Anyone got a Scout or Explorer going to WSJ in South Korea?

[lazylittlelucy]

Just thought I'd start a thread for parents if there are any on here.
My 17yo DD is going as an Explorer and is getting excited now.
Anyone else?

Is the lower target due to the money given by County etc or did they start with a lower target? How much was their target?

How do you get HQ and County to give funds?

DH is under the impression that our county is particularly stretched financially at present so funding from county isn't really an option from what I understand.

I think it's not great that different counties have different funding for places for WSJ either because it becomes a post code lottery. No wonder there is resentment and frustration at the process.

I don't think national has the funds to do it either (certainly not now) which isn't great.

I do know that finances across UK scouting are massively unequal though. A friend's troop has assets into the millions. Our troop isn't badly off having benefited from a legacy a few years back and being well supported by parents over the last couple of year including over covid. But across our district it's a very different picture.

Scouting politics is a bloody nightmare though. There is far too much whose is mates with who simply for getting permits never mind places for things like this for kids. But it's difficult to get leaders willing to take up roles in groups never mind at district or county level.

I think perhaps what has happened at WSJ will maybe expose some of these cracks when discussions about who covers the cost for what and for how much start. I think they are long overdue.

I think there has to be a conversation about who is benefiting and who isn't and who bares the brunt of the fallout. None of it is going to be particularly pleasant.

There is a fund available to low income families for WSJ - although it was not mentioned in our district until after selection, which meant that a number of families didn't apply as they were worried that ultimately they have to underwrite the cost. Different districts and counties all have different approaches to fundraising and grants to cover some of the cost, depending on what financial position they themselves are in.

Who gets chosen is also a tricky issue. Historically our group never had anyone selected to attend the wsj, yet this time round there half the selection were associated with our group. It depends very much on what the group do in terms of activities and how much the scouts are used to working with others.
There is no one solution for all!

I am a girl guiding leader of two units currently. Yes this is really worrying, especially with your child being thousand of miles away. But just to reassure parents, we do this out of love. They would have taken annual leave from their jobs to take your children away. We are all volunteers who do take a lot of (unnecessary abuse) from parents who do not understand the pressures of being responsible for children and the red tape that we are imposed with. The leaders will be doing everything they can to make sure the children feel reassured and safe. They would have trusted that the organisers would have done everything they could for the children to have a pleasant and life changing experience. They will be as disappointed and gutted as parents.

They’ll also be restricted to what they can and can’t say. There are strict protocols in place for this sort of thing, we are not allowed to engage directly with parents, we would have to rely on HQ to do so. The leader may lose their position if they overstepped this.

Financially, they’ll be covered by insurance. Yes premiums will soar but this will be a problem for another day. Their upmost priority right now will be for children being looked after and I just can’t imagine the level of stress these poor leaders are under right now.

The Scouting organisation will be learning a lot from this to make sure it never happens again.

As to children becoming unwell, the 2500 quoted out of 45,000 (5%) won’t all be related to situations on site. We took our units away for 24 hours. Out of 30 children, 5 needed medical attention. All related to pre existing medical conditions that would have happened regardless of whether they were on camp or not. One was sent with a sickness bug.

It’s an awful situation all round but your leaders care, a lot. They’ll be doing everything they can.

We've found it's about faces fitting and being mates with the right people at the right time. And politics. Our troop had been 'blacklisted' for all sorts for years for reasons I won't go into fully - partly about finances and a DC with a reputation for being an arse (who unsurprisingly left in a cloud). It is changing but it shouldnt be like that at all.

I do think there are definite rivalries and attitudes based on socio-economic themes though and that's why I think this is going to bring this to the fore. Even finding out that scouts in other areas have paid different amounts for whatever reason is going to raise objections and concerns.

There is an argument here for lottery places free from a local selection process where there are these type of issues and for fairer and more transparent funding.

The exposure this has left for the rest of scouting to effectively underwrite WSJ means there need to be better accountability on all everything to do with the event.

As to children becoming unwell, the 2500 quoted out of 45,000 (5%) won’t all be related to situations on site. We took our units away for 24 hours. Out of 30 children, 5 needed medical attention. All related to pre existing medical conditions that would have happened regardless of whether they were on camp or not. One was sent with a sickness bug.

The problems come when the medical centre is closed or overwhelmed. There is a photo on Korean newspaper websites with a sign literally saying 'medical centre closed'.

Low calorie intake and lack of water combined with other medical conditions, will cause issues too. (Especially if there are specific dietary needs not being catered for). Never mind the sanitation concerns.

So in terms of comparison purely on the % I don't think it tells the whole story.

Even if you have people getting sick, how well you are able to deal with the issue is even more relevant. It sounds like they have been lucky to escape a major incident given the conditions and numbers involved. The key point is the need to draft in extra medical staff rather than the number of incidents themselves. How many incidents that should have been seen to went untreated in the absence of sufficient medical staff?

