There are a few things that this event just cannot run without, our army of dedicated volunteers, our beautiful location and thousands of hours planning. Another, of course, is water. Water is absolutely vital for 8,000 people spend a week (or three, for some of the team) in a field safely. Water is an essential element to allow the event to run, used by everyone from the craft tent, to the medical centre, to Peggy’s Diner to the showers (although rumour has it, that has been one of the activities a lot of our participants have been rather reluctant to try!)
In total, the event will use approximately six million litres of water, the equivalent of two and a half Olympic swimming pools. All of this water has been brought to the site by Essex & Suffolk water, who have allowed us to tap into their network free of charge for the week. I spoke to Emma from Essex and Suffolk water about her first impressions of EIJ2024, “I did not realise it was so big! It’s genuinely like a tiny town, it’s amazing!”
This was Emma’s first visit to a jamboree, and she was very impressed at the set up and how everything worked. She has seen some of how the water comes to the site and the tanks near staff catering and is looking forward to seeing some more of the Jamboree, “I’ve been promised the Royal Marines are going to be catering for me! James was describing a high adrenaline section where there is shotguns and archery, that sounds amazing!”
James, Head of Plumbing and Layout, gave us some further insight into the build process, “We start from an empty green field, a dozen or so tanks in the ground and the whole thing builds up from there. We have buried some of the pipe work in advance, we were here earlier in the year burying pipe work to keep the sun off it. From there all of that pipework has to be fed out to the various people that need it. That’s what we do, we put it all in, take it all out again and it goes back to being a green field.”
However as James pointed out, it is not all about what happens on site, “Before the first shovel goes in, there is a year’s worth of planning that goes in ahead of that to work with people to refine the budgets, of what all of this is going to cost and how all that goes together. So, it starts a year before the event really. Once someone agrees that the event is going to go ahead the teams are put together. Plumbing is one small part of all those many parts of the team to make the event happen.”
Our team really is impressive in all they achieve to get this event to run, another aspect of EIJ2024 that really impressed Emma, “I love seeing all of it, I love the vibe but what has really impressed me is that this is all done by volunteers. What a way to spend your time!”
We are so grateful to Essex and Sussex Water for supporting our event, it really is instrumental in allowing this event to run!
