25th August 1999

This is really a quick letter as so many of you sent us e-mails with similiar questions. Also, we visited the new Jamboree Office in Bangkok today and wanted to give you a first-hand report.

First, the Thai Scouts website you visited at http://thaistudents.com is privately owned by Sriwittayapaknam School in Samut Prakarn, Thailand. This is a non-commercial web site and we aim to promote Thailand to young people in countries around the world. Our Thai Scouts site has been on-line for several years now and at present we are the only web site about Thai Scouts and the 20th World Scout Jamboree. Although we are unoffical we are fortunate to be supported by many of the top officials in Scouting, both in Thailand and Switzerland. To those people we are grateful. All of the Jamboree information has been sent to us by our contacts in the Jamboree office.

As stated above, today we visited the Office of the 20th World Scout Jamboree. This is next to the National Stadium on Rama I Road. If you are ever in Bangkok, then be sure to visit these offices. From the road, enter the Scout Shop first where you can buy Scout badges and other souvenirs. To go to the Jamboree office, walk through the shop and out the back door. Turn right and walk along the small access road towards the stadium. The Jamboree office is on the left at the end.

The best person to speak to in the office is Mrs. Wannapa (see picture). Her nickname is Pu and her e-mail address is: pupu@loxinfo.co.th Her English is excellent and she told us that if you have any questions about the Jamboree, then do not hesitate to send her an e-mail. As we mentioned in our previous letter, the new brochure, poster and sticker sheets have just been released. Visit our Clip Art page to see scans.

One of the first questions we asked was about the official Jamboree web site. At present it hasn't been decided who to give the contract to, but they expect the web site to go on-line at some point this year. As soon as we have further news about this we will let you know.

Next Tuesday (31st August), Mrs. Jocelyne Gendrin, Outgoing Chairperson of the World Scout Committee, and Mr. Jean-Luc Betrand, Director of the Global Development Village, will be flying to Thailand to take part in a seminar for the 20th Jamboree. They will also have time to visit the Jamboree site as well as the national Scout Camp. We have received an offical invitation to join the seminar on Wednesday. Apparently this will be conducted in Thai and French. We will do our best to provide you with translations at some point next week.

We should point out that anything we receive unofficialy or that we had to translate ourselves, we will not put a link to it on our web site. Only people on our mailing list will receive links to our unofficial news page.

Some people have asked us about swopping badges etc. We have no plans to start anything like this yet. However, what we will do is scan the "province badges" that the scouts wear on the back of their scarves. There are 76 provinces, but 2 extra badges for Bangkok, making 78 in all. At some point we will also scan other badges the Scouts wear in our school. If you are interested in seeing anything else then please do not hesitate to contact us. However, if you have a question about the Jamboree, please DO NOT contact us! Write to Pu at pupu@loxinfo.co.th She is waiting for your letter! If you write to her, then please be sure to mention that we sent you. If she realises that a lot of people are visiting our web site then she will be more eager to send us more information to share with you! At present, she is promising to send us some pictures of the camp site.

16th August 1999

(1) I would first like to welcome all the new people who have recently joined this mailing list - nearly 100 of you since the last letter we sent out. If you haven't already, then please do tell your friends about us, as we are the only web site on-line about Scouting in Thailand and the 20th World Scout Jamboree. Please also write to your national Scouting magazines with details of this web site for the 20th World Scout Jamboree - the URL is http://thaistudents.com/thaiscouts/jamboree

(2) The dates for the Jamboree have now been confirmed as 28 December 2002 - 8th January 2003. So, there are 1229 days left! Take a look at our new countdown clock on the main page.

(3) The new brochures and posters have now been released. Visit our Clip Art pages to see scans of the new poster. For any newcomers to this mailing list we will post below the contact name and e-mail address for Scout Headquarters in Bangkok:

"Pu" and her address is pupu@loxinfo.co.th

Feel free to send your questions to her.

(4) The Office of the 20th World Scout Jamboree officially opened its door to the public on the 17th June. The head is Mr. Wayu Bhayakan, a well known professional Scout. The address is: Office of the 20th World Scout Jamboree, National Stadium, Rama I Road, Bangkok 10330, Thailand. Tel (+662) 612 5306. Fax (+662) 219 2108.

(5) The progress report of the preparation of the 20th World Scout Jamboree, which was presented at the 35th World Scout Conference in South Africa, is now on-line. Visit our News Up-date page to read the report.

(6) We are hoping to go down to visit the general area of the Jamboree site towards the end of this month. The plan is to take photographs of the area and coastline. We will tell you more about this in our next letter.

1st July 1999

1) It looks like the dates for the Jamboree have been changed. The latest we heard is that it is now 26th December 2003 - 6th January 2003. So that means there is another 3 years, 5 months, 24 days and 22 hours to go! We will send you confirmation of the dates and where to go to see our countdown clock in our next letter!

2) Today is National Scout Day in Thailand. All over the kingdom students took part in ceremonies and parades in order to pay homage to King Rama VI who played an important part in setting up Scouting here in 1911. Visit http://thaistudents.com/thaiscouts/scoutday for more information and pictures.

3) Our main Scouting in Thailand website (http://thaistudents.com/thaiscouts) has been updated with new pictures. More to come this month! The Jamboree web site (http://thaistudents.com/thaiscouts/jamboree) has also been enlarged with new pages about the weather, site location and more!

4) We have just received the "Draft schedule of the preparation for the 20th WSJ's Infrastructure". This can be seen at http://thaistudents.com/thaiscouts/jamboree/infrastructure.html

5) For any newcomers to this mailing list we will post below the contact names and e-mail address for Scout Headquarters in Bangkok:

"Pu" and her address is pupu@loxinfo.co.th

6) Don't forget to visit our message board for people who are coming to the Jamboree (http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb402757)

That's about all for now! We will keep you informed of any more developments as soon as we receive any.

9th June 1999

1) As many of you know, Scout Headquarters in Bangkok have not yet put a web site out onto the internet so at present we are the only source of news about what is happening in Thailand. The good news is that an official site is being worked upon and we will let you know as soon as it is on-line.

2) The posters and brochures are presently being re-written and should be ready by the end of this month. The Jamboree will be promoted at the 36th World Scout Conference in South Africa next month. Again, we will let you know when the new material becomes available.

3) We now have an e-mail contact address for you in the Jamboree office. The name is "Pu" and her address is pupu@loxinfo.co.th She said that you are welcome to e-mail her with requests.

4) Our new school year started a couple of weeks ago. As some of you know, Scouting is part of the curriculum here in Thailand. For us, the students start learning Scouts again next week. We will now start up-dating the site so that you can learn more about Scouting and general life in Thailand. We are aiming to give you plenty of material to use in your Scouting programs. At present we have an area of our web site called Project Thailand (http://thaistudents.com/project) which is a gold mine of information. This has everything from the national anthem to today's weather forecast! We will be adding a lot more over the coming months. If you have any ideas or comments then please e-mail us!