Centres of Excellence: July 2015

Friday 31 July 2015

Paul from Belfast, Ireland

Hi my name is Paul McKinstry, I have worked as a youth worker and the director of a project called Challenge for Youth based in Belfast, N.Ireland for the last 25 years. The organisation used adventure learning to support young people coming from disadvantaged communities and family backgrounds. I have a degree in Informal and Community Education and a range out outdoor qualifications.

I believe strongly in the power of the outdoors as an effective tool to build relationships with young people which will support and challenge them to both learn and aspire for positive change. I have been involved in designing a range of personal development programmes, leadership training and camps which make use of the approaches of 'adventure learning' and 'informal education'.

I have recently established a new organisation called JourneyFree, aimed at helping young people and families '.....explore their way'. (www.journeyfree.co.uk).

I am married to Louise and have two daughters Eve (17) and Ana (14) and a dog called Rudi. Free time is spent heading off in the motorhome, canoe on roof with the camera and guitar on board. A bit of fishing, outdoor cooking and a nice glass of wine - the joy of the outdoors!!!

Really looking forward to exploring ideas and best practice from across Europe on the Momentum Centres of Excellence programme.

Paul

Thursday 30 July 2015

First regards from Richard of the North

Hello Folks

Richard again from Scotland. First shot at the blog was just a hello. I am an Outdoor education worker plying his trade in the North of Glasgow for a charity called Royston Youth Action (RYA). RYA is a community organisation that runs two centres in which we are helping to build the capacity for the locals to develop their own community. Our remit is to work with with any age range on a variety of issues. We work in schools in various different areas and also in partnership with various different organisations ( Hello Charlie Mooney :)). I oversee the outdoor activities in the organisation and facilitate Duke of Edinburgh/hillwalking, Snowboarding/Skiing, Kayaking/Canoeing, Mountain biking/ Cycling activities amongst many others. I am currently half way through a community learning development degree in which I write assignments based on my practice and experiential learning in the outdoors and other settings.

I have a Beautiful Daughter who is 5 years old who is just awesome. The Outdoors is the place to be and I am very thankful to be part of this programme. I look forward to meeting you all and sharing and learning over the course of the training.

Kind regards

Richard of the North

Hi,

My name is Trevor and I am a serving police officer with Suffolk Constabulary. I am also a Volunteer Police Cadet Leader with the same police force in Ipswich, and former soldier. There are currently 5 cadet units within Suffolk which have been running for between 1-5 years. The young people can join between the ages of 13-18 and are a mixture of boys and girls as well as nationalities, having so far had Polish and Serbian youngsters joining. As cadets, they will take part in various events including Suffolk Show, Dog Shows, Remembrance Parades as well as crime prevention patrols etc.

I have travelled to a number of countries both as a civilian and soldier and enjoy the opportunity of seeing differing cultures. I always try to learn even a small amount of the language of the country I am visiting, as I have noticed that the locals respect the fact that you try to speak their language even if sometimes it tends to come out as gobbledegook!

I have always had an interest in outdoor activities having taken part in climbing, abseiling, kayaking, sailing, caving, skiing in the past. I would like to add to my skills and knowledge that hopefully I can pass onto my cadets and other youth groups. I know the fun and good times I have had participating in these sports and activities and would love to see more youngsters given the opportunities I have had. It always makes me smile to see the smile on a youngsters face having achieved something they truly believed they couldn't.

My hopes are pretty much as above and my only fear is that due to work commitments I may not be able to provide as much time as I would like to the project, though I will be putting in as much effort as possible to prevent this.

As my cadets could tell you I will give a lot of enthusiasm and time to the project, and hopefully pass on some of my knowledge from my own experiences. I also have an interest in photography so am hoping to add to my skills in the media area of this project.

Below are some pictures of my cadets and I at different events:

My first blogwriting

Hello!

My name is Markku Hukari. I'm 43 and I live in Kokkola. I work for youth center Villa Elba, pedagogical team. My work is about environmental education, leading adventure games, paddling, and rowing, climbing and different kinds of games. Mostly for children.
I Have a wife and 2 boys

My hobbies are music, geocaching, picking mushrooms... Sometimes –not too often -I go climbing without customers...

I hope this week will give us lot's of new ideas, and experiences. I belive we learn new skills. Maybe I find a couple english caches...

See you on friday /saturday

Markku

My Blog, my experience, my story

HI! My name is Onni and I'm 37 year old Finn with divers and ambiguous background. One of the things I have done in my past is child/youth special leader degree. Special youth leader is a study that you can do in Finland and it is focusing entirely on child's/youths with special needs (migrants, disable, social/economical issues). I have work with all of these groups but most of my experience is coming from working with migrant youths. Beside this I'm free lance non-formal educator. Implementing facilitation/training's on national and international level.

In last 5 years I have participate (as a trainer and as a participant) annually 5 to 10 international project. Most recently I have been on the road from last April and I have travel about 5000 kilometers by trains, ferries, planes and hitchhiking around the Europe.

I've been interested about outdoor activities for years. Till now I haven't found time , from my other interests, to really look in to it. I have little bit skills in many outdoor activities but haven't specialized on anything and i would love to develop my competences in them. I all so have very strong background traveling in nature because of my grandmother. With her I have travel in nature since I was 4. It was not hiking it was more of old school traveling with out any fancy equipment's. =D As a trainer I have specialized on tools and methods and I'm constantly looking new methods to master.

Usually i'm not fixed with my thoughts and feelings. I try to stay open and flexible and I believe that on the site when the show is on I will slowly start to understand what is possible to get from this process.

Of course I offer all of my experiences, knowledge as well as physical help for every-bodies use.

All the best and see you soon....

