Overall, our JOTI was a great success with over 150 Scouts and Guides either camping or visiting.
Peter Glassenbury, Thank you very much for the provision and support with the hardware this year. The generosity and helpfulness you have provided through Canterbury University is highly appreciated. Most of the hardware you have provided was placed in use either with us or at Regional office or with Malvern Group. It allowed a much higher presence of Christchurch Scouting and Guiding on JOTI this year.
For the Guide Leaders receiving this, your members were a credit to your organisation and after getting over their initial nervousness, fitted in really well. We will look forward to seeing them return next year and including whichever leaders you need in the planning.
For Scouting NZ National Group, thank you for your support to provide us at short notice, with an alternative badge when the JOTI 2009 ones were not available, it is a shame the JOTI09 badges have not yet arrived.
For Torlesse Zone Group, the numbers of Cubs and Keas visiting from within the Zone was excellent and the Venturer response (camping) was great. But few Zone Scouts chose to camp overnight. Those that did were all personal friends of Scouts in the Bishopdale Group. I have learnt a number did go to the Regional base but wonder how we can further raise awareness for JOTI as a camp.
Finally for the Scoutlink members, thank you for all your efforts behind the scenes making Scoutlink what it is. All our Scouts and Guides had a great time this year and want to do it all again! (Papabear said I had to put that in just for Hungry_NZ, who apparently has made noises about visiting our camp one year and perhaps entice him down!).
Regards
Andrew McIntosh
Report to follow as soon as I can lift it of in / from word . . . .
30/10/09
which proved harder in the end then anticipated.
anywhoooo here it is
PB.
Report JOTI 2009 held at Cotswold Primary School
OVERVIEW.
JOTI 2009 was planned as a refinement/extension of similar JOTI camps we have been running over the past 5 years at Cotswold Primary school.
The major refinements planned for this camp were :-
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Earlier notification of the event, aiming for a greater involvement of Torlesse Zone Scouting and North-West Christchurch Guiding.
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Removal of the Windows operating system and reduction of the hardware issues that hampered previous camps.
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Providing a camp that was still as free-form as previous camps and fun for the Scouts/Guides attending.
THE CAMP
JOTI 2009 was a great success. Our camp operated with 9 Adult crew, 9 Venturer/Scout Crew, 35 Overnight campers and 99 Day visitors. In all an excellent turnout and more than adequate for our location.
Day visitor numbers were lower than expected, several groups failed to show. This was slightly countered by several unannounced campers arriving late Saturday afternoon.
All our PC's and the dozen or so private computers were in constant use for most of the camp for JOTI related activities.
PLANNING
Planning JOTI 2009 commenced at the start of Term 3, with the aim to have all responses in by the end of term as JOTI camp dates are the first weekend in Term 4.
Initial information was released to Torlesse Zone by week 5, with follow up week 7. Other Scouting/Guiding units were invited through personal contact/previous attendance.
Guiding provided an unexpected set of hurdles with their Risk Management and Camping Policies but still presented a great deal of interest and a significant number of Day Visitors. One Guide Troop did manage to gather a patrol to join us camping. The Guiding Leaders who did visit/camp would like to increase the Guiding presence and requested to be included in the planning for next year.
Surprisingly few Scouts applied to join the camp from Torlesse Zone Groups. Those that came from outside Bishopdale-Harewood Group were all invited through personal contact with Bishopdale-Harewood Group members.
JOTI badges provided a difficulty this year. Scouting Direct stated stock had been ordered during week 10 of Term 3. These badges were advertised for the first time three days prior to JOTI and were NOT available in time for the event.
One week after the event, the badges have still not shipped. Despite apologies from Scouting New Zealand National Operations, this is a major failing that should not have occurred and coupled with the unannounced 66% increase in badge cost significantly added to the costs of running the camp. We consider it not acceptable that badges for an event that has been running annually for 13 years should not be available before the event. This will make us seriously consider alternative badges or sources for JOTI next year.
JOTI CHAT ACTIVITY
This year's campers and visitors were excellent. Their ability to stay on task surpassed all previous camps. All campers readily assisted and enabled computer access for visitors. Attendees rarely needed to be reminded of Scoutlink's code of conduct and there was only one incident requiring intervention from leaders.
