16th August 2026 - Chamboree
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I have spent the past week with 2 other adults who decided to take a 
group of 9 young people camping with 6000 or so other people for a 
week. You may think this mad but I had a lovely time. 

I was at Chamboree, a jamboree or large camp in Cheshire, England, UK. 
Near Knutsford for those who want a more precise location. It is 
towards the north with cities like Chester, Manchester and Liverpool 
near by. At the event, we had participants from as far away as 
Australia there. The camp is divided into small sub-camps which you 
get to live in. In my sub-camp, we had Austrian, Irish and Thai groups 
camping with us. Most Jamborees has themes as it makes decorating and 
planning acitivities easier. For this one, it was animals. As such, 
each sub-camp was named after a particular climate zone. Well, 
loosely. They were Amazon, Artic, Atlantic, Sahara and Savannah. Oh 
and the service team were in Everest. Yes, slightly odd choices going 
on there. 

Of my 9 young people, 3 were 14 to 18 and so Explorers. The rest were 
10.5 to 14 and so Scouts. Somewhat confusingly they ended up doing the 
same programme but on different days. It was meant to help similar 
ages be together I guess. There was also a 14-18 chill out zone, which 
was apparently rather naff. At least someone tried to give the older 
ones some where to relax. 

Activities were grouped into zones. These had names such as Explore, 
Strike, Excel, Conquer and other such verbs. These were loose themes. 
The activities went from the usual adventurous stuff like climbing, 
high ropes, zip lines and zorbing to niche bits like riding hover 
crafts, riding quad bikes, drone racing and segway maze navigation. 
There were also target sports such as air rifles, axe throwing, 
archery, cross bows and catapults. The sciencey part involved radios, 
crane simulators, mazes and other bits and bobs. The craft zone was 
good. I got talking to the zone owner who said they wanted to focus 
the crafts on natural and historical crafts. These were willow 
weaving, black smithing, branding, leather work, rope making and wood 
carving. A surprising number really enjoyed the willow weaving. The 
young people had 3 hours in each zone and there was a morning zone and 
an afternoon zone. At least one leader had to be in the zone at any 
time. I spent a fair bit of time sitting and smiling as I saw young 
people discovering new interests. 

There was a circus there too. This was Happy's Circus, who tour the UK 
helping schools fundraise. It is small but focused on juggling and 
acrobatics. The diabolist was fantastic and reminded me of going to 
juggling conventions with my brother. I still cannot juggle but he is 
able to juggle alsorts. As part of these, people could go on stage to 
showcase their skills. He regularly did diabolo shows and yer, it has 
been a long time since I last saw one. The acrobatics were marvellous 
with their ring and chandeler performances. 

There was one day off site to Chester Zoo. I spent this with the 
Explorers and yer, they spent the whole day saying "Dinosaurs go 
rawr" in daft voices. It is an alright zoo but the weather was ruddy 
hot and so most animals were hiding in shade. Sensible bunch! 

Each evening involved entertainment too. There was an initial session 
where each sub-camp held a particular activity. People could go to any 
sub-camp and enjoy that activity. Some had films, some had games. Mind 
had a camp fire. Now, the UK is currently near enough entirely in 
drought conditions and wild fires are happening. However, they still 
lit a fire for it. It was tiny. What we thought as wood for a single 
camp fire was actually wood for the whole week. They didn't get 
throuigh half of it. I had to circle the fire in a photo I sent to 
parents to highlight where it was. My group's plot was overlooking the 
camp fire area and so we were serenaded each night with someone 
singing such classics as "I'm a little tea pot" but to the tune of 
Queen's "We Will Rock You". All together now.. "I'MMMMM A LITTLE [dum 
dum] TEAPOT teapot [dish]". Yes, the word teapot alternatives from 
loud and deep to loud and squeaky. Most annoying when heard each 
night.
 
