I may also be getting confused between skills tutor and course director. Skills tutors deliver things like the Rock Skills course or Hill Skills, whereas course directors run thins like CWI, ML, LLA etc. Often the same people, but different thing for MTA. The people I’m thinking of certainly do the latter, but possibly not the former!
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Quite possibly, as an organisation we obsess over getting people upto Course Director level (we need them to make everything run) while neglecting getting people in a position where they can develop people.
We make the same mistake with paddle sports, we have loads go down the leader route because it’s the quick way to work independently.
Either way well done to him, it’s a significant achievement. 
Whilst operationally for Dingy sailing, most centres will deploy a powerboat, the activity itself (Dingy sailing) falls under Desirable core, rather than Essential core - which can lead to funding constraints depending on your postcode/WEXO.
If somebody rocks up with a L2 Powerboat, I’m not going to turn them away, but I think we’d struggle to justify putting on those courses from public funds as the likelihood of using and utilising them is low. The only time I can think of when it may have been useful AND “essential core” is when we did a Great Glen exped by canoe - and having a PB to hand could’ve been helpful and saved me some effort… But given we had no PB itself, or PB L2, we just settled for shadowing the group and utilising effort instead.
Every time I’ve done Dingy Sailing, it’s been a bought in AT activity (from non-public funds). And the provider provides the L2 PB safety cover as part of their risk management processes - not ours.
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Exactly this. I’m a course director and skills tutor but I’ve never delivered a skills course (and am unlikely to).
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We have enough badge slating topics. Focus people!
Is badge debate the new over 18 and/or CI vs uniform debate? 
Nah those subjects actually make a difference to Cadets.
Anyway, I’m glad to see more people able to offer skills courses, I’d love to see more Hill and Mountain Skills courses run, I know they don’t have a badge but they would help prepare Cadets for Silver/Gold DofE far more than the current ad-hoc training, which would hopefully lead to more HML/ML in future.
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Is there a nice follow on from NNAS? Would be good to almost see a structure for this. NNAS, on to Hill Skills, then on to Mountain Skills. Could almost call it a progressive training syllabus!
I thought we had as an organisation pulled away from NNAS? I suspect there would be overlap on the Nav side between Silver/Gold NNAS and Hill/Mountain Skills.
I always wondered if there was some controversy that happened? Especially given one of our HQ AT guys resigned as one of their directors a couple of years back.
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I was literally discussing Hill Skills as a CPD opportunity with a CFAV last weekend.
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Is there an equivalent MT skills course for those wanting to do LLA or CWI?
Hill Skills is aimed at a H&ML level I think? And Rock Skills is very much RCI territory?
What would be great is a pre-LLA-training and a pre-CWI-training course. Currently, if we want to push CFAV towards those entry level quals there doesn’t seem to be a set structure. This is especially important as MT require certain levels of competence just for the training course. Unlike for example the old BEL which you could start with no background at all.
To be brutally honest there wasn’t much difference between Bronze NNAS and what I needed to pass LLA, anyone with a Silver DofE (as long as the Exped was delivered properly) has all the skills they need for LLA.
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Yeah, I somewhat agree. I did LLA with very little effort, having already done Gold DofE. Certainly still learnt shed loads of the training and assessment, though.
Maybe as an organisation, we just need to be doing more CFAV stuff. It’s annoying seeing comments about a lack of staff wanting to get CWI or LLA. But then we need to run nav days and climbing days aimed at getting staff involved, who haven’t previously done anything like that.
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100% and our current attitude of “don’t spend any money” isn’t going to help with that. We used to take extra staff on expeditions and IET to train them and prepare them for courses.
Whacking on a Hill Skills or Mountain Skills course for Staff (and Staff Cadets) would be a great preparation for courses, but we just aren’t encouraged to deliver it.
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No - but if you do a Hill Skills course you are then exempt from the requirement to do 10 QLDs prior to Lowland Leader Training.
I think the skills courses are definitely valuable, I just don’t have the time to deliver them as I need to prioritise the courses that get people qualified and that fills my available time. I certainly would if I had more free time to spare!
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Which is a real shame but totally understandable.
For me this is the sort of thing that should be delivered at the NACATC.
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100% - as a Silver level PTS course. With a badge. 
Can’t we just have PTS colour coded kit? Gillets for Walkers, Buoyancy Aids for Paddler’s and Soandex for the MTB?
We deliver the equivalent in the paddling world (Personal Performance Awards) at the CRTCs. Maybe we should start delivering them in the same way and having ‘Development Weeks’. HMS, MS, Rock Skills etc alongside all the paddling PPAs.