Oct 31 - Duke Of Edinburgh Leaders Refresh Their Skills
Nineteen leaders from the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme's Open Award Centre made their way to La Finca Alcaidesa for a training weekend.
The objective of the weekend was to enable the leaders to go back to basics so as to remind themselves of the basic skills, which they need to pass onto Award participants for their adventurous journey expeditions.
With this in mind leaders went through the various stages of preparing for a weekend away including planning what meal they would cook for lunch on one day.
As small groups they agreed how they would cook the inevitable pasta dish and, on the Saturday, they used the basic Trangia cooking stove to prepare lunch. The stove uses methylated spirits for fuel, is robust, relatively safe and simple to use; and is the stove participants carry on all their training and qualifying adventurous journeys.
The leaders also went through the exercise of re-acquainting themselves with the 2- and 3-person tents which are the mainstay of any expedition with the Open Award Centre. For some, being relatively new leaders, it was the first time in having to assemble and then "strike camp"; including the challenge of fitting all components back into the bag!
But, taking the tents was not just to put them up and take them down, it also meant they had to be slept in overnight. Luckily, the weather was kind, although some might say it was cold; and, the leaders had a relatively peaceful night broken only by the sounds of the occasional nocturnal birds, animals and the inevitable snorers!
There was also navigation training which served two purposes first, so that the leaders built up their map reading and compass skills and, second, to identify new routes for participants to use when they go out for their own training.
This proved quite an interesting since it was found that not all routes were that easy to traverse given an abundance of thorny bushes, nettles and brambles. However, it did help to discount some of the proposed routes as it would not be viable to have participants use them. As luck would have it, the weather which provided a nice evening and night was to be less than favourable during the day as it was very hot during the day.
Another navigation exercise which took place was practising the technique for navigating in the dark or very poor or, no visibility. The exercise involves using a compass, to walk on a specific bearing, and also measuring the distance walked, to determine when you need to stop and change direction. This latter process involves, calculating the distance which needs to be walked and then equating this to the number of steps one would have to take in order to walk it. This requires each person to have some idea of the number of steps they would need to take in order to cover a specific distance. To this end each leader had to walk along a set distance of 100 metres counting the steps this required. For the actual exercise, which took place at night, the leaders had to walk on specific bearings whilst counting the paces required for the different legs of the exercise route. Whilst doing all of this they also had to break it down into manageable stages and had to use themselves as points of aim as it was too dark to see anything which might be used for navigating. It all went well and all the leaders managed to navigate the full route finding the various "tags" without which they could not have returned to base. Participants are also taught this time consuming technique as it offers them the chance to find their way under most conditions.
To complete the weekend, the leaders were also afforded the opportunity to discuss any pertinent issues, relating to their work as adult volunteers at the Open Award Centre, and afford them the opportunity to being involved with the ongoing process of improving the delivery of the Award.
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