The last part of the evening involved live music or dodgy 
entertainment. There was an attempt at a game show and then a 
Chamboree's Got Talent show. These were pretty good. A Hong Konger won 
the talent show with some pretty great traditional flute playing. They 
were young and so nervous.Yet, when they played in the closing 
ceremony, they were bold and played so well. It was lovely to see. The 
other evenings involved bands or DJs. The bands were pretty good and 
seemed to focus on playing 90s US punk (Offspring, Greenday, etc) or 
00s sleazy indie. I knew sleazy indie was popular again but not with 
these age groups. I had a lovely time enjoying the music of my teenage 
and uni years. Yes, I do know more words than expected! I think we 
know the age of the person responsible for the entertainment. It might 
seem odd having such entertainment for these kids. It sort of is but 
also, it gives them the chance to experience loud music, flashing 
lights and dancing without alcohol. I think it is a great way to 
discover how magnificent it can be to experience music thumping 
through the body and losing yourself to the power of rhythm. I 
certainly enjoyed it. One thing I did notice was a lot of elderly 
Guide leaders who were in the front row and loving every moment of it. 
They are great role models and I certainly want to be like that. Well, 
as a Scout leader rather than a Guide leader. I am no sexist. We 
accept any gender and don't give a toss about what it becomes. The 
bands were pretty damn great and often played fun mish-mashes. My 
favourite was Mambo No.5 becoming Killing In The Name Of. That was 
surprising. 

One of the days was a designated rest morning with a festival for the 
afternoon and evening. We let the young people sleep in and then had a 
trip to a supermarket to get more food and most importantly air con. 
Yes, it was a 34 C day and we were boiling. Taking 9 young people 
around a supermarket is chaotic as they tend to find a way to be in 
the way at every moment. One of the girls did climb into a trolley 
and sit in the baby seat. Her bum was wedged in and she could not 
escape without help. We did leave her in there until the tills. Well, 
it was a good laugh watching her squirm, accept her issue and then 
own the situation by pretending to be a toddler. Once back on site, 
the festival was a mixed bag. We had some dodgy DJing at first and so 
stayed on our site where we could hear what was going on. Eventually 
another leader and I wandered down to see what was going on. We 
arrived in time for a drag act to appear. Yes! A drag act at a 
Scouting event! I was well surprised. The act involved a host who did 
a number and then a pair of lip synchers who did arty dances. They 
were a lovely bunch who finished with the following advice - "Embrace 
your inner diva, find what makes you happy for when times are tough 
and always be kind." This great bit of advice was followed by bands 
galore. It turned out to be a great day. 

Toilets are always an issue with these events. Well, all was going 
well until some scrotes decided to block each sub-camp's toilets. No 
idea why but most frustrating. Luckily my sub-camp avoided the issues 
one sub-camp had where someone smeared poo on the ceiling of each 
toilet block. People are disgusting. We did have some AI toilet 
instructions. These were obviously AI as it showed someone facing the 
cistern as the right way to sit on the toilet. Only if you want to eat 
snacks or have a phone holder, AI! Ah well, at least I did not have to 
wade through mud for these ones like previous Jamborees. 

One thing I really enjoyed was watching the confidence build in each 
of the young people who attended. From one explorer shaking like mad 
after doing the high ropes to several working out how to chat to 
strangers. Many of the group are neuro-diverse. I ended up having to 
give one explorer a pep talk on how to meet people. He decideed he 
really wanted to meet people and yet could not work out how. I am an 
introvert who tends to avoid this but somehow managed to give him 
advice which helped. He made some great friends the next day and I 
barely saw the explorers after that. Yes, they were girls. Why do you 
ask? The 2 lads came back each night with some different level of make 
up on. The girl was having a lovely time watching the new girls 
convince the lads to be their make up models. I was asked for some 
paper from one of the Scouts. Turns out he did not have a phone and so 
had to resort to old fashioned phone number exchanging. Always good to 
see the old ways survive. Each young person tackled at least one 
challenge and survived to learn from it. I am impressed by them and it 
reminded me of why I love Scouting. It is a pain in the bum most of 
the time with red tape and local politics but when you can help 
someone learn something new or get through a challenge, it is 
marvellous. 

It was a great camp and I will be looking to be at the next one in 
2030. I felt it was well ran as a whole and had great activities for 
the Scouts. Explorers were a bit too old for some of it but they 
mostly want to find new people to pester so it works for them too. The 
other leaders and I have decided to have a year of not taking young 
people. Mostly as the other leaders had not tried being on the service 
team before and I did it far too long ago. Mostly when sleazy indie 
was still popular. I am currently looking at CamJam, a jamboree in 
Cambridgeshire. Mostly as it is one of very few happening next year. 
Well, it is a world scout jamboree year so that tends to stop people 
organising things. One touching thing was one of the other leaders who 
is retiring next year crying. She is planning on moving away from 
Birmingham on retirement but realised she still wanted to keep 
Scouting. It gets under your nails after a bit. While adults make 
things rubbish, the young people always find a way to surprise you and 
make you feel proud. Even if they are "just" talking to strangers 
without an adult introducing them for the first time in their 15 years 
roaming the planet. Scouting is weird in many ways but the intentions 
behind it and what it enables are fantastic.