DofE 5: Lambourne (b).

Posted on 17th Mar 2020 by essiep

11°C, grey day with light breeze.

Surrounded by worries about the Coronavirus, we are back at this little campsite. The mule, who now has a name – Black Jack is still here and in good voice.

This pandemic could cause me substantial lost income. Most schools are allowing trips to go ahead although sports fixtures are being cancelled. We have lower contact numbers so we may only be affected later.

Poor little pups had horrible weather on day 2. He rain was heaviest at lunchtime. Though it was not quite torrential. One was pulled out after skidding in mud and turning an ankle.

DofE 4 : Lambourne (a).

Posted on 8th Mar 2020 by essiep

Bronze practice expedition:

I’ve been here before, the camp donkey is in better voice than last year. At the end of each ee-ore, he does a horsey rasp as if to punctuate.

Day 1: walking with group 2 who were very energetic. I had to tick th off when I caught them high up a tree. They gone into woods to pee so of course, I stayed outside. That’s why I didn’t see them climb.

Day 2: what a blistery night. The tent got a really good shaking. Some kit was wet, which should never happen. It’s time for a new one.

DofE 3: Framlington, Suffolk

Posted on 2nd Feb 2020 by essiep

Training, 1 day, Gold. They’re planning Practice and Qualifying on the slopes of Snowdon.

The is was a nice job. The kids, the school staff were great. These Gold Award students were obviously high fliers.

The biggest chunk of the day was mapping and route cards. Their routes are in familiar parts of Snowdonia, well trodden by me and Rosie over the years. The only negative was the enormous drive for one day’s work.. For this reason I’m not doing this run again.

DofE 2: Bury st. Edmunds, training

Posted on 25th Jan 2020 by essiep

A daunting long drive is the result of some poor planning by me. And it’s only 1 day’s work. Is it worth it? In all, 240 miles including a stop off to visit mum. I have negotiated a stay in a local scout camp which should be good.

D1: that was straightforward, we got through the material in good time and the kids did a thorough job. The route cards were done in an Excel spreadsheet which had a few good functions. It would work out journey times from other values the groups inputted. An oddity was that it had no cell protection. Overall, it was a good system that combines traditional methods with a spreadsheet. Functions were not as thorough as eDofE’s but it lacked the infuriating bugs

DofE 1: Abingdon in-school training

Posted on 23rd Jan 2020 by essiep

+6°~-3°C, calm hi high-pressure sets in.

Same start as last year with similar weather, cold dry and frost predicted. I’ve been give permission to camp in he school grounds which solves two problems: the campsite is 7 miles away and is likely – waterlogged.

d1: been here before, and familiarity brings some ease. We have toe groups to take through a classroom based training booklet. The kids are delightful and eager. One of the girls is the younger sister of one from last year, she even texted to check, and Flo’ said I was the best one. Wooo! This group declared themselves “massive Miranda fans”. That meant catchphrases from the show sometimes, bare with, bare with!

Overnight, I planned to camp but given the chance to bed down in some kind of annex, I took it. With some time to kill, I did another page in the A5 sketchbook.

Day two, a Sunday. More classroom training but with added trips outside. I showed them how to put up a tent and finished the syllabus.

The centre manager wants instructors to have the same groups on practice in march. I’m only on the reserve lists so sadly…..

Latest: I’m on! I’ve been moved off reserve and will now work with both groups in march.

DofE 22: Yorkshire Dales (Silver)

Posted on 6th Oct 2019 by essiep

Day 1: transfer and setup. A sunny day to pick up the Gold group in the minibus and then drive to the sales, a 150 mile drive. All vehicles stopped at Charnock Richard services on the edge of Chorley. We all stayed at Broadrake bunkhouse in Chapel-en-le-Dale with a fine view of the Ribblehead Viaduct

Day 2: Acclimatisation day – Ingleborough Falls. Cold wet start with showers all day. We took 2 groups each for a circular route from Ingleborough via the falls. The aim was a refresher in navigation and of course – some dramatic waterfalls. I’m not normally impressed by waterfalls, but these were very energetic. With rivers in full spate, the water roared over every rock and even more over each cascade. So full of sediment, the fluid looked like beer. We talked about the colour and how it’s caused by tannin. One of the kids asked if it’s basically tea? You can tell when kids are bright and imaginative. These are!

