Hi everyone, I (Martin) have a big camp coming up and I’ve had to start looking at organising that. There was the risk that there was going to be no posts for the next couple of weeks whilst I organised that, so Lyndsey volunteered to do the next couple of weeks posts. I’ve said I’ll introduce this week’s post, and mayve add some comments at the end, but that’s all my involvement. Now, it is my pleasure to hand you over to the very capable, Lyndsey…
So this post is all about the fear of missing out (FOMO).
FOMO is every real on the Jamboree as there’s so much going on and the site is simply huge! I’m going to try and talk about his in two parts, firstly for the participants and secondly for IST (So, oldies, bear with, your time will come).
As participants your programme will be jam packed with exciting once in a lifetime opportunities as I’m sure you’ve been reminded a zillion times. Say “Yes” to things, try every new experience you’re offered, step out of your comfort zone! But, (this is the important bit) you will not see or do everything, no matter how hard you try. That’s the beauty of the Jamboree; you’ll have different experiences to other units or even those in your unit. Don’t get hung up on trying to do everything, trust me I speak from experience. At the World Scout Moot in Canada in 2013 I tried so hard to do absolutely everything at the pre-event that I ended up so worn out and tired that I ended up sleeping through the opening ceremony when we finally got on site, I’ll go into more details on this when I write about wellbeing and mental health in later posts.
Realistically you miss things just on the scale or the event, once you’ve accepted this you can move past FOMO.
Pick the things (outside of your planned programme) that you want to do the most, be it visiting the various food houses or the scout shop or something else you find out about either before or once you arrive on site and make sure you make time to do that one thing. This will help if FOMO strikes because maybe you cant do ‘X’ but you will have done ‘Y’. Furthermore, don’t spent all your free time sat around your campsite with your unit, you can see them anytime, walk around the site, meet people from different places, try new things, make more memories. The things you miss will be apart of someone else’s memories, just make sure to make your own. I still talk to people from past events that had completely different experiences to me, and sure, it kinda sucks I didn’t get to Toronto to talk about shelters in case of a natural disaster but I bet some people are gutted they didn’t get to visit Montreal and spray paint the streets or visit the Pride festival, so I guess it all evens out.
IST folks! Bet you thought id forgotten you guys didn’t you?
It’s difficult to write about FOMO for IST you’re there to work and you will see all the participants running around having the time of their lives and you will pine for the days you were a young whippersnapper and got to participate in events (Guys I’m only 30 I don’t know why I’m writing like I’m 130).
The FOMO is real for IST because you will see or hear about loads of things you’d love to go see or try out, but never fear, its possible. You are there to work and as UK IST we’ve got a reputation as hard workers but we also love to get involved.
Some people will know their role and shift patterns before we travel due to super organised team leaders, others won’t have a clue. IST normally have time off or even whole days free, use this time to go for a walk around site, see what’s happening, talk to everyone. It’s normally the case that some activities will run IST only sessions to give staff a chance to have a go. At the World Scout Jamboree in Japan and the World Scout Moot in Iceland there were day trips organised for IST for a small fee, opportunities that sometimes weren’t offered to the participants as a thank you for IST.
At the end of the day though, its amazing what you guys as IST are doing and without volunteers like you it wouldn’t happen, organisers know and appreciate this and will make sure that there are loads of activities on Echo for IST to do in their free time.
In summary. Its your Jamboree, make the most of it. Don’t let the fear of missing out on one thing make you miss out on the whole experience. The Jamboree is what YOU make of it.
Lyndsey 🙂
My thanks to Lyndsey for a fantastic post on FOMO. Furthering her great points, I’d like to just expand on one.
The Jamboree site is huge. It’s fifty-seven square kilometres. The size of the city of Nottingham. I know a few folk from that part of the world and even though they’ve lived and worked there for 20-30 years, they’ve not walked down every street, they’ve not been into every shop and they haven’t met everyone else who lives there.
My top tip is this, manage your expectations. You will not go everywhere, you will not see everything, you will not meet everyone. But this is absolutely fine, it’s what makes your Jamboree unique.
In the spirit of trying new things, I’ll leave you with a country song about missing out…