Wings 2014 was a week-long International Jamboree Experience for Guides and Scouts aged 10 to 18 from across the world. With 5,000 young people on site the InSite Access System played a vital role in keeping the youngsters safe while they had the time of their lives.
The InSite team were on site well before the event started enabling the site in Windsor Great Park to go fully secure right from event build. Everyone on site was issued with an RFID wristband and the InSite Access system was used to scan entry and exit at all gates providing realtime information as to who was on and off-site at any time.
With around 4000 of the young people leaving site for different activities at different times each day the speed of use of the InSite Access system came into its own. (When you are filling 25 coaches with children at 8.30 each morning, and that’s just the first trip of the day, you can’t hang about!)
The reporting facilities were one of the main reasons that the organisers opted for the InSIte system. We were able to look-up immediately if any specific child was on site, when and where they came in, and if they weren’t on site when and where they left. Very useful especially when a child attaches themselves to the wrong group and gives everyone a fright! The built-in messaging facilities in the InSite system were also useful as we could set a message to flash up when an individual child’s wristband was scanned allowing security to intercept them if their group organiser needed a message passed, etc.
The InSite Visited App allowed the young people to be scanned as they participated in the different activities. This offered useful information as to how many people had visited a zone, how many zones a young person had visited, who had visited all the zones, etc. The InSite Visited App ties in with the other applications in the InSite family so if the organisers needed to find a child who was on-site they could see which zone they had scanned into last and when. The InSite Visited App can also display messages so if a child who was needed scanned into a zone staff could intercept them.
Finally, with as many staff as children on site the InSite Catering App was in use at crew catering. This provided the catering team with useful information on how many staff were on-site, how many people ate at each meal time and, as the information is real-time, the catering team could see how many people had eaten during the current meal period. The InSite Catering App is fully flexible so picnic lunches collected at breakfast or takeaway meals collected for colleagues could be registered appropriately on the system.
We had a great time at Wings 2014. We were very proud when Michele was declared ‘Wing’s Hero’ in the very first camp newsletter for her assistance in issuing wristbands on the rather hectic day when all 5,000 scouts and guides plus their leaders turned up, although Michele insists the award is actually for the whole InSite team who worked so hard. We are also proud that the InSite team won Best Team Name at the staff quiz, maybe not quite as proud of our performance in the quiz, (a lack on knowledge on Scouting history although not bad on history and botany), but still, “Well done Bingo Wings!”