International Jamborees: 1992 Report USA
1992 - International Camporee, Camp Sequassen, Connecticut, USA
2 - 10 July / Participants 830 / Countries 27 / South Africans 13
Report by Brian Howell (Rikki) - Group Scouter of 2nd Pretoria (Brooklyn) Scout Group
All scouts, no matter how young or old, dream of attending an international event during their scouting career. To be invited as guests is an opportunity that anyone would grasp with both hands.
For thirteen of us (eleven scouts and two leaders) to visit the U . S . A. was a dream come true.
The Quinnipiac Council of the Boy Scouts of America had invited us to participate in their International Camporee at Camp Sequassen in Connecticut, celebrating the quincentenary of Columbus discovery of the new world with the theme "Cherish The Wide World and Give Friendship To All Men".
The Camporee and tour can be described in just two words -- fantastic and unforgettable. A brief summary will give an idea as to why it was such a trip.
All thirteen contingent members met at Gilglen, Pretoria over the weekend 27 & 28 June 1992 for the shakedown camp. Here friendships were formed between both boys and leaders. The members were briefed on all aspects of the forthcoming trip.
On Sunday evening, 28 June we were all transported through to Jan Smuts (Johannesburg) Airport where we said our farewells to our families and boarded Lufthansa Flight LH400 to New York via Frankfurt.
Twenty-two hours later we landed at J. F. Kennedy Airport in New York where we were met by John Farley (one of the B. S. A. International Commissioners at the Camporee) and his wife, Josephine (also a scouter) and transported to the Quinnipiac Council Headquarters in Hamden, Connecticut.
At the Headquarters we were welcomed by Arnold Alderman the Camporee Chairman, and also met by our host families. Here we separated and went with the different host families to spend two days with them before the Camporee.
Alan Corin and I were placed with the Glassman family whose eldest son, Jonathan, was the Assistant Senior Patrol Leader at the Camporee. They lived in Woodbridge, a small town close by and we soon fitted into the American way of life.
The Jamboree
We all met again on 2 July in a parking lot near Sequassen to be transported in the familiar yellow schoolbus to the campsite. On arrival at Sequassen, we were met by our host scoutmaster, Robert Marston, and escorted to our campsite, Nathan Hale, a name which was to become very well known by the end of the camporee.
The setting for our campsite was up on West Hill and very wooded. A most beautiful setting for any campsite.
There was a camp gateway competition and South Africa put up a gateway using PH-pioneering. It attracted quite a bit of attention, resulting in Nathan Hale winning the best gateway at the camporee.
Friday, 3 July, saw the official opening of the camporee.
A very impressive ceremony with 28 foreign countries being represented. We were very well received when we marched out on to the field to be officially met and escorted to our host troop.
Together with Sweden and Zimbabwe, we were the smartest contingents there.
As the camporee was held to celebrate the quincentenary of Columbus discovering the new world and the theme of the camporee was "cherish the Wide World and Give Friendship to All Men", it was appropriate that representatives from as many countries as possible were there. Included were countries like Estonia, Latvia, Czechoslovakia and Russia, and all were there to exchange ideas and discuss scouting in their countries. There were also various activities which included archery, rifle shooing canoeing, sailing, swimming, the C. 0 . P. E. course (a type of commando course) and volleyball (won by the "Dream Team" of Nathan Hale). There were also, amongst others, displays of snakes and wolves by the Audobon Society, Birds of Prey by June Collier, small animals by the Beardsley Zoo from Bridgeport and of cars of the 1950's.
Due to rain which washed out the second and third nights entertainment, the evening entertainment on the stage had to be cramped into the remaining nights. Because of this, only a few countries were asked to participate with an item of approximately three minutes. We performed the good old "Lion Hunt" in which the audience participated and thoroughly enjoyed.
Other stage shows included the Israeli Friendship Caravan (a singing group of boy and girl scouts from Israel who travel around - an absolute fantastic show) Magic Spectacular, Rock Concert with a group called- "Secret Weapon", a fireworks display, and the Quinnipiac Indian Dancers, all excellent and enjoyed by all who saw them.
8 July was International Festival Day with foreign contingents setting up displays and serving a traditional dish or drink from their respective countries. South Africa set up a display using the gateway from our campsite (we called it portable pioneering), a video on South Africa and S . A, scouting running all the time, a table covered in books and pamphlets on South Africa and the boys taking turns at the table to speak to people and answer questions. We chose to make the traditional dish of "Bobotie met Geelrys en Rosyntjies" and "Melktert". This was enjoyed by all who sampled it, Thanks must go to Allan Schwartz, an American scouter, who gave us quite a bit of material on S. Africa that he in turn received from Viv Kendall. All this resulted in S. Africa receiving the award for the "most ingenious stand" at the festival.
