Knowing that today would need to be a shorter day on the hill, in order to allow time for traveling back to Oswestry, we decided to make Moel Siabod our target for the day. I’ve taken groups from the school up this particular mountain before, but never in winter conditions and not by this route. [...]

I was invited to spend this weekend working with a group of pupils from Oswestry School. Several times a year, the Adventure Education department organises a weekend trip to North Wales, taking advantage of the fact that they have such a fantastic area just an hour and a half away. These weekends are aimed at [...]

I was running a NNAS (National Navigation Award Scheme) Bronze Award course last week, but one of the participants had to pull out a few days before. A job interview understandably took priority, so we arranged to repeat the course a week later. Due to the short notice, there wasn’t really any additional interest when [...]

I always enjoy working in the outdoors, but there is something a bit special about working on courses that are designed to develop skills and teach new techniques to those that really want to learn. It’s a great privilege to be involved in people’s development and watch them grow in confidence and understanding. I’ve spent that [...]

In the last few weeks, I have had the pleasure of running several sessions for a group of pupils from Concord College. As part of their Mountain Sports club, we spent time rock climbing and canoeing before half term. Today we met at Nesscliffe Hill Country Park for an afternoon of abseiling and orienteering. Nesscliffe [...]

Today, I got to spend the day with 30 boys from Packwood Haugh School at The Great Escape. They actually arrived last night and spent the evening playing various games before spending the night in 10 man tents. By the time I arrived, they were warming themselves by the camp fire after a chilly night [...]

Yesterday, the six pupils on Oswestry School’s Adventure Education weekend split themselves between three different activities in three different places – canoeing, scrambling and hill walking. Today, we all used the same overall venue. Two of the group hooked up with an instructor each (Ali and Paul), who took them rock climbing on one of [...]

Today saw me working with three pupils from Oswestry School as part of an Adventure Education weekend. Six members of the CCF (Combined Cadet Force), were able to take advantage of their military connections and are based at Capel Curig Training Camp, giving them easy access to the mountains and rivers of Snowdonia. Today, one [...]

This morning I had the pleasure of spending some time with the staff from the Birmingham branch of the Pegasus Planning Group, based in Sutton Coldfield. Today was their chance to get out of the office and let their hair down with an ‘jolly’. When they originally contacted me, the plan was to spend the [...]

For the last few years I have helped out with the provision of Bronze DofE expedition training and assessments. Due to the numbers of participants involved, a number of instructors are needed to supervise and assess the various groups over the course of 6 days. Over recent years, a core team has developed, making it [...]