DH has been having conversations with another leader about the site access today. They have been gobsmacked at the lack of road access for an event with 40k because they know how much road access for medical issues are needed for events with a tenth of that. The nearest hospital was 45mins by road or 15 mins by helicopter too - without all the pedestrians getting in the way.

They also talked about catering and cleaning for that number and their experience from larger UK events (I note they HAVE NOT been involved in running these so are observing from being leaders participating) and even they can see the numbers of things like shower blocks, toilets, cleaners, road access and number of medics for 43,000 not adding up. I don't think UK expectations here are over the top either - there really is a minimum number you can have without running into issues and the event seems to be well below any sane levels. It's blind bat level fuckwittery not just mildly under resourcing.

The various committees running the event had absolutely no idea what they were doing and clearly no experience to draw from. It's almost like they picked a random number for the cleaners they would need and went with it rather than checking ratios on participants to toilet cleaners from any comparible event such as a festival. COVID shouldn't have effected ability to check this information which even not available locally is information that could be found - people haven't learnt to shit more in four years due to covid. Countries lacking in good events management won't even be considered for future events as a hosts as a result and that in itself limits the future of WSJ. (I'm noting how the Commonwealth Games looks likely to be defunct due to hosting issues)

I think that's where I start to get troubled by oversight. It begs questions about how much information on this type of planning detail was shared and when and with whom. The four basics - sanitation, food, water and shelter were ALL well below where they should have been. In combination it's a disaster waiting to happen, not just an oversight.

It hasn't been minor issues which you expect at any event - they've been significant level issues. It sounds like UK scouting did find out about the issues but relatively late in the day. Would I expect UK Scouting to be the ones looking at the numbers of toilets or medics ordered? Probably not. That's what World Scouting is for. So where was World Scouting on this? Totally asleep at the wheel, quite clearly. These things should have been questioned months and months ago. It shouldnt be coming up in the last few weeks before the event. Does this mean UK scouting is going to have to do a bunch more work checking the homework of World Scouting?

And again it comes back to the amount the South Korean government spent on this - where the hell did the money go? And where was the diplomatic power and control and was this abused?

The dynamics of the relationship between World Scouting and NSOs (National Scout Organisations) are complex. WOSM has a small staff and budget; its main role is to support the work of the volunteer World Scout Committee and to organise the World Conferences, which set policy and vote on where WSJs will be held. They also monitor NSOs to ensure that they meet the conditions for being recognised, eg being free of state control, open to all, etc. Their oversight of WSJ preparation relies massively on the NSO being transparent, honest and open to external advice; WOSM itself isn't running the events.
The UK (and a few other NSOs) are always conscious that they are larger and better off than WOSM; they tend to moderate their input to ensure that they don't look as though they're trying to run the show.
It's so sad that what has happened here will send huge shockwaves around world Scouting. I hope that WOSM can survive it; without a degree of democratic oversight, there is no guarantee that NSOs can all remain true to the Scouting principles in the face of political interests/ interference. (Although I think that these two factors came into play in Korea). WOSM is far from perfect. No international organisation is without often serious flaws (looking at you, EU), but that doesn't mean that they don't have a role to play. I'm not sure what the solution will be. Stronger oversight and proven expertise in massive event management will be vital, and identifying how to ensure this

without a degree of democratic oversight, there is no guarantee that NSOs can all remain true to the Scouting principles in the face of political interests/ interference. (Although I think that these two factors came into play in Korea)

Its hard to argue international politics hasn't ridden rough shot over WSJ. The need for Embassies to get involved and that the President and Prime Minister became involved in discussions with individual NSOs and clearly went against the wishes of World Scouting who directly asked for the event to be ended early and were clearly overruled speaks volumes. It's the total opposite of what should have happened.

That looks especially bad now that position has been forced due to the weather which was already a significant concern at the time World Scouting made that statement on Friday. The typhoon hasn't just appeared since Friday. The forecasts were already suggesting it was likely to cause an issue.

World Scouting needed to be able to enough is enough. Instead South Korea effectively picked off countries one by one to undermine World Scouting's request. And refused to foot the bill for anyone who decided to act unilaterally. That's not acceptable and can not be allowed to happen again. World Scouting needs to have agency over WSJ. If it doesn't, it's pointless.

That issue left the UK up shit creek and isolated in its decision which is appalling. Particularly because of how that will impact financially.

I think how strongly UK scouting have verbalised being let down today is very interesting too. There is absolutely no diplomatic or soft wording in there about the host nation. There's real anger behind it. There's no mincing of words and there's a statement of how much it will cost the organisation. It's absolutely damning and to the point. It's been easier for UK scouting to take that line today rather than yesterday because of the full evacuation though.

