Grasses and Classes

You can spend years obtaining a Mountain Leader qualification, and once you have obtained that coveted certificate you then need to make sure it doesn’t go out of date through inactivity. If you want to keep a valid ML ticket, then every 5 years you need to complete 20 days of leading or supervising groups and attend at least 2 Continuing Personal Development workshops. Not only do these workshops keep you in ticket, but they are a great way to develop personal skills, meet like minded folk and keep you up to date with new procedures, and techniques. I love these workshop days and try to attend at least 2 each year, with my workshops of choice being anything to do with wildlife or conservation.

On Saturday I spent the day on a workshop called ‘The Mountain Environment’ with the excellent Jim Langley of Nature’s Work in Capel Curig. Not only does Jim know his stuff but his excellent teaching skills leave you inspired and thirsty for more knowledge. I think I have a decent knowledge of birds and other wildlife, but it was the stuff that you walk past every day that I wanted to know more about, i.e. trees, mosses, lichens, sedges, rushes, grasses, and Jim certainly helped fill in some of them gaps. The only problem is, that the more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know. A highly recommended day on the hills if you’re looking for a workshop, or even if you have an interest in such matters.

Then Sunday was another trip to Liverpool to teach 77 Bronze level D of E students, Emergency Procedures and First Aid. The highlight of the day for me was to hear a colleague giving my lesson plan that I have delivered dozens of times, but with their own adaptations and additions, and again I took some little golden nuggets away from my colleagues delivery.

So in all, it has been a busy but a very educational weekend. We never stop learning, and the day you think you think you know it all, is the day you need to pack it all in.