Sarvela Onni
Isoahonkatu 2

33240 Tampere Finland

+358466411984

Blog

I am Charlie Mooney and I live in a small village called Douglas in South Lanarkshire Scotland. I am married and work as a communities worker in North East Glasgow.
I have been lucky enough to be involved with a few international exchanges including a trip on the tall ships, which was awesome.
I have quite a wide remit from Duke of Edinburgh award leader to library manager and cycle tutor to school officer. That's just the way it is in my organisation. Never a dull day, I feel this project will help me build a clear vision and develop an action plan for the future outdoor activities I plan to deliver for my organisation.
The hopes and fears of this project are laced in the success or failure of the delivery of this action plan. I want to remind Glasgow Life, my organisation, just how much the outdoor work impacted on the young people I have worked with and how this should be a important part of or delivery. I work with some great people, the partners I have been involved with have really supported the various projects I deliver and I hope they would say the same about me.
I plan to give this project some my shared experiences some great some not so, but all part of the story that makes me a strong believer in the outdoor strategy as a learning bowl for some of the hardest to reach young people in the city of Glasgow.

That was a bit deep for a Thursday morning, but I,ll just go with it. Obviously excited to be heading down to the lakes with my mate Ricky. See you all there.

Sent from EE

Wednesday 29 July 2015

My first blog

Hello all,

I'm ash from Sunny England, I'm currently a volunteer for the West Midlands Fire Service. Including the role of community volunteer also a lead cadet instructor for my cadet cadet. My role within that group is assistant officer in charge and head of Junior Instructors and over see the process as well.

Currently studying fire and rescue degree at the great Wolverhampton University ;) but also passed my recruitment process for the West Midlands Fire Service this year.

My main job is a trolley dolly for Virgin Trains which sometimes I attend because it's good money.

What I want to gain from this week is to learn new skills within the great outdoors to take back to my cadet group.

Regards

Ash Haycock

My First Blog

Hi All!

Be warned, this is my first ever blog!

My name is Mike and I’m a Community Volunteer within the West Midlands Fire Service in England. My role sits within Youth Work and Community Risk reduction where we aim to keep people safe from fire and other dangers!

My main role at the moment is running a Fire Cadet group in Wolverhampton, we meet once a week and carry out activities such as Firefighting, helping the community and keeping safe!

We are off on a weeks camping in August which all the kids are looking forward too!

I am hoping to gain lots of valuable experience from this project that I can use alongside my basic Expedition Leaders Award; I would also like to meet some new people who can share their experiences of similar work! Hopefully I can gain valuable info on how to use the great outdoors as an advantage to our inner-city kids!

I look forward to meeting you all in 3 days!

Michael Hough

Community Volunteer

Black Country North

michael.hough@wmfs.net

michael.hough@wlv.ac.uk

West Midlands Fire Service

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Centres of Excellence - First Blog

Hi,

I'm Dafydd and I work with the Scots Guards and volunteer with the Metropolitan Police Volunteer Cadets. I am also in the process of completing my Gold Duke of Edinburgh and also try to squeeze in as much Hiking and Mountaineering as possible. I have been lucky enough to gain my Mountain Medics course and am currently completing my Hill and Moorland Leaders course.

I have been lucky enough to go on a few international projects with Momentum in conjunction with the National Volunteer Police Cadets. I have so far been to Georgia and Serbia and have taken part in projects in the UK. As well as international projects I have the travel bug and in the past 12 months have been to Warsaw, New York, Tenerife and Berlin.

The main reason for me wanting to take part in this project is to go into the outdoors and take part in some adventurous activities and also to make more international links across the world and learn about there cultures (and share mine).

I am really hoping to learn about different types outdoors education (and hopefully passing the techniques on to the National Volunteer Police Cadets). My major concern is height (as I have a massive phobia of heights!!!)

Finally I am hoping that I will be able to pass on my passion for English Mountaineering and my love of the outdoors!!!

Not long now

Only a few days away from the start of the project.

Nearly all packed and ready to go for a fantastic week in the Lake District.

I am really looking forward to sharing this week with all the participants and learning some new skills. See you all soon.

Amy

Tuesday 28 July 2015

CoE Rostislav Dimitrov

Hello there :) My name is Rostislav Dimitrov and I am from Bulgaria. I am member of Organization of Bulgarian Scouts for 18 years now and I became part of NC"Future now 2006" as well. I have experience in building outdoor activities as sports are huge part of my life.

I have been traveling around the world quite a lot - I am a railway engineer :) I have taken part in projects in Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Philippines, Egypt and I have made a more than 10 000 km journey with trains around Europe which was full with challenges.

I am eager to be part of this project as I am advancing in this field of building outdoor educational programs. Networking with all of you will be very helpful in this process. I surely will contribute for the project on a local and international level as I hope i will be able to be part of it until the end.

I really hope that I will be able to learn how to make better presentation into the media of the activities that we will bring to life outside of the project. In recent days if you are not on-line you do not exist. Thus the content is very important.

I am sharing with you the result of overcoming one of my fears - overcame - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyNCh-fGjZo

I can't wait to meet you all and share this great experience!

See you soon :)

Here is a couple of personal photos of myself Having some Beautiful Outdoor experiences whilst backpacking in New Zealand!!

Richard Sherlock

Outdoor Education Worker

Royston Youth Action

325 Royston Road

G21 2BS

Registered Charity Number: SC006351

T: 0141 572 0984

M:07929051233

@: Richard@roystonyouthaction.co.uk

Hello

Hello to you all!!

Richard of the North here at your service. Bonnie Scotland and the United Kingdom Checking into the Blog. The European journey has begun and I am looking forward to meeting you all in phase 1.

Big hug