Wow! What a great Australian Jamboree

At the recent  Australian Jamboree 2025 (AJ2025), scouts from 1st Ferntree Gully, 4th Knox, 8th Knox and 1st Kalista formed a combined unit where they came together with over 8500 scouts from all over Australia and across the world to celebrate scouting, learn new skills, make new friends and (of course) have fun. AJ2025 concluded on 15Jan25 following nearly 10 days of activities in Maryborough, Queensland.

Our local scouts met scouts from international contingents from the UK, Norway, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand and other countries, swapped unit and district badges with them and made new friends.

Each day, scout patrols visited Australia Zoo, the beach near Hervey Bay (paddleboards, snorkelling, swimming, rafting), and explored Maryborough in addition to the many activities zones offered on site. At the Maryborough showgrounds, onsite activities included abseiling, flying fox, rock climbing, challenge courses,  pioneering (building towers, catapults and swings), axe throwing, archery and archery tag, water rockets, electronics, wood turning, ham radio, Lego building, scrabble challenge and Eski racing.

AJ2025 is not just about the activities during the day, every night had main arena events including live music from internationally renowned acts including live performances by Amy Shark, Mich Tambo, The Smashing Bumpkins, Sheppard and comedians Mel Buttle and Dave 'Hughesy' Hughes. Other events included a “Scouts got Talent” finale and a Rave with DJ Havana Brown to name just some of the incredible shows that Scouts could enjoy each night.

While AJ2025 is a load of fun for our scouts, it’s also (unbeknown to them), a learning experience. Every scout unit at AJ2025 had 36 scouts and four leaders. The scouts are split into patrols of six and one allocated duty patrol is responsible for all of the cooking and cleaning for each unit when they were rostered on for that duty. Scouts must work in patrols to get to and complete their activities and to complete their duty patrol responsibilities (when allocated), building a lesson in teaming that will last them a lifetime. Most scouts return from AJ2025 two weeks older and two years more mature. It’s an incredible site to behold.

The next Australian Jamboree will be at Cataract Park, south of Sydney in three years time. Our younger scouts and cub scouts will be eligible to attend the AJ2028, so as a Scout group, we will continue to help our youth members grow and be ready for that Jamboree.

For more information on AJ2025 including the daily e-news articles, see https://www.aj2025.com.au/