World Jamboree - Reviews

[mashmaster]

17 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Sounds like the airport exit was a complete mess.   There is a FB post that one small group of scouts were still stuck there this morning with only a 18 year old ASM responsible.   

It was a mess on Friday for sure.  The amount of people going through the airport shouldn't have been a surprise to TSA and the airlines.   Those tickets were purchased a long time ago.  Seems like they should have staffed up for that.  I am not familiar with the area, is Charlotte the only airport near by?  maybe it could have been split between multiple airports?

[ParkMan]

33 minutes ago, mashmaster said:

It was a mess on Friday for sure.  The amount of people going through the airport shouldn't have been a surprise to TSA and the airlines.   Those tickets were purchased a long time ago.  Seems like they should have staffed up for that.  I am not familiar with the area, is Charlotte the only airport near by?  maybe it could have been split between multiple airports?

There are others.  But, even if there was just one this sure seems like something the BSA/WOSM, airport mgmt, and TSA could have worked out.  

I do wonder what the best way to get 50,000 people to an airport after the event ends would be.  That's what - 1,000 bus trips?  If everyone flew out of Charleston which is 64 miles away, that means a round trip is probably 3 hours.  So, you then rent 250 buses and run 4 shifts the next day?

[MattR]

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

I do wonder what the best way to get 50,000 people to an airport after the event ends would be.  That's what - 1,000 bus trips?  If everyone flew out of Charleston which is 64 miles away, that means a round trip is probably 3 hours.  So, you then rent 250 buses and run 4 shifts the next day?

I'm not sure anything can be done for that. Think about it. The only place 50,000 people meet is in the center of a big city with the infrastructure to handle it. That many people at a stadium in a big city with several million inhabitants is no big deal. Place those people in the middle of nowhere and there's a big challenge to move all of them.

There are 15 flights a day out of Yeager airport in Charleston (an hour away). Just for fun, let's say there are 200 seats on each flight. That's 3000 people a day. And some of them are the locals that usually use the airport. That airport is set up for a very limited throughput. From flight control to ground support, gates, and everything else. That won't work. Do this once every 4 years and nobody will find a motive to invest in the infrastructure to solve it.

[mashmaster]

30 minutes ago, MattR said:

I'm not sure anything can be done for that. Think about it. The only place 50,000 people meet is in the center of a big city with the infrastructure to handle it. That many people at a stadium in a big city with several million inhabitants is no big deal. Place those people in the middle of nowhere and there's a big challenge to move all of them.

There are 15 flights a day out of Yeager airport in Charleston (an hour away). Just for fun, let's say there are 200 seats on each flight. That's 3000 people a day. And some of them are the locals that usually use the airport. That airport is set up for a very limited throughput. From flight control to ground support, gates, and everything else. That won't work. Do this once every 4 years and nobody will find a motive to invest in the infrastructure to solve it.

Anyone have the numbers of how many flew in vs. bused in?  That reduces the number somewhat.  probably have to stage the departure over two days vs. one.

[ParkMan]

If I imagine that 60% flew in because it's a World Jamboree.  I'm thinking that because 20% are staff and 20% are people within driving distance, that leaves 30,000 that flew in.    If we can get 3,000 in/out of Charleston, that leaves 27,000 that need flights.  It looks like Chartlotte, Columbus, and Pittsburgh are all about 4 hours away.  I imagine you could find 27,000 seats between those three airports. 

If you can get 50 on a bus, that's also about 540 bus trips.  If  you could get two bus trips in per day, that could mean as few as 270 different buses the organizers need to find - but I'm thinking that's risky.  I'm guessing around 400-500 buses would be needed.  Could you find 400 buses that would make a trip to the Summit for an airport run? 

Is there nearby train service and could Amtrak run some special trains to those cities?

[qwazse]

A lot of the foreign contingents that I met were flying out of DC, after touring it for a day or two. 

Also let's be clear:

6 hours ago, ParkMan said:

...

• lack of food.  This is a basic task that should have easily been covered.  I have to imagine there's a bigger story here.

There was no lack of food. There was lack of food choices thanks to SMs who encouraged/required their scouts to max out on points even if they weren't ever going to eat them.

There were "keepsakes" for sale Friday. They might not have been the ones scouts wanted. But they were at every trading post that I passed. I myself grabbed a hammock that was marked down to a reasonable price.

