Three generations at the jamboree, together and by themselves

There is a pot of coffee brewing, board games, drawing materials and plenty of cosiness at the Jamboree Denmark family camp. This is where families of guides and scouts, or others related to the jamboree, can stay overnight.”

So explains Kirsten Baggesen, one of the two leaders of the family camp. She is wearing a home-knitted jumper with the jamboree’s logo knitted into the pattern on the back.

She is at the jamboree with her husband, Niels, who is the jamboree’s finance manager, as well as their two sons and two grandchildren.

The family camp works as a caravan site where you can book a spot for one or more nights. “We have room for 240 families. We even have electricity in some spots, so you can bring your caravan,” he explains.

A team of four volunteers set up the family camp. While the jamboree is rongoing, nine volunteers keep it going.

A family community with shared experiences

Both sons, Mads and Jan, are scouts. Jan is staying at the jamboree with his group and his child, while Mads helps run the family camp.

So what does it mean to be a scout family? Kirsten Baggesen has no doubts.

“For us, it is about raising our children according to the principles of the scout movement. Community, learning by doing, responsibility that matches their age, and we simply enjoy getting out into nature,” says Kirsten Baggesen.

Scouting as a shared family hobby also creates a special sense of community within the family.

We have been to jamborees where we all doing our own things and hardly saw one another during the jamboree. But when we came home, we had a shared experience to look back on,” she says

It has to be voluntary

The parents have introduced their children to scouting, but they stress that it must be voluntary. Mads had a period when he was not a scout, but now he is back again as a volunteer.

You build a huge network when you are a scout. I have just met someone I attended a youth leadership course with 20 years ago.”

During our conversation, someone comes over and points out that the accessible toilet is blocked.

Just lock it; I’ll take a look in a minute,” says Mads.

“I’m someone who fixes things. Being a leader is not really for me; I am more the type who gets called in when something technical needs sorting out. The things you only notice when they stop working,” he says.

Third generation at the jamboree

He also has his nine-year-old daughter, Laura, with him at the jamboree. She is not with her group as she is too young to join them on a large jamboree. Instead, she is here with her father, her grandmother and grandfather, two cousins and their uncle.

Laura helps sell coffee and drinks in the family camp café. Scouting has been part of her life from day one. She went on her first big jamboree when she was just two weeks old, at Jamboree Denmark in 2017.

The most fun thing about being at the family camp is getting to work the till,” says Laura.