Planning for Jamboree 2010

While we are extremely happy that some of you are already starting to plan your purchases for the 2010 Jamboree, we hope you understand that it will be very difficult for us to quote you prices right now that will be valid 2 years later. For those of you that are involved in any type of business affected by our World economy, you already understand what’s going on, and for those of you who may not be aware of some of those factors, I’ll review a few of the largest and most obvious ones below.

Raw Material – 2 years ago it was aluminum … this year it was steel … who knows what will be next. We saw cost increases for our furniture items the last 2 years in the range of 15%-20% for just the steel and aluminum.
Currency Exchange – As the dollar continues to devalue, our costs increase, because our dollars just “buy less”. The cost increase we received on furniture this past January for only the exchange rate adjustment was over 8%.
Industrialization and Modernization of China – As their standard of living improves, their labor costs increase, which get passed on to us in the form of higher prices.

Please do not misunderstand, I’m not trying to turn this into some type of political discussion, I’m just trying to be fair and open that we’ve had more cost increases in the last 2 years than we’ve had in the previous 5 years. If these trends would happen to continue, it will be very difficult for us to try to either “hold current prices” or to try to “anticipate” what the prices may be. If we estimate too low, then we end up losing money and if we estimate too high, then you don’t get your normal “great ALPS deals”.

With that in mind, we’ll gladly share with you our current prices and do our best to give you estimates on freight, based on current rates. As we get closer to the summer of 2009 and the time that some of you might actually start taking delivery of some of your gear, we’ll be able to get much closer to what your actual costs might be.

For those of you who purchased items in “quantity” for the last Jamboree (say, 100+ tents, 200+ sleeping bags, 200+ packs, etc.), you may remember that we tried our best to put together “Jambo Packages” and “Jambo Quantity Pricing”. We promise you that as the summer of 2009 approaches and we know what our costs are going to be, we’ll again put together the best packages that we possibly can to stretch your hard earned dollars as far as possible.

Thanks for your continued support of our Scout Program. Please feel free to contact any of our Customer Service gals if you have any questions.

Happy Camping!
Dennis

Question Regarding Special Makeup Items

Sarah and Dennis
 
As always, thanks for the great stuff.
 
I have a question about customized equipment.  Our council is starting to plan for the 2010 jamboree, and I was wondering if you would be offering any special equipment for that event, particularly tents.
 
One of the things that we are looking for is perhaps a kind of tent as was used this past summer in the World Jamboree... it had quite a spacious exterior vestibule (almost like a "dome" tent with a large tunnel vestibule) and seemed like a well received tent.   We typically try to purchase tents for a jamboree that can later be used by Scout troops for their camp needs ... typically not light weight backpacking, more like car-camping type tents or perhaps "short hike" where weight is not as critical.
 
So, that brings up two questions ... one, do you already have anything in mind, and if not, would you consider doing developing a "customized" design (i.e. not one of your current offerings, but perhaps one you might offer in the future?)
 
Thanks!
Roger P.

Answer:
Hello Roger,  Thanks for your message.  Yes, we're always interested in helping "customize" items for our Scout friends ... and as I'm sure you completely understand, it always comes down to how specialized it is and what quantity you and other Scout Troops may also be able to use.  We're very fortunate that our tent factory is really reasonable when it comes to minimum quantities.  In China, most factories like to have 1000 pieces as a minimum, and realistically they most of the time will accept 500 pieces.  Our tent factory is pretty good at cutting that in half again ... down to 250 pieces ... especially if we're using fabrics and colors that they're already running.  If it's a little bit larger tent ... which means more dollars per item for them ... we might even get them to consider around 150 pieces.
 
Regarding the design, do you have a tent/design that you think is "perfect" ... or close enough that you could say "if you'd just change these 2 things it would be perfect" ... that you could get to us?  If you can let us know pretty specifically what you want and have a pretty good idea of how many you will need, we can get started working on this for you.  Thanks for giving us a chance.  Stay in touch.  Dennis

2005 Jamboree

These are several images from the 2005 Jamboree of our
tents that some Scouters were kind enough to send us.