Day 3: (day 1) for Silver groups). Middleton Fell.> Holme Farm. Beautiful day with a frosty start for campers. I bet those kids were cold.

Day 4: (silver 2): Holme Farm > Dent. Dull but calm weather all day. All went well but this was a late finish, I was so hungry, even before the drive back to the bunkhouse.

Day 5 (Silver 3): Dent > Widdale (finish). Heavy rain to start but it eased off by departure time at 8.

Here are my group, layering up after the climb. This is near the pass by a full gully that looked quite hazardous. I called for another ML to come and man this one while I took the crossing at the summit.

Later, another group who most were from my old tutor group arrived. They too were full of beans, and pleased to see me.

I love these places, in the hill fog more so. My spot was in a corner to hide from the chilly breeze. Here, the stone walls were covered in half a dozen types of lichen. My old tutor group team had lichens as their aim so I gave them a little tour of the varieties here. I love these bleak misty moorlands. The form of the land is laid out in layers in the fog. Perhaps caused by the contrast, the nearest ground appears the most vivid. On a clear beautiful day, your gaze is drawn into the distance. Today, you see beauty nearer to your feet.

The end of the day was the journey back to Walsall. My job was to take the Gold group back in the 9 seat minibus. I took a moment to look at myself from the outside. In the driving seat, They sat in the dark, viewing a segment of their lives through the window of their phones. The rusty sun dipped down on the right horizon and the lane lines blinked in the headlight patches. They were contented, comfortable and had passed their Gold Expedition section. I glanced across at the kids in the front seats. I looked across and smiled to myself in the dark. A moment of satisfaction for me too. Onward, the miles rolled by.

This would also be a late finish.

DofE 20, Manchester.

Posted on 10th Sep 2019 by essiep

16°C, still windy but not destructive.

No really DofE but this in school activity days are meant to raise the school’s appeal to new intake.

We’re working with year 7 doing the kind of stuff we did at Bibby’s Farm. That includes bushcraft, orienteering, shelter building and slacklining. The slacklining was the most fun, especially when I consider how little experience I have with it. I had tremendous fun delivering this and some of the other sessions.

From the ending assembly.is sensed that the staff were bemused by us camping in their field. Our company are hoping to turn this activity day into a DofE contract. Let’s hope we clinched it.

DofE 18; South Chilterns

Posted on 16th Jul 2019 by essiep

22°C, sun, very dry with N breeze.

18.0: easy drive to the edge of the M25. Paccar Scout camp is huge, but my little bit is about an acre. We seem to have 4 clearings booked.

18.1; The cohort arrived by parent drop off and were indeed, only a few groups, five in all. I got two groups of girls. As is often the case, one group went wrong out of the start. I always try to make them go with a clear start because this kind of error is very likely. It’s an easy one to to mess up; being dropped off somewhere they don’t know is quite disorientating.

18.2: rain to start but clearing later. My groups’ routes diverge, meet then diverge again. The other instructors’ routes are pretty identical to one another.
One group got off to an energetic start and finished quite early. The other got stuck in woodland but responded well to question prompts over the phone. As an assessor, I really enjoyed overhearing their debates on location and clues they can see. This group were offered a lift to the debrief checkpoint but I declined because they might finish under time.

Group 4 reached the end in just over 6.5 hours but the other group had gone. They’d been collected before I could debrief them properly. Oh well…

We got some feedback from the school:

“We just had an email from waingels to say how great the exped was, well done guys! Also, apparently 2 groups are now officially part of the ‘we love mike club’ 🤣🤣”

DofE 17: Dark Peak.

