Scouting Volunteer — Headed to Kuala Lumpur

At the end of the month I’ll be traveling for about twenty-four hours from Dallas to San Francisco then Hong Kong and finally to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to attend a meeting of the World JOTA-JOTI Team. This will be our fifth in-person meeting since the team began in 2014.

The meeting takes place at the World Organization of the Scout Movement’s headquarters. You can get a glimpse of the office from the photo of the team above at the entrance. That photo is from our meeting in 2015 just after the transfer of the World Scout Bureau office from Geneva, Switzerland, to KL and the opening of this brand new building and office.

The 2018 meeting will welcome several candidates to join the team. They will be bringing new perspectives (from different parts of the world), new ideas, and new skill sets as well as the potential to add significant capacity. Also in attendance will be our liaison with the World Scout Council and key professional staff members.

This team expansion has come about as the result of a decision by the World Scout Council to provide more funding and volunteer staffing to the World JOTA-JOTI Team, which represents the largest Scouting event in the world — Jamboree on the Air – Jamboree on the internet, with 1.5 million Scouts taking part on the third weekend in October.

I’m looking forward to this meeting where we’ll complete our 2017 event report — our last work as the original team. Then we’ll meet with the larger group to review plans for 2018 along with our strategic plan covering the next several years. Then the fun will begin as we question everything and begin to build an even better event.

BTW — I’ll also be discussing the amateur radio operation at the 2019 World Scout Jamboree (WSJ) with our team and in particular Richard Middelkoop, PA3BAR, who has led all the WSJ operations over the last several decades. That’s yet another exciting ham radio adventure.