jsirkis

Hi- I've tried to get the word out to all of you-thanks for your generous offers- but my son's patches mysteriously reappeared a couple days after they disappeared. One of our scout leaders told me that they had similar things happen at summer camp- boys knives would appear to have been stolen and then magically reappear. He suspects some of the older kids are up to some pranks. So thanks for your kind offers to send patches- but he has his back and he's happy as a clam!

I spoke to one of our assistant scout masters. He's not at the jamboree (I had called him to tell him I saw his son in the photo gallery!) When I told him about my son's patches he was also pretty upset about it. He told me they had a problem at scout camp a few weeks ago. He suspects that there's one kid in the bunch who's creating some havoc. this is my son's first jamboree. He's very trusting and I guess it never occurred to him that this kind of thing could happen. So when I spoke to him I told him to lock up all of his valuables immediately (basically just some disposable cameras) or give them to the scout leader who's holding on to valuables. I would really appreciate it if you had even a single patch to send. Maybe receiving a patch from some boy he doesn't even know would remind him that most all scouts are great kids! But-please-only if it's okay with your son. Thanks! The assistant scout leader also suggested what you did-he said he'd call tomorrow and ask our scout leader to give the boys a "speech" about honesty-and then see if the patches reappear.

Hello. I'm a mom of a 13 year old 2005 jamboree attendee. My son just called. He's heartbroken! Last night just before going to sleep he put his backpack in his tent, took one last look at his patches and then zipped up his packpack (an older scout friend reminded him to zip it up too!) In the morning, he found his back pack sitcking half out the tent, unzipped-with the opening sticking outside of the tent. His entire zip-lock baggie of patches was gone! I asked him if could buy more patches-but he says that he was not permitted to buy more patches since he had already bought 5 sets before the jamboree- and they were limiting sales. We bought 5 sets of three patches at 10 dollars per set. Might anyone have some jamboree patches to sell? He was particularly sad about the loss of a "blues brothers" patch-but I'm sure he'd be thrilled just to have any patches. Right now he has none! I don't know much about all of this- but I know that I can't afford the prices on e-bay. My son is with jamboree troop 243 (which is troop 99 from Newtown, PA). He's a sweet, trusting kid who takes scouts (and all the scout rules, laws, oath etc.) very seriously. When I told him he should have locked the patches up in his trunk, all he could say was "so you're telling me I'm not supposed to trust the scouts?" It's a tought question to answer.