IBN 23/23 - Fairbourne no longer an AT centre!

Adult Staff Execs
1

With immediate effect Fairbourne is no longer designated as an Adventure Training Centre as no permanent AT Instructor is now resident.

Well then.

IBN 23/23 link

2

Doesn’t really change too much, other than you might be able to get kit out of stores there without the previous chief instructor present.

3

So wings can still book it for AT camps, but have to provide their own staff and recces?

That’s pretty much what my wing does anyway. The advantage is it can be used for other non-AT stuff much more easily…?

What that would be is a mystery to me, Fairbourne being good for little else than AT?

4

You could do some STEM and build something to stop the sea from taking it? That’s about it though. Maybe base yourselves for a local camp?

We’ve always had to supply our own staff, because the previous chief instructor, in my experience, didn’t instruct cadets.

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5

It will reduce the availability of the centre, I’ve no doubt it will end up full of bronze leadership and bronze radio type courses before we know it. Availability for wing AT camps etc will go right down, particularly over summer holidays when wings traditionally run these types of courses.

6

Sorry but that simply doesn’t track. There are 33 wings and roughly 6 weeks of summer holidays, so only 1/6th of wings would ever get a week in the summer holidays there anyway.

7

There were 2 centres so 12 weeks available for use, alongside weeks at Easter and other holidays, all wings can bid for use of centres through their Region.

The point is, these weeks will now be much more difficult to secure, if Windermere and Fairbourne are now not used solely for AT, net result being a reduction in the amount of AT available.

8

To be honest, they will always struggle with “maximising occupancy” when the organisations primary customers are not available for 39 weeks a year because they school children!! The 16+ cohort may find it slightly easier to operate outside of the school holidays - but not by much!

Even staff courses can be a struggle to fill for a range of reasons.

Given that the AT camps for 2024 have already been pipelined at both centres. AND the AT development programme has also been released, I can’t see there being much change in 2024 beyond Governance now falling to RCs and RATTOs to sign off plans (which is now appears as much as a cost-risk basis as much as a RTL basis!) - rather than the Daily review of RAs by the Centre staff.

But for 2025… that may prove a different matter!!!

9

I can see the logic to this; but it will be annoying if you can’t use such primo locations for AT activities because they are being used to deliver some bone classroom based course.

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10

Plus the RATTO already had to sign off the training programme, so running weeks there as you would’ve done for any AT Camp at any other location is hardly going to be an issue.

But you did have guaranteed weeks at 2 centres during the school holidays, so even if you discount Christmas and the Winter half term that’s still 20 weeks dedicated to AT Camps cut down to 10, plus first come first served for another 10 (I would hope AT will still get priority but since it doesn’t have a badge I wouldn’t hold my breath).

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11

One way round it would be that all events at centre automatically require an AT sms event signed off by RATO which any additional SMS events listed as sub events.

It’s a slight bit of bureaucracy but it allows AT to keep oversight & maintain proper use.

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12

Isn’t the whole point of the IBN to free up accommodation for the corps to use.

13

Which is a criminal misuse of the venues

14

Can’t argue with you on that point

15

I think that the main thing that will prevent their overuse by non-AT related courses is the fact that they don’t actually have that many classrooms.

Fairbourne has the large briefing area and a couple of smaller rooms, Windermere has even less.

So really they are only suitable for people doing ‘outdoor’ activities. Fairbourne might be useful for conferences - but only for the Welsh Wings really, and they probably have more local venues.

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16

Fairbourne is a long way from anywhere. Ceredigion, Powys and Gwynedd are some of the least populated areas of the UK. More people live in Cardiff or Shropshire than those three counties put together.

17

I do understand that; I wasn’t suggesting the Welsh Wings would actually use the centre for that stuff - just that they are the only ones who might be able to.

As I said, most of the Wings probably already have more local RFCA venues.

So likelihood is that both centres will still actually be mainly used by AT users as they simply aren’t that useful for anything else.

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