Participation in the 5K was not a Jamboree requirement. My guess is that the troop leadership made the decision so they could say "We all did it" and everyone got the 5K rocker for their patch.

Many troops appeared to require it. Ours did not. Race officials told me that the expected turn out was approximately 80% of the attendees.

Anything at Jamboree is optional. That being said, we adults in leadership will encourage the boys to participate to get their (parent's) money's worth out of it. The one requirement we had was that they couldn't stay in camp. When breakfast KP was done and camp was clean, we released them until dinner. They could walk to the tree line and sit under a tree out of our sight all day if they wanted to, but they couldn't sit around camp. We kept two adults in camp in the morning while the other two went out and then swapped in the afternoon. If a boy showed up, he could fill his water bottle of get whatever he needed, but he had to leave. We did have 32 of our 36 boys choose to do the 5K.

Thanks for the answers. I was just kind of wondering about that. I don't really agree with requiring people to participate in that kind of event. It just doesn't seem right to me. I think that for something like that you should have some sense of self motivation. Like, "I want to do this so that I can get the patch", or I want to do this because it is fun, or healthy, or whatever. It shouldn't be, I am doing this because my Scoutmaster said I have to. That always takes the fun out of things.

BTW, I am talking about the run there, I completely agree with you guys saying stay out of camp until dinner.

It's THEIR jamboree.

We made sure the boys were aware of various opportunities. At meals I would always get the boys to talk about the cool stuff they had done and and asked what their plans were. But unlike most troops, we didn't require participation in anything.

Especially later in the jambo, sometimes we would have a handful of guys sleep in or come back early for a nap. Just as likely we had juys who left camp at 4:45am to get to Fishhook Lake when it opened (yes it was that far). Everyone had a great time, everyone got their money's worth and everyone did what the wanted.