Back in 2006, I received an email asking people with pioneering skills, if they would volunteer to help the design and build team at the forthcoming Jamboree to be held at Highlands Park Chelmsford. Being a good Scout? I put my name forward, but little did I know what I had let myself in for.

Not long after, another email arrived outlining a number of ideas for the Monuments and Features to be located in the different Hubs or Zones, to cut a long story short I became the build team leader for the Tropical Zone. My monument was to be a 7m tall tropical thatched hut, with an upper floor, and could I produce some plans, to include size of monument and area required with an estimated cost (under£1,000)  special requirements-(Cherry picker etc) and number of additional people needed to complete it if unable to organise the full build team myself. And could I have it all ready in the form of a  presentation for the April, Monuments and features - planning meeting to be held in Essex.

The     Team

  Me Alan

 Ron

 Carl

Janet

The Monuments and features - planning meeting went well and we were praised on our presentation. next came working out what was needed, followed by ordering and organising the delivery of materials and equipment, I also had to prepare a Health and Safety method statement for the build. At this point I think its appropriate to tell you about some of the other people without who's help! the build would have been more difficult and costly. the building was to stand on telephone poles and fortunately our former executive chairman Peter  works for BT, but better still he was able to work wonders for us by not only getting 18 poles free of charge, but also arranging to have them erected by BT. All this planning went on for some time until finally the big day arrived, after doing a full days work Carl and myself travelled down to Chelmsford on the Friday night of the 20th, to arrive some time around midnight. Janet our local contact lives in Essex so she had no travelling to do, and Ron made his way there earlier the same day, the only thing we could do arriving so late was to catch up on lost sleep, me in the car park under my poncho, and Carl in the van. Some of the caterers arriving at about 6.30 the next morning woke me as they passed, with some coments about "going back to basic's"  and that's taking it a bit to far. Unable to go back to sleep I took the opportunity to have a look around, having been to the site during the planning meeting I had an idea where we were, and made my way to the Tropical Zone to see if all the materials had arrived, and where we were going to put up our monument exactly and then I went back to wake up Carl.

Well this was it, all the planning was over, and all we had to do now was build our hut in two days, first we marked out where all the poles were going during which Ron and Janet arrived to help, and as we put in the last peg marking the final pole the BT engineers arrived with two wagons and the building started. while they put up the four main poles I cut the smaller ones down to size and Carl started making the roof, we planed to assemble the roof on the floor, and then lift it into place complete.

 

As you can see from the pictures, not long after we got some help from group of very enthusiastic Swiss scouts, without who's help we would not have got as far as we did that first day. They helped putting up all the outer poles, fixing the wall plates, and fitting the upper floor joist in preparation for the fixing of the floor and roof spars etc the next day. THANK YOU! At around 9.00 pm that evening Carl and myself, after fixing the upper floor went off to spend some plastic tokens on a well earned couple of pints. if you went to the Jamboree then you know all about the plastic tokens.

 

The next day started after a rather wet night spent sleeping on the floor in one of the tents near the build not that Carl and myself knew much about it after a long days work. Today we were going to fit the upper roof, although he tried not to show it I think Carl was a bit bothered as to whether it would fit or not. Unfortunately only three of the Swiss scouts arrived the next day, and they only stopped for a couple of hours or so, but then fortune shone on us once more, when two helpers arrived who had been building the pyramid at the desert zone, with their help we were able to put the lower roof spars on without much trouble, but before that we had to put Carls roof on.

The roof fit perfectly and Carl let out a sigh of relief and did a little dance in thatched roof builders costume.

Next came the thing I had been turning over in my head for some time 'the stair case' with something like this you can have an idea of what you want to do, but until you have the actual building in front of you there's no knowing if it will work, well now was that time.

Finally all that planning and hard work had come to an end, no more worrying whether it all would go together or not, gone all those doubts about finishing it on time, because there it stands, and what a monument to be proud of, all that was left was to put up 'The Old Pie-on-ears hut' sign, and have a well earned rest before going all that way home.

The site as we saw it for the first time during the Monuments planning meeting