Posted on 11th Jul 2019 by essiep

18°C, grey with slight drizzle.

17.0: a day filled with logistics. Google’s satnav took us round the long way to Edale. Then I had to ferry kids from Hope because the coach driver refused to drive to the carpark in Edale. We’re all baffled by his refusal since there are 2 other coaches already there.

17.2: Tuesday – a 15h30m shift on Kinder Scout. Rain and very late groups. 1 group made such a mess of nav that they didn’t get onto the hill and were found in the afternoon – back at the start.

17.3: crossing Ladybower. To a lovely little campsite at North Lees near Hathersage.

Much better day for all groups. They’re getting tired as usual. The overnight camp was basic to say the least. In my opinion, we should stay in the area, within radio range anyway. That way we can get there early and urge them away by 07.30. Their night’s sleep wasn’t enough after Kinder.

I was a little worried about one of my group’s confidence and navigation so I decided to walk halfway with them. It was here that I hit on the idea of a neat nav teaching method. I’ll explain…

If your group has a few navigators and the others trail along, then this might demonstrate how information and observations should flow through an effective group. Sit one kid down with a map; preferably in a hollow so they can’t see much. Others can then take turns giving them information until they can locate the group. Here is a field boundary, this way slopes down, that way is north etc.

I’ve only tried it a few times, but it does seem to work!

17.3: along Stannage Edge. A good geological handrail. After the road crossing, they go up Moscar Moor. It’s a fine place to set up a checkpoint I found. I sat in a hollow the bits where it rained but eventually, the groups brought the sunshine. Some got stoves out and cooked lunch. Others wanted to march through and get back first.

We finished ontime with all groups safely completed. Then logistical problems started. The coach was late again. Part of the M1 was closed, but then again- why did it go on the motorway? Nobody knew.

I was able to get off with my Year 11s easily enough in the minibus. The coach didn’t get the Y10s to school until about 9pm. Outrageous! The staff were livid. That’s the third time the same coach company let us down in a fortnight.

DofE 16. New Forest.

Posted on 6th Jul 2019 by essiep

Bright and sunny, tops will be 25°C

Long drive after a full day’s teaching. The satnav chose a good route and there were no holdups. Still, I didn’t arrive untill 23.30.

16.1: we some instructors would have two groups today, the others- one each. There are different ways we could decide, double up the smaller groups, match the routes. In the end, it was a complicated (and not very interesting) combination that we chose.

I got my info packs and flicked through- two groups of girls. Their routes looked okay and their bags not too heavy this time. Yet again, they didn’t bring enough water. One of them, O* had a leaking platypus which she knew was leaking on practice 2 weeks ago!

Quite a stretch of the route was in woodland along cycle routes. That suits me too because I can do plenty of walking to checkpoints rather than waiting with the car. Their route finding was fine and timing, reasonable.

The last section really troubled me. The public footpath was closed with barbed wire. The only alternative a was a narrow road without verges but with blind bends. I walked each group, one at a time along here. That path was visible behind the hedge and would have been trouble free, why is it closed?

horrible!

16.2: A problem has appeared. One of our assessors is absent. His groups did not see him at all yesterday after the start. That would take some working out by sharing out the workload. If something went wrong, the consequences would be serious for him and the rest of us.

Note, sleepy horses standing in the road can make you late.

Both of my groups seemed to be in a darker mood today. The smaller group was especially tense. You know that feeling when you walk into a room after an argument, the one where you can sense something indeterminate? It’s that feeling on each checkpoint.

Gareth pointed out that they were well out of their ‘comfort zone’. These girls were all tall, leggy, elegant and beautiful; like models they were. But the surly exasperated tone in their voices caught my attention.

16.3: the kids are much more upbeat today. The fine weather continues and one group is quite cheerful, probably because they know it’s the last day. The other group remain prickly. Oh dear.

Micycle

Mike thinks b/hikes

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