Moreover, there was that participant patch and necker. I can't imagine a better keepsake.

Finally, if a scout packed light, he/she could take a tent home in his luggage. (I sure hope nobody tried to carry on a bag of tent stakes.)

[Eagle1993]

I think I found the U.K. scouts. 

http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/27322466

 

 

[thrifty]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

Finally, if a scout packed light, he/she could take a tent home in his luggage. (I sure hope nobody tried to carry on a bag of tent stakes.)

At least several people did try to take the tent with stakes and poles as a carry on because there was a warning not to do this posted on the WSJ Facebook page after some people had to leave their tents behind.

[vol_scouter]

A few comments and observations:

- WOSM awarded the 24th WSJ to Scouts Canada, Scouts Mexico, and the BSA who in turn founded a corporation just to run the WSJ so neither WOSM nor the BSA had control of the WSJ 

- Like other Scouting events, the WSJ was organized and executed by a group of Scouting professionals and volunteers

- Managing 45,000 adults and youth from 170 countries and who speak different languages and have different cultures is far more complex than a National Scout Jamboree

- Logistics were massive

- There were few problems and no truly major problems - quite a remarkable accomplishment

- Professionals from world scouting roles were delighted that all the infrastructure worked well: bathrooms worked, plenty of clean water, plenty of good food (some above would disagree with adequate supply but just summarizing their comments), and many different things to do -- the infrastructure has been a problem at prior WSJ according to folks in world scouting

My experiences were very positive:

- whenever I interacted with adults working the Jamboree, I asked them about themselves and were they have a good time where 100% intimated that they were having a marvelous time despite many with health issues

- All seemed to be getting along very well together

- The stadium shows were great

- There were many full size buses transporting visitors to and from Ruby Welcome Center to Summit Center that ran well

 

Travel issues of which I have read seemed to have more to do with overwhelming the airports than getting the units to the airports

- No doubt that unanticipated (and likely things that could not have been anticipated) caused changes in departure schedules

- There were people planning with a logistics background, it would have been very difficult for a company to plan a jamboree without having a lot of scouting experience

- The issue for the Scout Store is that after such events are over, there is little market for the goods. So the WSJ corporation had to estimate the merchandise that would be sold. Imagine predicting what youth will purchase from 170 different countries. Sounds like the shops did not run out of merchandise though did sell out of some things. That would seem to ba a success if the remaining merchandise is truly small.

 

Summing up, it was a marvelous, very successful WSJ. All that planned and executed the jamboree are to be commended. The Summit Bechtel Reserve is a truly unique Scouting gem that all in the BSA should feel a sense of pride in being owned by the BSA. Though I have no information about how the WSJ corporation formed fared, in other areas the 24th WSJ was a great success.

 

Vol_Scouter

[Cleveland Rocks]

12 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

I thought the 2017 National Jamboree at Summit which had 30,000? in attendance was training for a World Jamboree (40,000) two years later there.  Summit was designed for 70-80,000.

 

 

The Summit is designed for a National Jamboree of a maximum 36,000 participants, not counting staff, in the 5 participant base camps. There is a document on the Summit's website that breaks it down: 40 participants to a unit, 12 units to a neighborhood, 3 neighborhoods per subcamp, 5 subcamps per base camp, 5 participant base camps, equals 36,000.

The BSA has yet to announce an official attendance for the 2017 NSJ (at least I haven't seen any official announcement), but our camp commissioner at that NSJ told us she was told in her commissioner meetings that there were around 26,000 participants and about 5,500 staff. The area where we camped in Bravo had a dozen empty campsites in our immediate area.

You may be thinking of the AT&T stadium amphitheater, which can hold 80,000.

For the WSJ, they planned to squeeze in more units per base camp, but that turned out to not be necessary. The food team announced that there were 28,000 youth participants, 3,000 adults, and 10,500 IST members, for a total of around 41,500. The max capacity that they planned for was 42,000 youth and adults, plus 10,500 IST. Our council's contingent said there were nine open campsites in their area.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Cleveland Rocks

[Cleveland Rocks]

6 hours ago, qwazse said:

There was no lack of food. There was lack of food choices thanks to SMs who encouraged/required their scouts to max out on points even if they weren't ever going to eat them.

