Natter With Nathan

BSO helps with HM the Queen’s lying-in-state

Impact of Coronavirus

Unfortunately, there remains a few British/International schools in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that have been told no they can’t open, not yet, or for a fee. This affecting four Groups:

• 5th Dubai
• 6th Dubai
• 8th Dubai
• 1st Abu Dhabi

I will be working with the International Commissioner to write to our hosting schools to see if we can persuade them to allow us to reopen.

There are two other UAE Groups that have not reopened due to lack of leaders:

• 3rd Dubai
• 2nd Abu Dhabi

The DC, Shelly Burrows and her team are working hard to support the four UAE Groups that have reopened – the 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th and 7^th Dubai Scout Groups.

WSJ Unit Leadership

Central European Jamboree

Between the 2^nd and 12^th August, our joint BSO/BGO WSJ unit went on their first camp together to the Iris Central European Jamboree 2022 in Prague. 

The Central European Jamboree (CEJ) is an international event for Boy and Girl Scouts primarily from the Visegrad countries (Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland) with the regular participation of Scouts and Guides from other countries.

The unit leadership team consisting of Howard Nelson, Brooke Lowe, Lynn Millard and Zoë Baxter said they had a brilliant time spending time with the young people of Unit 1. The young people loved to have fun and really demonstrated how much they all deserve to attend the WSJ. 

Unit 1 was made to feel extremely welcome at the Iris Central European Jamboree 2022. The Area team are grateful to Howard, Brooke, Lynn and Zoë for providing excellent leadership. We are also very grateful to the 1^st Prague Scout Group for the logistical and physical support they gave the unit throughout the camp. The unit are all now looking forward to an exciting and challenging trip to the World Scout Jamboree in Korea in 2023.

Kent International Jamboree

Between the 30th July and 6th August, 115 Scouts and Explorers, 25 leaders (and one Cub) attended the Kent International Jamboree (KIJ). This was our first ‘big camp’ together since 2019’s Haarlem Jamborette.

With Scouts and adults from across every BSO district plus our friends from Wyre Forest Explorers and 10th Fulham Scout Group, ours was the largest contingent at the camp by some distance. We made our presence felt thanks to an eye-catching camp gateway, BSO t-shirts and, of course, thousands of BSO-branded clothes pegs!

With activities as diverse as LEGO building, shooting, climbing and car driving, a day trip to Central London and fabulous weather all week we had a fantastic time at KIJ. We were also pleased to welcome BSO special guests John May, Peter Dawes and Irene Orford, who was presented with her bar to the Silver Acorn.

We have received a lot of positive feedback about this camp, and hopefully now we’re back in the swing of things after the pandemic we will have an even larger BSO presence for Haarlem in 2023.

A massive thank you to the joint leaders at KIJ – John Broxis and Justin Steed and to the wider BSO KIJ leadership team who ensured our young people had an epic time and re-introduced them to the joys of fun and friendship under canvas following a tough couple of years.

I have been told that a full post-camp report will be available soon and passed to the Executive.

Celebrating our people: Awards

Haarlem Jamborette 5-16 August 2023

Haarlem Jamborette is a large international camp that takes place for twelve days in the Netherlands every four years. BSO Area attended the last Jamborette in 2019 and we look forward to attending again in August 2023.

This camp gives young people the chance to attend a jamboree outside of the UK, meet up with thousands of other scouts and take part in a large range of activities such as sailing, kayaking, arts and crafts, sightseeing, climbing towers, zip-lines and tons more! There are also several parties throughout the camp including amazing opening and closing ceremonies. For everyone who attends, it is likely to be one of the highlights of their childhood!

I’m delighted to report that Jordan McCullough (DC for Southern Europe) will be the camp chief.

Section leaders are encouraged to publicise this camp to their young people. For lots more information and to register, please see our Haarlem Jamborette web page

Youth Shaped Scouting in BSO

In August I had the pleasure of appointing Charlotte Thompson and Alex Hadley as our new Area Youth Commissioners (AYCs). These two amazing young adults have been tasked with driving our youth-shaped agenda across the Area. I know that they’ll do an amazing job of supporting our volunteers, helping to shape our programme, influencing decisions that we make at the Area level and working alongside our brilliant team of District Youth Commissioners to coordinate cross-Area youth strategy, enabling our volunteers to embed the ideas and decisions of young people into local scouting. In the next few weeks they will be working closely with District YCs, the four DCs and my deputies to look at strategies of how we can ensure youth-shaped Scouting is being delivered in all our sections across all our districts. This follows some excellent work by the AYC during Kent International Jamboree which captured the thoughts from 115 Scouts and Explorers about how their programmes are being delivered and how much influence they feel they have with the programme they are doing in their sections, units, groups and districts.

Management of equipment stored at PACCAR Scout Camp

Finally, I’ve had an amazing time this summer at KIJ with our members young, and less young, and later at the Gilwell Reunion where lots of BSO volunteers met up. It was also great to see the WSJ Unit having an equally great time in Prague. BSO continues to provide lifetime memories and #SkillsForLife to our young people. I’d like to say a massive thank you to the Area Executive and the amazing Team BSO for all you’re doing to support our volunteers across the Area.



Yours in Scouting,

Nathan

Area Commissioner