Safe Survival Training

Everyone Sports, Expeds and Adventure Training
21

You know perfectly well what Opinions are like. It’s not without irony that we all have TSAs as well.

It also doesn’t have to be branded “survival training” as people get all worried about that. Bushcraft brings about a similar response.

Risk assess appropriately. Bringing in an SME. Deliver it as an interest session (a demonstration and observation based activity for the cadets) if you are that worried about knives and fire and tabloid headlines.

The skills and knowledge they are imparting could be used in a survival situation in rural Warwickshire come the apocalypse - but they could equally unlock an interest in food hygiene, catering and hospitality, gourmet cuisine, fire safety, butchery, animal welfare, animal husbandry, game keeping or - if it must be said - RAF/Defence Catering- all associated and aligned subjects which could easily be woven into a 90minute lesson on preparing and cooking a rabbit or pheasant.

RAFAC isn’t all about flying, cyber badges and STEM trips to California. It can be these short interest sessions on a parade night which can piqué somebody’s interest enough to start them unlocking their own potential.

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22

Interesting maybe, but I couldn’t really care less what the TSA’s opinion is. What matters is what the regulations say.

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23

What do they say? What insured activity does this sit under?

I’m playing devils advocate as I think this type of activity I think is beneficial but it’s been blocked several times locally.

Interest sessions won’t typically involve the Cadets doing anything much and are you saying provide it as an external activity insured by others?

You’re speaking to the converted, it’s just interesting how people are continuing to do this sort of thing and how they are working around the system.

24

Just have guest speakers. If the cadets like it, invite them back.
We try and have 3 or 4 a year, never had one on this subject, but I’m sure if you looked for one, they’d be out there. It’s a parade night activity, so no one need know and if they find out afterwards, so what, it happened and no one died.

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25

… except the rabbit…

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26

I don’t think anyone needs to “work around the system” to have a guest speaker in.

don’t you get the local police service to drop by and offer a talk? or go to the local fire station??
is that completed without “going around the system”??

27

YEp, have had the Police come in to talk about drugs etc.

28

That reads as a CFAV teaching it, if it was referring to an external teaching it then it would have been in the third person. Which is where my view has come from.

29

To clarify, I’m not keen on anybody teaching snares.

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30

Not even in bands?

Badumtish

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31

A long time ago (I promise) we gave each pair of cadets a live chicken (they were condemned battery farm chickens, so would have been killed anyway), and their task was to eat it for lunch.

Best moment was when a cadet thought the chicken was dead (he was supposed to have wrung its neck) but it revived and ran off. Hotly pursued by cadet. The cadet won…

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32

I still don’t see how the system needs to be worked around to offer a talk on a subject be that by a suitably knowledgeable CFAV or bringing in an expert.

if the subject topic is relevant and suitable then why not?

the topic as so neatly explained by Batfink has all manner of potential valid topics:

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33

Let’s not forget certain snaring and trapping is illegal in the UK. And as such shouldn’t be practised.

34

So is shooting people with a 5.56 semi-auto rifle, doesn’t mean that we can’t practise it in a legal setting as a point of interest.

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35

For a guest speaker more or less anything goes. We have had a local history group come down a few times over the years which has been interesting and given the cadets a perspective of their town and surrounding area in years gone by. Might be time to have another visit.
The group have overlays of modern maps for old maps, which opens the cadets eyes a bit.

36

Depends on the context. And we don’t allow cadets to practise “shooting people” hence the dropping of the fig 11 targets. We teach marksmanship principles and target shooting.

There’s no reason to snare and trap in this country without relevant licensing and for proper reason. It’s not humane and if done incorrectly or not properly monitored and maintained will cause injury to animals and people.

Want the cadets to eat game? hunt it or buy game meat. And go over the theory of snaring and the principles but don’t let kids go off snaring areas and putting animals and people at risk.

There was a high profile murder not long ago where the teenage killer was found to have been snaring cats and torturing animals. How would that reflect on a youth organisation if they taught him how to snare and trap.

Theory yes. Practical, no.

37

I wouldn’t be inclined to teach snaring. I have wondered if one of the popular “foraging” courses might be a route worth going down.

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38

only if you’ve got a fortune burning a hole in your pocket…

i simply wouldn’t touch snaring - it has no real, practical use in a survival situation, and the chances of severe reputational damage when one of your more enthusiastic cadets gets caught having snared a cat two weeks after you’ve provided this training opportunity are about absolute.

water? yes.
shelter? yes.
fire? yes.

foraging mushrooms and killing cats? no, i wouldn’t touch it with a 500ft burning bargepole.

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39

Good grief, don’t even go down the mushroom route!

My mum constantly picks mushrooms while walking the dog, and is adamant she knows what she’s doing… but she’s a fruitloop at the best of times.

And for some interest check out this rather old school and ally video of Lofty Wiseman:

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40

That wins for the old style Norwegian shirt alone

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