JOTI at Avoca Beach Scouts this weekend

This weekend (20/21st Oct) is the annual JOTI activity.
This year will be a special year for JOTA/JOTI, as with all scout activities this year it is of course the Centenary of scouting, but in addition it is the 50th anniversary of JOTA. More information on JOTA/JOTI can be found at:
http://www.international.scouts.com.au/main.asp?iMenuID=9071085

Note scouts can do this activity at home themselves if they have a PC with internet access, details are in this link. In the past though scouts and cubs have had a lot of fun doing this together as a group activity. This activity is also being conducted by the Hunter & Coastal Region at Camp Kanangra, Nords Wharf.

Locally, with the kind sponsorship of the local Telstra Countrywide office Telstra will again be providing the Avoca Scout hall with Broadband access for the weekend. At this stage we would probably use a similar format as per the previous years. That is setup a dozen or so PCs with internet access for use of IRC chat on the Scoutlink channel, plus web access, email etc. We would also have a couple or more "high-end" PCs setup with multimedia/webcams for use on MSN for live video chat with scouts around the world.

Again, this weekend will be available to all Avoca Beach scouts and cubs, open to all scout groups across the Gosford district and you are all invited and encouraged to attend if you wish to. Depending on people's availability etc. we would probably start around the middle of the day on Saturday going through to Sunday afternoon. However given when people can attend amongst other activities and commitments on a weeekend, we will not necessarily be there for this whole time, so please, if you are planning on coming get back to me with a suggested time so I can be sure people will be there to conduct the activity and the Hall is open.

Given all our required hall upgrades are now complete we may also plan with the scouts a hall sleepover for the Saturday night, but this will up to the patrols as to whether or not they want to do this. We will at least have a BBQ on the Saturday evening and anyone is welcome to attend if they wish to.

I planned to have also a small display of scout memorabilia (some books, badges, uniforms) from around the world to add to the international theme of JOTA/JOTI. I have a collection of items which was used in the recent Gangshow which I will bring down to display.

Please pass this information on to your respective section leaders and if they are interested in attending please have them contact me to arrange suitable times to visit.

Again thanks to Telstra for the broadband access and to ADC Krone for the use of network LAN equipment and PCs.

All the best,

Musca (Rob).