Logistics for this Saturday are right here. Make sure you’ve completed registration, including sending payment to [email protected]. (Reply to this email if you’re looking for a slot in in the final.)
This Saturday night, one troop will take home the Jamboreenie.
PROLOGUE
You've heard an adult say it while you were mid-sip, mid-sentence, halfway to the bathroom, even lying on the ground in exhaustion: Jamboree never stops. No water breaks. No standing around between games. Put your phone away for the night! The next challenge is always about to begin.
The Jamboree never stops.
ACT I
Everyone remembers Odysseus. But the ship that kept philosophers up at night belonged to Theseus, who sailed home from Crete in a thirty-oared vessel, after slaying the minotaur. For a thousand years, his ship sat in the Athenian Harbour. Every time a plank rotted, they replaced it. Every rope, every oar, eventually the mast. The argument they had year after year: once every piece has been swapped, is it still the same ship?
Some of you have already figured out where our final Saturday night of the season is going.
We all set out in early spring with a structure that was difficult to understand — even for the coaches — because it was specifically created to change.
Back in April when we first set out for Fairgrounds, many of you wrote down a big scary North Star goal. Since then you've been quietly replacing planks. A grip. A third shot. A temper. A troop. Some of you replaced the whole idea of what you thought you were doing out here. Players never stop evolving. Teams never stop evolving. The ship never stops being rebuilt.
You’ve put your hearts and souls into it this season. Each of you, together, changed the course of this season for everyone around you with every decision you made.
ACT II
In previous Jamborees, envelopes were delivered with twists and problems, attempting to rattle you and your teammates out of their comfort zone. They arrived stuffed with new battles and idols and badges.
This Saturday night, the envelopes will have a different job.
Your second last assignment: write a letter to your future self about the season.
It might only be a few words. It might be a proper old-fashioned missive about a complicated pickleball player who went on a journey with a troop this summer. Begin with the thing you're most proud of. A thing you sacrificed. A thing you failed at. A thing you learned. What little ways have you changed?
There will be a table near Jamboree HQ: a stack of white envelopes, a cup of pens, and a camera.
On the outside of the envelope, write your name and the date and time.
Before your final competition, the envelope will get stuffed with your letter to your future self. Seal it. Snap a photo of yourself as you put it in the box — a glimpse of exactly who you were, and what you believed on a Saturday night in August. (For those of you who can’t play this Saturday night, come by and drop off the letter — or give it to someone on your troop or one of the coaches this month.)
We’ll put every sealed envelope inside a bigger envelope, and seal everything up together.
ACT III
Five months from now, at a Jamboree in December, you'll open a letter written by a player who will no longer entirely exist.
Don’t forget to tell them something encouraging.
We never stop evolving.
The Jamboree never stops.