I do wonder how much UK Scouting saw the writing on the wall and refrained from putting out a statement yesterday. There was pressure to do so because of the confusion going on. Politically waiting until today makes much more sense and works in the UKs (and arguably world scouting) interests.

UK scouting almost certainly will have been aware that conversations were ongoing about a full cancellation rather than the South Korean position of 'everything is fine'. To me it suggests a lot going on behind the scenes with World Scouting and the NSOs still not being fully happy with the South Korean authorities throughout the weekend despite claims to the contrary with perhaps a number of countries wanting to pull the plug but being unable to do so unilaterally.

In terms of who pays, I don't know how this will play out. The UK certainly has a case to put forward here - highlighting it is smart. It puts the South Koreans in a bad light and looks dreadful diplomatically for putting the UK organisation into the position it finds itself in.

Ultimately the decision to go early, looks smart now and puts the UK kids in the best position for the week again with the best digs available.

It will be interesting to see how other contingents fare.

In terms of toilets, Glasto had about 3,300 toilets for 210,000 people. So 1 toilet for every 63 people. They had 700 cleaners, so 1 to every 300 people.

By maths, WSJ (50,000) needed 820 toilets and 167 cleaners at a minimum. More because people probably stay in the same areas for longer, so you need more toilets on subcamps, near the stage area and near the bigger activities.

That took me 5 minutes to find and work out. It’s not rocket science!

@RedToothBrush I agree completely: the UK's phrasing at the weekend, that they were pulling out to make things easier for everyone else, was a lot more gracious than the reality showed it should have been, and the Korean decision to push on even when WOSM had asked them to wind it down has blown a huge hole in the delicate balance of world scouting. The UK is totally correct to feel let down here.

The initial plan was 70 cleaners who did the toilets once a day. (Yes you read that right - the plan was to only clean the toilets once a day).

That's a ratio of 1 to 614.

Now Glasto is hardly the cleanest place in the world - a ratio of 1 to 300 by comparison puts things into some sort of context!

They've increased that ten fold and to three cleans a day.

I can't find a number of toilets initially. But they added another 50 on Friday.

It took me less than thirty seconds to find a UK portable toilet provider who states:
The general rule for the number of toilets for a large festival, lasting several days, where food and alcohol are served is as follows. For every 75 women attending you’ll need 1 toilet, for men it’s a lot higher, coming in at 400 per toilet. Usually including a urinal that can accommodate 100 men. These numbers aren’t exact but sticking to their general rule can assist you when figuring out how many to order for your event.

So Glastonbury is way above that. 1 to 63 is pretty good for both men and women. And has a good number of cleaners by comparison to the initial numbers... So I'm kinda shuddering at the thought.

Worth remembering that quote in Forbes from the US Scout medical director:
Sanitation. Paulson described “terrible, deplorable conditions,” to include uncleaned toilets, showers with fecal matter, and the risk of health issues that could result. He added, “if this site were in the U.S., it would be declared a health emergency.” Organizers previously announced that cleaning staff were increased from 70 for the entire 40,000-person site to more than 500.

Remember though WSJ has the added complication that children and adults shouldn't be sharing facilities either so they should have extra facilities at a result of that alone. Never mind the fact it's kids.

I can't find the exact number of toilets provided initially - only that they added fifty on Friday. (If anyone can find the number that would be cracking).

I have to say that the original intention to only clean toilets once a day is totally insane. Who in their right mind thought that was sufficient?! It says a hell of a lot about organisation.

DH attended the WSJ in the US as a unit e leader. He was tempted to reapply this time around but didn’t as we were planning to start a family, which he’s very glad about now. Taking a group of teenagers abroad comes with enough stress without all this added disruption.

His unit camped next to a Korean one at the last jamboree, and his scouts had to help their scouts put their tents up as many of them had never camped before. I don’t know how selection works in other countries, but if non-camping scouts could make it through, it doesn’t suggest much camping experience as a whole for their organisation.

To add to that, he kept in touch with a few of the Korean leaders, all of whom he’s spoken to recently are so embarrassed by their organisation. So it’s not just other countries the jamboree has let down, it’s their own volunteers as well.

I wish I could remember what the number of toilets in the US. In our tiny bit of the staff subcamp, there was a female toilet block with 8 or possibly 10 cubicles being used by about 50 tents, each with 4 people. Assume half those 200 are female, that’s a toilet ratio of 1:10, which is excellent. I don’t recall ever queuing in the US for a shower or the loo, even during the stadium shows. And although they were never absolutely pristine, they were clean and hygienic.

That is a permanent site, with Korea isn’t. However, they also weren’t awful in Japan, which was fairly similar to the Korean site: not a permanent camp site, mostly portaloos.

Officially would S Korea NSO have had the authority to wind down early or was it up to their government to give the go ahead (unofficially)?

I think it's not great that different counties have different funding for places for WSJ either because it becomes a post code lottery.

