher, and that every one of the 5,000+ Scouting and Guiding participants will have all had a very different experience, doing different activities, all at the same time. It’s pretty mindblowing!
Behind the scenes our team of volunteers worked tirelessly in the background, answering Scouts’ questions, checking that they were all OK (and that they were also visiting the showers occasionally), going for the daily 10am trundle to the main gate to collect supermarket deliveries, sorting out ice collections to keep our food cold in heatwave conditions, zipping up and re-pegging tents (thanks to the blustery winds) and generally ensuring that our Scouts were OK and had everything they needed. Although showers and shower queues were beyond their control, unfortunately.
The week was filled with stories, laughter, giggles, fun, washing up and instructions to ‘keep hydrated, wear suncream, wear a hat!'. Unfortunately there were probably fewer showers than most wanted, due to long queues and sometimes the ‘pump lorries’ not quite having pumped enough… nice…
As the week drew to a close, our contingent packed away most of the big kit on Friday afternoon in advance of the fabulous Closing Ceremony. This was followed by a couple of ‘famous’ bands (most leaders had no idea who they were) and an amazing fireworks display. Friday night was a late one, with extended curfews and a brilliant Caythorpe & Foston impromptu on-site performance (ask Les!), and Saturday morning an early one, with a ‘pot luck’ breakfast to clear away all leftover food. Leaders faced the daunting task of finding their dusty cars in the huge long stay car park (mental note – use What3Words next time) and then battling with queues to get on site to hitch up trailers and load more kit. Parents arrived to collect their tired, happy, and (likely) smelly offspring, before heading off to unload all the kit at Foston and going home for a well-deserved shower.
Thanks to all our Scouts and Explorers from both Caythorpe and Foston; you were impeccably behaved throughout the event, you helped when needed (washing up and catering) and you were brilliant fun to spend the week with. We hope you have gone home with nothing but laundry and happy memories.
And to our team of volunteer Leaders – thank you. With all the advance planning, reconciling (ever-changing) numbers, kit checking, fact-checking and general behind-the-scenes work that goes into taking a Contingent to a Jamboree, as well as planning the kit for our new Canadian friends, you deserve a well-earned break…
Have a great summer and see you all in September!
PS – have we mentioned that we need more volunteers? If you’re a dab hand with numbers (Treasurer), brilliant at planning, organising and running weekly meetings with a purpose (Scout Leader), supporting the younger sections (Beaver and Cub Team Members) or keeping an eye on the general running of the Group, please do get in touch. We need you as currently a lot of voluntary work is landing on a few!
Click below to look through our photos. They are in no particular order.