This incident was confined to a 'private chat' between two of the personal machines brought to camp. Both machines were not configured to the standard of the group equipment so though we knew which machines were involved were unable to determine precisely who was involved. As the entire conversation was between two machines on our own campsite and not involving scouts/guides outside our camp, we decided this was primarily a silly prank between people who knew each other. As such, the disciplinary action taken was to close our network for the remainder of the night (3am-6am) and remind everyone of the agreement they had undertaken when they completed their application for this camp.
To all the campers credit, there was no protest or resistance to the leaders' action and after a few hours sleep, everyone was ready to go again without any loss of the excellent camp spirit that had prevailed prior to the incident.
ALTERNATIVE ACTIVITIES
Additional activities provided included: Photography, Blogging, Circus Skills, Geocaching, Communication Skills, Robotics, Board games.
Although these and other additional activities were available, not many campers made use of them with the exception of the Geocaching, Circus Skills (Stilts) and Board Games (especially Twister). Day Visitors made more use of the alternative activities. Possibly due to their leaders more positively encouraging their youth to attempt everything on offer.
None took the offer of adding entries to our blog, http://scoutsjoti2009.blogspot.com/ A few did make comments to the entries placed by camp crew. We did not capture the views of the youth about camp, while on camp as we had hoped.
We suspect that the alternative activities were not 'advertised' enough, so all attendees were not fully aware of their availability.
EQUIPMENT / RESOURCES
Computers - In 2009 we have been privileged to have a major upgrade in our hardware used, thanks to Canterbury University and Christchurch City Council.
We now have a network of 40 machines of similar specifications all running the same software. With this generous donation of equipment we have been able to retire all Pentium III and older machines.
The software installed has been consolidated on Ubuntu 7.10 (a version of a Linux operating system) and this has allowed us to provide an almost identical presentation on all machines.
The advantages with this change has already proved itself with no machines requiring further maintenance after JOTI (removal of malware/viruses/unauthorised software or rebuilding) due to campers actions. This OS choice has also removed all irregularities with software licensing on the computers.
The use of Ubuntu proved no difficulty for all attendees (except where they were trying to install unauthorised software!)
Other new hardware this year, was power supply cables and multi-plug boxes. Almost removing the need for borrowed personal equipment. This along with our revised cabling plan has significantly reduced the power supply issues experienced in previous camps.
Network data cabling and switch gear has yet to be streamlined and rationalised, which will be the main refinement for next year. Graham Furniss (Scout Leader St Matthews LLO) provided us with an excellent solution to the bird's nest of cables we struggle with each year. We will test this suggestion for bundling the data cables for implementation next year.
Accommodation/Tents - Guides provided their own tents, Bishopdale-Harewood group provided all other tents. This was decided due to the number dispersal from various groups. The intention in planning was if several Scouts/Guides attended from a single Group, their Group would provide the tent. As it turned out most Scouts outside B-H Group came on their own. Logistically it became easier for B-H group to provide all tents.
Dining - Current resources cope with current numbers but any significant expansion will require more dining space (e.g. marquee from Torlesse Zone)
Toilet facilities are limited. Any expansion will require supplementing the facilities in the school hall (e.g. portaloo). This will require coordination with the School to implement.
Other Activity Resources have been provided from a number of Group/Zone/Personal sources and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. After the borrowed, unstable and faulty Network cabling and Switch gear has been rationalised we will look at assembling the Group resources for this area of our camp.
CAMP CREW / ORGANISATION / CAMP OPERATION
The Camp Crew gained an extra night's camping and few hours chat. They started Friday night with the transport of equipment to the camp location and set up of camp gear.
The gear to be moved amounts to 8 vehicle/trailer loads and usually doesn't include food for camp. Support crew began arriving at 7:30pm and set-up was completed and tested by 11pm.
As usual, instructions were not followed in the keenness to get setup and working, resulting in the installation of a number of incorrect cables. All of which needed identifying and removing. One PC failed to boot due to a failed optical drive. Machine restored by disconnecting the CD-ROM. This machine later failed again, machine replaced.
The Network was all functioning by 11pm. Despite these minor issues camp setup now runs quite smoothly and our setup times are becoming shorter.
Saturday morning the Camp Crew had the rest of our campsite (tents/activities/etc.) prepared before Campers start arriving. Excellent effort by those involved.
