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Sunday, May 15, 2016

2016 Rainbow World Jamboree

This year, I am a sixth grader, and I was eligible to go to Rainbow World Jamboree!! My mom came with me, of course, because she’s one of my troop leaders. This is a weekend of camping skills competition for Girl Scouts in grades 6-12.  I had so much fun!  


In my group, we had 5 Ambassador Girl Scouts (Seniors in high school) and 7 Cadettes (2 eighth graders and 5 sixth graders, including me). Our color was orange (we made our own shirts!) and we were the Orange Lava Girls. We all go to school in the same district. It was very helpful to be on the same team as the Ambassadors.

On the way to the RWJ!


At the ice cream social:



My t-shirt creation:


For each challenge we could earn points AND we could lose points, sometimes even to sportsmanship.  Even though there were many teams, we were paired up with the blue team (8 girls from the 7th grade troop from our school district - the Smurfettes), and met up at each and every challenge location.  


Practicing our song
At the campfire the night we arrived at camp, we had to sing a song that either matched our theme and color, our troop made up, or our troop changed the lyrics to. Two girls in my troop changed some of the lyrics to “Thank You For Being A Friend” from the Golden Girls. The Smurfettes used the “La, la, la la la la, la la la la la,” from the Smurf TV show.









My troop did the flag ceremony at the beginning of the day, and I got to carry the flag out to the flagpole. It was pretty cool, and I think I’d want to do the flag ceremony again.










The competition that lasted throughout the entire Jamboree was the Scavenger Hunt. We had to find a bunch of things that were on a list that was handed out to each group. We found all but three of the items on our list.




The first competition was Fire Building. In that competition, we had 5 girls competing. Two collected firewood, two built the fire, and one lit the match to burn through a string. We burned through the string faster than the Smurfettes, but their fire was bigger.













-The second competition was Arts and Crafts. We built a volcano out of sticks, string, rocks, leaves, fabric, and a bandana. I crushed up obsidian rocks for ash and came up with the idea to use the brown fabric to cover up the sticks. One of the girls in my troop decided to bring home the stick structure at the end, and wore it as a hat.









Our third competition was Knots. I competed in that one, along with 3 other girls. We had to know how to do the fisherman knot, the arbor knot, the figure 8 knot, the double overhand knot, and the bowline knot. We did those knots easily, and then showed off our extra knowledge. We went before the Smurfettes. I got to teach them how to do the bowline knot, and we cheered them on the whole time.




Our fourth competition was Canoeing. Three girls had to go out and put 2 balls into life preservers, and another three had to go out and get the balls. That time, the Smurfettes got to go first, and we cheered them on the whole time again. When my team got to go, the other team made up a song about us, and it was super cool!






The fifth competition was Shelter Building. We had to pretend we were lost in the woods and had to make a shelter for nighttime, while only having our daypacks and any clothing articles we had. My team made a basic structure out of wood first, and they needed big sticks, so I kept picking up fallen trees 3 times as tall as I am. Then we put our rain ponchos and sweatshirts and bandanas on it to make it waterproof. It was really colorful, and we managed to fit our entire group into it. The Smurfettes made a really cool, tightly knit teepee, and 8 girls fit into it.



Our sixth competition was the Challenge Relay. First, we had 5 girls put together and take apart a tent. Next, we had to get 5 girls, including me, across a 10-foot stretch of grass on carpet squares without ever touching the ground. Third, we had to answer 5 questions about Girl Scouts, which we got all but 1 wrong. Last, we had to put together a puzzle, which took a while.





The seventh competition was Outdoor Cooking. We got a lot of ingredients, including a mystery item, and had to make some sort of food out of them in one hour. The ingredients included Bisquick, one egg, sugar, milk, oats, and one clementine, among other things. We had to bring our own spices, but we couldn’t bring any actually substantial food. We made Ramen noodles with cut up scrambled eggs, minced celery and onions, a biscuit with the Bisquick and milk, a gravy to go with the biscuit that had boiled water and a beef packet, and a yogurt parfait with toasted oats, raisins, the clementine, and some cinnamon sugar on top. We managed to use every one of the ingredients, which got us extra points. The biscuit tasted really good, and so did the noodles, but the gravy was really, really salty. I don’t like yogurt, so I didn’t eat the parfait after the judges said we could eat our food, but the other girls said it tasted pretty good. I wasn’t able to see what the Smurfettes had made, but it looked like the judges really liked it.

We ate dinner and dessert in between this competition and the next. There was a competition with the desserts, and a girl in my troop made cone-shaped no-bake cookies with orange candy melts as lava to look like volcanoes. The Smurfettes didn’t bring in a dessert.

After dinner we had the flag ceremony to take down the flag. The other sixth grade troop from my school district was in charge of that. It was cold and rainy during that ceremony.



The last competition was the Recyclable Fashion Show. We got a bunch of recyclables and had to make it into something fashionable. So we took the GS cookie carton, broke it open, and scored it. Then we wrapped it around our model, the same girl who had the stick hat, and taped it into place. Next, we took the bag that everything had come in and cut the bottom off, so she could wear it as a skirt. For the finishing touch, we took a milk carton and cut it into a crown. She looked ridiculous, but awesome at the same time. I think she kept the crown. The Smurfettes made a ruffled newspaper skirt, used the cookie box as a top and covered it in newspaper, and made a heart belt, hairpiece, and embellishment out of duct tape. The Smurfette in the outfit actually looked really good.

In the morning they presented awards, we got 8 total. We got first place in Outdoor Cooking and Canoeing. For second place awards, we got Knots, the Recyclable Fashion Show, the Scavenger Hunt, the song from the night before at the campfire, and our volcano no-bakes. We also got an award of Sisterhood, along with the Smurfettes, for cheering each other on and not being rude or anything like that, even though we were competing against each other.

I really liked the 2016 Rainbow World Jamboree, and I know we’re going back next year!  Time to start planning...