Thank you for saying this. I know a lot of unit leaders were saying the same thing. The Scoutmaster of our council's contingent told me exactly the same thing. For this WSJ, the point values for the food items was essentially the same as it was at the 2017 NSJ, but the amount of points a unit had to buy food with was more than 50% higher this year than it was two years ago (3,333 points vs. 2,017 points). Troops were maxing out their points each day even if they didn't eat all that food. This was evident on the last day when the returns tent had tons of food returned. So much for a lack of food!

A sign posted in one of the grocery stores explained it perfectly when they explained why they were low on food the final day: the food team purchased enough food to feed 42,000 people for 12 days. Being that there were only 28,000 youth, that should have been more than sufficient, had units not purchased way more food than they needed.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Cleveland Rocks

[Cleveland Rocks]

11 hours ago, mashmaster said:

It was a mess on Friday for sure.  The amount of people going through the airport shouldn't have been a surprise to TSA and the airlines.   Those tickets were purchased a long time ago.  Seems like they should have staffed up for that.  I am not familiar with the area, is Charlotte the only airport near by?  maybe it could have been split between multiple airports?

WOSM contracted with American Airlines to provide air transportation, and Charlotte is a hub city for AA, so lots of destinations, including many international destinations. The next closest AA hub is Reagan National.

I would guess that they chose AA because they have the closest hub airport to The Summit. United's closest hub to The Summit is Dulles, and Delta's closest is Atlanta.

As mentioned above, Charleston has only 15 daily departures, to only six cities, and they're primarily on small "puddle jumper" aircraft.

[David CO]

11 hours ago, vol_scouter said:

The Summit Bechtel Reserve is a truly unique Scouting gem that all in the BSA should feel a sense of pride in being owned by the BSA. 

 I don't think so.  I can't see why any financially struggling scout or scout unit should feel a sense of pride in BSA's ownership of the Summit, or of any other ultra expensive facility that the average person could never afford to use.  

I'm glad that you enjoyed the trip, but you should not expect "all in the BSA" to share in your enthusiasm for the Summit. 

Edited August 5, 2019 by David CO

[Jameson76]

11 hours ago, vol_scouter said:

The Summit Bechtel Reserve is a truly unique Scouting gem that all in the BSA should feel a sense of pride in being owned by the BSA.

To be clear, Summit is not actually owned by the BSA, it is technically owned by the various bondholders and lenders.  It will be years and years and years before BSA will in fact "own" Summit Bechtel Reserve.  There are bond balloon payments well north of $100 million (though these will no doubt be refinanced) that come due in or about 2022.

Sure it may be a nice facility, but the challenge is that the Summit is sucking up a lot of money from BSA operations.  Question needs to be asked, is it worth it?

 

[qwazse]

44 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

... Sure it may be a nice facility, but the challenge is that the Summit is sucking up a lot of money from BSA operations.  Question needs to be asked, is it worth it?

There were definitely some things that I would have preferred to show the world instead of big zips:

1. Taking a cue from the WSJ in Sweden: Each subcamp and the fields around the main stage stacked with spars and rope for pioneering. (Our campsites were given split 8' 2x4's -- a total of eight pieces of cut lumber.)
2. The orienteering map as the base map for scouts instead of the minimally detailed map that we were given.
3. Main stage recognition of scouts who "aced" activities each day. (E.g., fastest time on course, best scout spirit at activity x, etc ..) There was plenty of time before each show to announce scouts on the screen.
4. Displays from multiple colleges and universities. (WVU was the only school representing.) A lot of folks are interested in studying here. Some asked me about schools in my neck of the woods.
5. Displays from each state in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
6. More wild plant and animal exhibits. I held the attention of Indonesian girls for 20 minutes as I made their leader Sassafras tea.
7. More presentations from Native American tribes.
8. BSA (and Scouts Canada and Scouts Mexico) literature. An Indonesian scouter asked me about it, and I referred her to scoutstuff.org. There was a lot of interest in how our troops operated. (I had to do a lot of explaining of the how's and why's of sex segregation.)
9. Bending over backwards to be sure GS/USA is invited. We had the potential to reach balanced sex ratios. Guide's from other countries commented on their conspicuous absence.

I do hope the US, Mexico, or Canada will have a "next time" in less than 50 years. But, even if SBR is only used for National Jamborees, I think some of these tweaks would make them much better events.