Shooting's a Jamboree Hit

Up to 7,500 scouts and guides had a go at breaking clays this summer, as Graham Downing reports

For seven days at the beginning of August, 120 acres of open countryside near Chelmsford in Essex became home to one of the largest shotgun coaching events ever seen in Britain. During the course of the Essex International Jamboree — held from 30 July to 6 August — up to 7,500 young people aged between 10 and 18, along with scout and guide leaders, had a chance to enjoy breaking clays under the professional eyes of a team of shooting coaches from BASC.

Target shooting has always been one of those outdoor activities at the heart of the scouting and guiding movements, and when the organisers of this vast event for young people, the biggest of its kind this year in Europe, started planning the event two-and-a-half years ago, joint Jamboree chief Paul Walker was determined that clayshooting should be part of it.

“I met Peter Marshall from BASC, showed him an empty field, and the more we spoke, the more I could see Peter getting enthusiastic about what we were trying to do,” Paul told me when I visited this vast jamboree site, temporary home to scouts and guides from across the UK and worldwide.

“We think there is not another event that could provide this level of experience for the children, and we made an early decision that all the big ticket activities would be set up so that everybody got to do it, not just a lucky few.”

However, the implications of safely delivering 1,000 or more shotgun coaching lessons to youngsters for six successive days were huge. The sheer number of coaches, guns, clays and equipment would be massive, and the organisation, infrastructure and, of course, the safety procedures had to be faultless.