I was fortunate enough to receive £200 funding to contribute towards the Mountain Leader Training at Plas Y Brenin, an outdoor education centre in North Wales. I made new friends – both human and non-humans – found a new mentor, affirmed my passion for the outdoors and my pursuing of the mountain leader qualification, and I remembered how bloody beautiful North Wales and Eyreri are. I learned about so many lichens and birds!
I came away with a strong sense of my strengths and weaknesses in the training, and a knowledge of what I need to do next before I take my assessment. According to Sam, our course director, I am a people person. I loved the people element of the course. Physically I am pretty capable – fit, strong, flexible, but I do not really play any sport or do too much with it in a competitive sense. I want to use these abilities to support other people in the outdoors, and I think that shined through during my assessment. Just yesterday I was playing volleyball in Cambridge with my friends. My long time friend Fin got really into it – he would usually put himself down when it comes to sports and not give it a go! We also got random kids involved from the park! It was a beautiful day, and I found myself sitting with this thread again: of bringing people together through collective movement and chemistry, no matter
their ‘physical abilities’ – whatever that means.
What’s next for me in regards to the mountain leader qualification is honing my ropework skills and navigation skills. I understand the ropework conceptually, and find it quite extraordinary what one can do with a bit of rope – I just need to make it muscle memory. In terms of navigation skills, I am impressed with myself, as I only picked up a map and compass for the first time in December last year, and was managing to hold my own with ex-military trainees. However, I still need a bit more practice. So, over the next year, once my commitments in Devon finish up with Wildwise, I hope to spend some months living in Scotland and North Wales. I have never been to Scotland!
The bigger picture remains the same. To transform education for young people in Doncaster, in the UK, and across the world. I want to build holistic, sensuous and embodied programmes that celebrate the entire person – their mistakes, their gifts, their passions, their experimentations. Last month I submitted a funding bid to Big Change, and designed my first ever programme ‘FirePath’. I hope to find out in mid-May that I have been shortlisted for the next stage: the pitch!
I managed to make a mentor-like connection with the course director, Sam, a very
experienced and wizened outdoor leader. I got his email, as well as some organisations that offer expenses covered opportunities to ML trainees – I sent emails off to them today!
So, the ML training and the Jack Bloor support has done a lot for me: the fund and training are giving me tangible resources to realise my dreams. I imagine that the qualification will not only increase my skills, but will give my CV respect, and allow me to bridge-build into more traditional worlds who give greater respect and value to formal qualifications. I think for true systems change we need everybody. Nobody can be left behind. And I think that the ML qualification and the JB fund brings people together through a love for the outdoors. God Bless us all.
Jack Bloor Race & Fund 