Another big attraction at the camporee was when the latest American Army helicopter built by Sikorsky, the Black Hawk, was flown in and landed on Platt Field.
Another way of meeting scouts from all over the world was the "trading of patches", which was very popular. This opened up an avenue for making friends resulting in Nathan Hale campsite being the host on many occasions in the evenings to foreign scouters (sometimes until after midnight, what a job to get up the next morning'). We made very good friends with the Swedes and Mexicans.
I had the opportunity to make friends with some of the older American scouters, resulting in me being given thirteen patches on numerous occasions to hand out to the contingent (as they say, I owe those scouters one).
Another person that I met was "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt, A scouter who knew B . P. personally and who wears five beads, the fifth was given to him by B. P. himself.
"Green Bar Bill" wrote most of the American scout books, as well as, amongst others, a book entitled "Two Lives of a Hero".
On one of the days a fun day was held, doing all sorts of fun things (chariot race, radio active container, fire hose competition, etc.). The S. A. scouts showed their scouting skills by amongst other things, building and completing the chariot race in the quickest time.
The ten days of the camporee drew all too quickly to an end. As the last day of the camporee was my birthday, I was presented. with a large chocolate marble cake on the Friday evening by our host scoutmaster, Rob Marston (who baked it in camp in a Dutch oven and iced it with chocolate icing!). I will remember this birthday for many years to come.
We presented Rob with a picture frame containing five badges of B. P.'s sketches and a Kudu horn which Rob would not let out of his sight, but carried it all over with him.
At the closing ceremony I'm sure everyone was a bit sad as they would have wanted the camporee to have gone on a bit longer.
After presenting the Quinnipiac Council with our gifts of a Springbok skin mounted on a frame and a framed copy of the "Oath of Peace" taken by S. African scouting and thanking the Quinnipiac Council for inviting us as guests to the camporee, all the foreign scouters were given a drink from the "Hermits Spring" and were thanked personally by Dag Pheiffer, the Camp Chief.
Post Jamboree Tour
We were then collected by our host families to spend three more days with them before embarking on our tour to New York and Washington. Allan and I were taken sailing on Long Island Sound in the Glassman's yacht.
On 14 July, 160 foreign scouts left the council headquarters on a bus tour.
First stop was New York where we toured the United Nations, then on to the Stock Exchange on Wall Street and finally to the Empire State Building where we went up to the 86th floor. From up there you had a fabulous view of New York and Manhattan . Some of us went up still further to the 102nd floor.
From there we travelled to Fort Dix Army Base in Philadelphia where we spent our first night. The next day we travelled to Baltimore to visit the navy's oldest flagship, the Constellation. Leaving Baltimore we travelled to Anacostia Naval Base in Washington which was to be our home for the next three nights. After supper the first night, we were taken on a guided night tour of Washington, visiting all the various monuments (Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Iowa Jima amongst others) as well as other places of interest (the Kennedy Theatre, etc.).
The next day saw us again on a guided tour of Washington to show us places of interest and where we had a guided tour of the Capital (where we also visited Vice President Dan Quayle's office and had our photos taken sitting behind his desk). In the entrance hall by his office their are busts and paintings of all the previous Vice- presidents and when no one was looking, some of our guys put a scout hat on one of the busts and took a photo. When the Swiss scouts tried to do the same, they were seen by one of the guards and reprimanded!
That evening after supper we were dropped off at a huge shopping mall called Pentagon City and collected at 21:00.
The next day we were on our own and toured the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which took us through the history of the FBI right up to the present. It was very interesting to see everything that they do there. Then we went to the Smithsonian Institute Air and Space Museum. Some of us watched two shows in the Imax theatre which has a screen seven stories high and is so real that you feel that you are actually right there in the film. The museum is so huge that you need at least two full days to be able to see and understand everything that is there. We did not even get to see the rest of the museums of the Smithsonian Institute.
While we were there we were collected at 12:00 and taken to the home of M Errol DeMontille , the Deputy Ambassador, where a sumptuous lunch was provided. We all enjoyed it so much that it was two hours before we left and were taken back and dropped again at the museum. A most memorable occasion, especially as their warm hospitality made us feel completely at home.
