St Ed's
The Website of
St Edmund's Parish Church
Roundhay, Leeds, England
Articles - Miscellaneous
Sweden 2001
Joanna Hinchcliffe, a Ranger at St Edmund's, who represented Leeds County on a trip to Sweden in the summer, writes of her experiences. Many of us supported Joanna in her fund-raising activities before her trip and we are so pleased that Joanna had such an amazing trip.
The ferry left from Newcastle and the highlight was the smorgasbord, an all you can eat meal. We followed this with disco dancing and campfire songs till two in the morning. The ferry docked at Gothenburg and we made our way to the youth hostel by train to the jamboree - a camp for 27000 guides and scouts. The following day we put our pioneering skills to good use and got to know our Swedish
hosts. A lot of the food we had was quite different from at home. We had Swedish meatballs and caviar, a paste made of fish eggs.
In the evenings, after we had eaten, we often watched live bands. During the day, we did things like global development and community service. These were often linked with the camp theme, building bridges. At the jamboree there were always activities on offer, from camp fires to going to the beach. I was never bored. My favourite activity was called adventure land, and started late at night. We were given a map with three points on and told at those points there would be clues to the password we would need to break the border. If we didn't get through the border between 4.30 and 5.30am we would be kept in adventure land forever. This would be all right if we didn't have loads of people hunting us down, on foot, on bikes and in cars. If they found us, we would have to pay 1000 moos, which were given to us at the beginning. Unfortunately, to break the border we had to have some money left. All this meant we had a brilliant night/morning, jumping to the floor and into bushes, holding our breath every time we saw someone who could be the enemy. Everything seemed so real and exciting especially when we were caught and managed to bribe the enemy with skittles, "English sweets!?" This was certainly one of the best parts of the camp. On one of the days we did woodwork. It took me almost five hours to make a butter knife and something that almost looked like a spoon!
The camp ended as most do, with a closing ceremony. This included singers, bands, talks, sketches and a speech from the Swedish king.
After saying our goodbyes, we caught three buses and two trains to Copenhagen. There, again, we stayed in a wonderful youth hostel, where we enjoyed sightseeing before returning to the United Kingdom. The plane journey was fine and was followed by a train ride, where the group split up at York station.
I had an amazing trip and I gained so much, new skills, experiences and friends. I am very grateful to everyone who helped me raise the funds to go on this brilliant trip.
Joanna Hinchcliffe, Roundhay District Rangers
http:/www.stedmunds.roundhay.org.uk/misc/sweden.htm
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Last Revised 30 September, 2001