Well I think it is absolutely correct that funding goes to those counties with high proportions of their membership living in the worst IMD areas. It would be completely wrong if people who could afford to pay out, or be able to realistically fundraise were given the same grant funding as those who would otherwise have no possibility of going. Would completely negate the point of grant funding. As @handmademitlove has said, there was funding nationally for people to apply for. It has nothing to do with who is mates with who, and I actually find that suggestion quite offensive.

There is far too much whose is mates with who simply for getting permits never mind places for things like this for kids.

If you have one iota of evidence for that, then report it as far up the chain as you need to go.
That is a BIG accusation. The person holding the permit, and the person responsible for issuing permits for any activity will be called to court if the worst should happen. There is no assessor nor DC or CC that I am aware of who would sign off a permit if they did not believe the person were competent.

Seriously, if you are aware of that happening then report, report, report, don't just make allegations on a public forum.

HQ - you apply to the specific fund that is available for this purpose.

In our County, there has always been some money put aside to 'start you off', a small amount from County, a small amount from District, and Groups are also expected to donate another small amount too.

This time, because of the unknown amounts involved (at one point £6K was being bandied about), and because the Unit was selected whilst we were still in COVID restrictions (no bag packs, no fundraisers where people gathered socially in a hall or other venue - Quizzes, dances, curry nights, etc) so we realised fundraising could be a much bigger challenge than for previous WSJs, then County were pro-active and went looking for funds we could apply for, for those who were most likely to find it a challenge. There is actually a lot of funding out there - it is just time consuming to apply. Plus of course, the young people and their families need to meet the criteria (which vary). It is then proportional - the more dc on FSM for example, the more trusts that are likely to be able to offer funds.

Even finding out that scouts in other areas have paid different amounts for whatever reason is going to raise objections and concerns.

Everyone (in the UK) would have paid the same to go.

If you mean that some Counties (ours included) always aim to keep fundraising above the amount that is needed, so that they can go on camps / spend time bonding as a Unit long before they go. Those expenses come out of the 'Unit fund' rather than asking parents to pay for each weekend, again, to make sure no-one is prevented from applying due to family finances. So, for example, rather than the £4k cost of going, each young person's target would have been £4 300. Any money they haven't needed in the run up (if the unit hit their target) is then used for things like Unit Hoodies or t-shirts, or towards a treat when they are in the WSJ Country (extra sight-seeing or a nice meal or even extra ice-creams) and then they usually spend a little bit on the 'reunion' meeting / presentation to parents and supporters meeting a couple of months after they get home for example. I don't see it as an issue if some Counties don't do that - it is just different decisions to suit different areas.

If you mean more the fact that some people have families whose income is so low, they then qualify for grants to cover part of the cost, then I am surprised anyone would think this a bad thing.

Just fyi Surrey did a lottery for selection and that was controversial too. You kind of can't win. With respect to the numbers of leaders kids who end up going to the big camps I think a lot of that is due to the trust in the organisation. I'm happy sending my children away with scouts I know what goes into planning and risk assessment etc. maybe if I hadn't been a leader I wouldn't have the same confidence?? My friends thought I was nuts to let my 16 year old Do explorer belt for example (ten day expedition got to find a place to stay leaders in country but not "with them).

I fear the real cost will be be born by the less well off scouts for whom just being in cubs and scouts is life changing. It's time away from home and away from school. We see so many kids who haven't perhaps done as well in school thrive in scouting and get confidence they don't get elsewhere. Many won't get to explorer level. The prospect of attending WSJ is beyond all but a tiny minority. It's a real privilege and even now, needs to be seen by those in the eye of the storm as that. That needs to be the perspective here. WSJ is the icing on the cake of a scouting experience - it isn't the most important thing by a long shot. Yet it's this premium event which will kill opportunities for many more - probably thousands of kids.

Don't always agree with you Red but have on everything you have posted, especially the above.

Parent of a child currently in Korea here ( I was going to type at WSJ atm and then realised they are not of course. I am in awe of the hard decisions the UK contingent have had to make; and our unit leaders have been great in terms of comms and I trust them to do their best. But wow, what a mess. At a global level I suspect this may hit scouting hard on a number of levels.

At a global level I suspect this may hit scouting hard on a number of levels

I'm sure, but at a UK level they could turn it to their advantage. I don't have kids in Scouts, I've never given them much thought as an organisation. But I've been thinking about them this week, I've been impressed by them and I feel for them having so much extra cost and hassle.

I'm minded to donate some cash to some sort of fund to cover their extra expenses if such a thing exists.

Our local Scout group is not short of cash thanks to a generous legacy a few years back so I wouldn't donate to them. But if I could find the right place to donate to then I would, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Google Jamboree Circular 23.

Sorry I thought I was replying to a specific post- that’s the shower and toilet info!