At the end of September, the DofE National Centre organised an expedition training for students who do not have their own local centre or could not make an expedition at their local centre. Read more about opportunities for students going off to university, for example.
Expedition training for iDofE participants took place on the weekend of 21 September. In the picturesque Kokořín region, the participants were welcomed by beautiful weather. It did not rain, but everyone had to cope with temperatures that dropped to freezing at night.
During the training, 14 participants from the ranks of bronze and gold "dofaks" tried the basics of first aid, orientation in nature, building a shelter, starting a fire and handling a gas cooker. Most of the Saturday was devoted to training and immediately afterwards the teams started planning their training expeditions in the vicinity. Although they did not know each other before the training, they soon managed to form a great team. The trainers were very happy about it.
The bronze team was even so efficient that they immediately planned the date and location of the expedition. This is also how the upcoming ceremony works, as a great motivation for action. The gold team spent a good part of the mock expedition thinking of suggestions for closer or more distant locations for the sharp expedition. They went from planting trees in the Amazon rainforest (too many trees) to fighting fires in the Russian taiga (too cold) to Portuguese beaches and cleaning up the seas there. Both the trainer and the assessor are keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that everyone can find a common term!
We are very happy that we have managed to organize more expedition training and training expeditions for iDofE participants, which are led mainly by company volunteers. It is also one of the ways in which DofE participants who transfer to another school or go to university can complete their DofE.
