You only require 10 Lowland Walks to do your LLA Training followed by 10 more for assessment. Most cadets with a Silver DofE should have the required days to go and do training.
We have switched fully to LLA and there are support groups available for those interested. (WATTO organises a number of walks to give people guidance be they preparing for Training or Assessment, plus there is a Facegroup Group for those working towards so that people can find people to walk with etc).
BEL is just such a rigid system and costs a hell of a lot more so we have abandoned it. (Courses are always undersubscribed as the weekends are set in stone and unworkable). LLlA is just as much work for the students but itās more flexible, you do the walks when you are free.
The big one for me is if staff/cadets are experienced (Gold DofE level etc) why arenāt they doing HML?
Also and back on topic I think itās ridiculous that we are being made to do the ATC Expedition Supervisors when we could just do a DofE one! The Commandant whinged on Twitter last year that we have slipped behind the scouts on DofE and pointed out that making up our own rules didnāt help. (I used the ACO requirement to be an ML to be a Gold Assessor as an example) Glad to see thatās been ignored.
We have a similar setup with the support & FB groups etc - weāve just chosen to ensure that weāre delivering both LLA & BEL alongside each other in a complementary manner. Cost wise, they are much of a muchness (as we run BEL in house). And time wise, if you include the 10 days pre/post training for LLA, itās around the same timeframe as BEL as well.
I would definitely look to more people doing HML though long term, iām midway through it and itās definitely a good step up from BEL. Thoroughly enjoying it - and without the burden of travel to Mountains to be able to rack up my walking log.
Back to the DofE thing - ever tried running a Gold Canoeing expedition? It took a long time to convince a NOW WgCdr that I didnāt need an ML ticket to Assess a canoe expedition - even though it was in Wild Country.
I have real issues with the way we run DofE in this organisation. The obsession that we have to have our own in house courses rather than use the DofEās really does grind my gears! Making everyone do Intro to DofE before they can be an assessor, even people who have been involved in the scheme for 20 years is ridiculous. Then adding requirements to Assessors such as needing an ML grrr! (Plus the already mentioned restriction to doing an ACO Remote Supervision Course, you canāt even use the courses that staff at Windermere run in their real lives!)
But unless the Corps puts its own requirements on top of everything that others donāt have, how would it justify its existence?
People in the real world sling weapons and smmo similar to what we use and more besides in the boot of a car and go as far as they like, without 5 reams of paperwork and a veritable army of people, just in case.
The policy has been there for a long time as it is stipulated by DofE and as an LOA we need to comply with that. A lot of ACO ran BEL courses combine the ESTC into the teaching as the ESTC covers some of the requirements for BEL plus more but meaning you can go on to supervise DofE Expeds.
But the main point is itās a DofE policy not ACO we just need to implement it, any ESTC will do so not even one that the ACO provides, bearing in mind an ACO one will be subsidised if not free
The actual policy is fine, so I was wrong to say that whoever authored it was living on another planet.
Itās the implementation that has been reckless. Not reckless with safety, but reckless with the morale and motivation of the volunteers. Itās another of HQACās favourite no-notice but instant-enforcement policies, announced late in the day when any good leader would have already planned their programme for the year.
Daws That Iām not going to argue as I donāt know our exact policy on the matter but it seems to be a pointless barrier as the ESTC has to be ran by approved DofE trainers anyway.
Jacques I agree with daws that your RATTO or WATTO has only just picked up on this and put it in place. ESTC has been a must have for at least a year and is talked about in both leader handbooks and also on the ItDofE course, so surly in your planning for the next season you would of found a suitably qualified DofE Supervisor, if not speak to your wings DofE officer they should know who has completed the course and can assist you, I know in my wing most assessors have done ESTC as well, but not all.
The biggest problem I can see is that ATC is again playing catch up and not offering the āupgradeā for the old style BEL that is apparently required.
And as Jaques said āanother of HQACās favourite no-notice but instant-enforcement policiesā.
A broader concern is that HQAC seem to keep being caught napping with things like this.
With respect to shooting and levels of clearance required and nothing more than a (frankly embarrassing) begging letter from CAC got us a reprieve as it was apparent HQAC knew about it and had ignored it.
FMS has been made a full on qualifying course and another course to run overnight things (why youās do an overnight FMS baffles me) and again a policy almost backdating it, thus no real time to implement this. Apparently we canāt do any FMS with cadets until people have done the courses.
I remember when we all needed a minimum BEL to do AT, there was a 2 year timeframe with grandfather rights.
I work in a heavily regulated industry and if the same lacksadasical approach was taken by my company as is by HQAC, wrt changing policy and imposing things on staff WITHOUT the required training, lead time etc weād be down the job centre. Given we volunteer a degree of realism / sanity needs to be taken into account by the ACMB, rather than this is how it is and if you havenāt ticked this box you canāt do it. Whose bloody side are they on?
The ACO isnāt playing catchup, they have flagged an option for people with sufficient experience to continue until 2018 without this course. The policy has been out their since at least last Autumn, if people have problems with this itās due to local command WATTOs to be exact.
FMS doesnāt need to be a full on qualifying course for local training, you just need to authorised by your Wing Commander (or nominated person). If you want to run exercises you need an ECOās course. The fact you didnāt before was an error, the new system is actually much simpler than the last one.
I canāt imagine that the DofE just announced this, so in that respect regardless of local communication problems, there is a degree of catch-up. If the DofE announced it last year, things should have been started to be put in place immediately with local contacts to do it outside the Corps given it would be unlikely that enough course places would or could be put in place to satisfy demand. Letās face it by 2018 on a Wing or Region basis if there were enough courses to get everyone to where they should be it would be nothing short of miraculous.
In a wave genius the ACO has now decreed in the revised ACTO74 that we must submit a green form to Wing as part of the application for all DofE Expeditions, irrelevant of the Level or whether we will be in Wild Country.
So a form that is only designed to be sent to the DofE for Wild Country expeditions is now required by the ACO for a Bronze Practice. This after the Commandant questioned publicly how we had dropped below the Scouts in terms of awards achieved!
Of the four pinnacle activities that I believe we do, shooting is often controlled by the army and leaves us little wriggle room but how we operate DofE IS within our control and some of the recent edicts should be robustly challenged.
Howās Daws, who says that scouts are safe in operating DofEā¦? Results donāt equal quality ;Ā£
I whole heartedly agree that this new requirement is ridiculous overkill. How are we meant to know what cadets will turn up for a practice at least 4 weeks before the event, let alone will then want to complete the Qualifying. we tend to run a qualifying about 2-3 weeks after the practice before they have forgotten all the practical skills, so cant confirm who will be in what group till after the practice. We train everyone in the core Exped skills so cant use that as a filter.
Does anyone know where to find the manual on āhow to challenge silly amendments to ACPsā?
Cheers all (another nail in the coffin of my ATC career)