We returned to Anacostia Naval Base that evening at 21:10, after having supper at MacDonald's!
I was approached by Ernie Anderson, the tour leader as to suggestions for the following day. As by now everyone on the tour had had enough of American history, I suggested that we go directly to Philadelphia and all contingents be allowed to do their own thing. This turned out to be popular with all.
We visited the Tourist Information Centre, took a walk through the city, visited a large shopping mall (the guys never tired of wanting to visit shopping malls) and a MacDonald's (another favourite pastime) saw the Liberty Bell and enjoyed a Mardi Gras on a square in the centre of the city, At 15:15, we arrived back at the busses and were taken back to Fort Dix. The next morning, we were all up early, motivating everyone into getting a move on so that we could get an early start for New York.
We arrived at Battery Park, New York, and boarded the ferry for Liberty Island. When we arrived on the island the queue was too long for us to go up to the top (about 1 1/2 hours, and we only had 1 hour before we had to get on the next ferry back).
There was time for a visit to the souvenir shop to buy gifts before returning to Battery Park, where we were enticed to buy "Rolex" watches by many vendors. It was amazing to see the price drop from $25 down to $12.
We boarded the bus once more and were taken to the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier, which is now a floating museum and which has all types of aircraft used on carriers on the deck, as well as inside in the hangers. You could walk and climb all over and see just what is was like to be a sailor on that ship. There were also displays, videos, films, etc. to be seen. You could spend a lot of time there to be able to see everything.
After this visit, we boarded the bus and were taken back to the Quinnipiac Council Headquarters in Hamden where the last trading of badges, parts of uniforms, etc. took place before we were collected by our host families again for a further six day stay with them.
Some of us went back to the same families. My host family postponed their vacation so they could have Allan and I back with them. As was with the previous times we spent with our host families, they took us to visit various places of interest in Connecticut and also to do various things, such as, tubing down the river, visiting an air show, motor racing, sailing, playing golf, pistol shooting, an amusement park, etc. , depending where each individual family's interest lay.
On Friday 24 July, we all were invited to Skip Maler's house for a reunion.
After the traditional barbeque (hot dogs and hamburgers done on a braai') we said our last farewells to the boys and leaders of the troop we had camped with.
Homeward Bound
On 27 July we met once again at the council headquarters where a few tears were shed as we said our sad farewells to our host families. We were then transported to J . F. Kennedy Airport by John Farley again where we boarded Lufthansa Flight LH405 on the return flight home via Frankfurt.
We arrived at Frankfurt on time and with a ten-hour stopover in this historic city, we caught the train from the airport into Frankfurt and with the help of Craig's book, we visited some places of interest and then wandered through the streets of Frankfurt doing shopping and also window shopping. Sitting down to rest our feet it was interesting to listen to the street musicians and also to just watch all that was going on around, including a person painted white all over, wearing a toga and standing perfectly still, - or was it a statue?
After our shopping spree we returned to the airport and boarded Lufthansa Flight LH570 home.
When we arrived at Jan Smuts, we decided that safety lay in numbers, so we waited until we all had our baggage and then as a contingent went through customs (with our CD players, Mini HiFi's, camera's etc.).
After being away from home for a month it was good to see our families and friends again. Here we said farewell to the members from Cape Town who had to wait for their connecting flight to take them home.
Lastly there are thank you's that are in order.
- A big thank you to the Quinnipiac Council for inviting us as guests to join in the camporee.
- To Colin Inglis, the International Commissioner, for taking such an interest and being such a big help by putting in so much effort in doing all the arrangements.
- To Garnet De La Hunt, the Chief Scout, for putting his trust in me as leader and for allowing us to represent South African scouting at the camporee.
- To Craig Mullett for his friendship and dedication and all his assistance as my deputy leader. It took a lot off my shoulders, made my job much easier and made the trip the success that it was.
- To all the American scouters at the camporee for all their help and in making us feel at home.
- To all the members of the contingent for the camaraderie, and their help and input in making the trip such a success.
- To their families for allowing them to go on the trip.
- To the members of the South African Embassy, especially Errol DeMontille and his wife Barbara and Paul Jacobs, for entertaining us and giving us such a fabulous lunch.
- To Arthur Barclay, Area Commissioner for Northern Transvaal, for allowing us the use of Gilglen for the shakedown camp.
- To the parents of the Northern Transvaal boys for doing the catering at the shakedown camp and who helped transport to and from Jan Smuts Airport.
Without your help and interest the trip would not have been the success that it was.