Campers arrived between 9am and 10:30am. This provided a challenge to keep everyone occupied while the late-comers arrived. 10:30am Camp was officially opened, Sleeping/tent arrangements and Patrols (based on tent arrangements), Basic camp rules/boundaries announced.
There were several unexpected late-coming campers (all Venturers). These unannounced campers did not cause a problem with facilities/activities, in fact they, like all the other campers, gave a fantastic example in assisting the visitors. But their presence did upset the catering levels.
Day Visitors began arriving before all the campers had arrived. Keeping the two streams of arrivals separate with their different requirements was awkward.
Two of the crew were detailed to record Day Visitor arrivals/details. Because JOTI badges were not available we needed to record contact information so we would be able to deliver badges when the badges finally arrive. While we expected to have someone greeting day visitors, collecting the cover charge and presenting badges on departure, this task this year, the crew seemed to find more onerous than in previous camps and we needed to rotate people through the duty more often. This did lead to a shortage of crew to do this task.
Late Night activity we have found running a DVD/Movie to end around 2am an effective way to wind the youth down. Those not seriously into the chat tend to get sleepy with the lowered lighting and can be encouraged to go to bed. This year's choice of the Christchurch 2009 Gang Show was not appropriate for this purpose. With the large number of Gangsters present at our camp they wound each other up encouraging each to sing/act their parts in time with the DVD!
In past years we have not needed to assign specific duties to any member of the crew, adult or youth. This year the numbers of attendees meant as tasks were spread around, sometimes the crew doing the task did not completely understand what was required or we ran short of crew. Areas where this was noticed this camp were Kitchen, Entry/Introduction and Alternative Activities. Next years camp is planned to be the same size or slightly larger (with increased support from Guiding). This will mean the same problem will exist and will need addressing.
Accompanying this, at times campers and day visitors weren't sure what to do or what other activities were on offer or who to ask.
PLANS FOR EXPANSION
JOTI/JOTA (except for special events) run for 48 hours. Midnight Fri/Sat to Midnight Sun/Mon on the third weekend of October. Occasionally this will fall on Labour Weekend so two nights for campers will occasionally occur. However, the effort required to relocate the camp gear to/from storage is significant and should the camp expand more this effort will rapidly escalate to unacceptable levels for a one or two night camp.
While there is space to expand this camp further, the current facilities/resources/equipment becomes the limiting factor.
We envisage this JOTI camp could expand further but this would also require a significant increase in adult support and alternative support activities.
We would like to see a continued and increase Guiding presence at JOTI.
We would like to see a return of Amateur Radio to our camp. Combining both JOTA and JOTI.
RECOMMENDATIONS
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With the size of camp, assigning dedicated adults to specific areas should be an advantage. Specifically Kitchen, alternative Activities and Main JOTI activity.
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The Camp Crew needs to be clearly identifiable to all on camp. A suggestion here would be to provide camp crew with a Scoutlink, WOSM JOTI or Custom scarf/shirt/hat/etc.
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Arrival times between campers and day visitors need to be separated. Campers need to be established onsite BEFORE day visitors start arriving.
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Late arrivals for campers need to be co-ordinated in advance or not permitted to stay/dine or face a penalty for the short-notice to catering.
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These 'Team Leaders' should also have a known set of camp crew or adult help to assist them and a specific definition of their duties.
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Kitchen gets the duty patrol of campers and a thorough knowledge of catering resources
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Scoutlink Operators have JOTI specific duties and need to be exempt from our assigned camp specific duties.
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Main JOTI activity would ensure running of our Network, Introduction for Visitors, Provision of Tutors/Guides for Day Visitors needing assistance.
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Alternate Activities need :-Signposting (where they are), Advertising (what they are) and an Activity Leader for campers/visitors to report to for instruction/information on the activity
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Parent help could be called in to fill these roles (perhaps for a morning/afternoon or 2-3 hour shift instead of a full day/weekend at camp).
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CONCLUSION
JOTI 2009 was a very successful camp. The camp spirit was excellent. All attendees showed an excellent example of Scouting/Guiding youth. The campsite and resources were well looked after. Duties were undertaken with little or no fuss.
Those attending (camping and visiting) enjoyed themselves and all campers indicated a willingness to return next year.
For many leaders (camping and visiting) this was their first JOTI and they commented on how much fun JOTI was.
2009 JOTI Planning Team Cotswold Primary School.
