Jul 25

This morning the Scouts were allowed to sleep in. Although it's doubtful many of them actually did as the camps looked pretty active early anyway. Breakfast and flag break were also pushed back a half hour. But this morning after inspection the Scouts had to line up for flag break as they were being paraded out of the camp grounds by a pipe band and all the flags up to the Blair Castle for Scouts Own.

I have a video of the parade, which was 6 or 7 minutes long just for all of them to walk past me along the side of the road. But I also took a few photos. Besides all the Scouts and Leaders from the camp, there were Cubs and Leaders from the satellite camp and many other guests, including the public.

It was a nice day for the Scouts Own, mostly sunny and warm, so they were all comfortable sitting on the grass. The Castle itself stood as a nice backdrop for the event.

Near the end of the event the camp chief John Kennedy was awarded the Silver Wolf, which is the highest honour in Scouting. He has been involved with this camp for 30 years, and of course involved with Scottish Scouting that entire time. This is his last Blair Atholl as camp chief. The camp chief for the 33^rd Jamborette is number two at this camp “learning the ropes”, but he has also been involved with this camp for some years already.

After lunch the camp was to participate in some international games which were organized by the international contingents. It was pretty informal and there were a variety of games going on in and around all the subcamps.

Starting at about 4 pm the Scouts were sent out of their sub-camps to do various activities. Some camps went for a walk. Some were just allowed to wander around and were seen forming small groups sitting down on the grassy hill overlooking the camp. As long as they were not in their sub-camps because all the sub-camp Aunts & Uncles and Cousins were assigned the task of preparing a large BBQ for the sub-camps. 

The Aunts and Uncles are leaders assigned to the camp as their job here and are pretty much always present in sub-camps. The cousins are all the other people who run the activities, or administration/reception, or site services, or any other job I think. Except that tonight was staff catering night off, and the Scouts too. With all the adults in their assigned sub-camps there were many many more hands than were really required to feed a subcamp of 200+ people, so it was pretty light work.

The evening activity in the Kastle was another canned music dance with DJ but with a pirate theme. Some of the Scouts drew mustaches on their faces. Most wore there neckers as bandanas on their heads. Many of the Scottish Scouts brought pirate costumes with swords, eye patches, and even a fake parrot.

Besides the music there were also other pirate activities in the castle tent as well as outside. There was a course set up on the grass with ropes and pilons and 4 wheel ATVs. Not very pirate like obviously but there was a pretty large queue for it. The pirate ship that the Scouts were building is also nearing completion so Scouts were allowed to go up on the ship and have a bit of fun. Some of ours were up their with some Scottish Scouts doing the Time Warp and the Macarana.

There was also a volleyball net getting quite a bit of use and a few of us were just horsing around playing catch with a ball and having piggyback fights, which incidentally are probably not allowed here, at least with leaders involved, due to the regulations of leader and Scout interaction.

For the leaders there was a trivia game going on in the evening at the staff club, which some of the leaders did attend. By 11 pm the camp was pretty quiet again for lights out.