Number of trips

[badger]

to those who take scouts caving,
how many scout/explorer trip does your scout county organise each year
do you always go to the same area
do you combine age groups

 

[badger]

I would say our county the number of trips vary
last year we had 3 scout trips all to mendips

 

[PaulW]

I would say our county the number of trips vary
last year we had 3 scout trips all to mendips

plus a number of days ina local mine

bearing in mind we are 150 miles from our nearest caving region

If Phil Lilley sees this, you're not allowed to post how many trips you've done 

 

[phizz4]

In Staffordshire we run about 20 trips a year, but we are pretty close to the Peak District. We tend to use 3 main venues, depending on the nature of the group. We don't tend to mix scouts and explorers, as they operate separately anyway. We do venture to the Yorkshire Dales occasionally as well.

 

[RichardB1983]

If Phil Lilley sees this, you're not allowed to post how many trips you've done 

I think he said last week it was over 50 trips this year so far...and a busy November coming up - although that figure included some scout leader-only trips and a couple of route learning trips for some new members of his team.

 

[Ian Adams]

Hello Richard - good to see you found the UKCaving forum 



Ian (Adams)

 

[RichardB1983]

Hello Richard - good to see you found the UKCaving forum 

Thanks Ian. I'd read the forum for a couple of weeks beforehand, but thought I should join up now I've done a couple of "proper" caves.

 

[idriswilliams]

Good question!
In Shropshire we also are a long way from caves, S.Wales & Peak are just about possible in a day but we usually make a weekend of it.
We are fortunate to have a Roman Copper mine that we can use so it is possible to take about 18 Scouts/Explorers there at a time. Most of the County can get this into a Troop night although the furthest south areas need a Saturday or Sunday.  Most years we take about 200 mostly Scouts on this.

We generally run 2 Scout Cavers Badge Courses per year we take 12 max at a time to S.Wales and work in groups of 1 Scout Cave Leader 4 Scouts & one Troop leader. We have mixed Scouts & Explorers on these but Shropshire Explorer Scouts seem to go out very little and doing anything adventurous seems to be not wanted!
They will do 3 more trips having done the Copper mine. Porth-yr-Ogof, Bridge Cave & OFD Top Entrance to Trident. This gives a spread of cave types and in OFD lots of formations & conservation talk.

The average 20 or so Scouts who have done the badge each year are invited to another weekend in S.Wales when we introduce verticality in Port-yr-Ogof Avens & possibly Wills Hole & OFD1 round trip.  Generally only about 4-6 will come on this. The next invite is for a weekend in Peak District when we tend to do P8 and either Giants Round trip or Carleswark. Numbers are even further reduced and this will probably happen every other year for about 4.

At this point  they have covered (just about) the requirements of the Explorer Scout Caver badge except the study of an aspect of caving and ladder riggng & operating. For the study we have done a photography course, introduced SRT or assessed them for a leading permit. For the ladder rigging we have done a day trip to either Garlands in Giants or suicide.
What do other teams do?

Idris Williams
   

 

[badger]

If Phil Lilley sees this, you're not allowed to post how many trips you've done 

I think he said last week it was over 50 trips this year so far...and a busy November coming up - although that figure included some scout leader-only trips and a couple of route learning trips for some new members of his team.

so is that 50 trips so 50 weekends, or 50 trips in a cave so could be 10 caves a weekend, so 5 weekends away

maybe the question should also be how many YP do you take underground,
when I said 3 trips if we break this down it works out 1 trip approx. 30 YP doing over the course of a weekend up to 4 caves each in a weekend.
if we run a merstham mines (quarry) we could possible have upto 90 people split into 3 sessions and obviously then split down into groups

 

[RichardB1983]

so is that 50 trips so 50 weekends, or 50 trips in a cave so could be 10 caves a weekend, so 5 weekends away

I've only been helping with him fairly recently, but it has mostly been midweek evening trips to one of the Alderley copper mines - i.e. mostly a troop night activity - although recently there has been a couple of weekend trips too. Demand from local groups has been high though and I think there is on average more than one trip a week booked for November - and some trips already booked for dates in 2016.

 

[badger]

so the fact that we have only got replys from us west sussex, Staffordshire and Shropshire, does that mean we are the only 3 counties who have cavers on UKcaving?

 

[Peter Burgess]

I think Andrea (Surrey) has an account here.

 

[badger]

certainly know andrea, whether she comes on ukcaving I don't know, although I know she post a lot on facebook. but thank you for posting

 

[Peter Burgess]

Yes I think she responded to a topic in recent weeks. Andrear68.

 

[idriswilliams]

so the fact that we have only got replys from us west sussex, Staffordshire and Shropshire, does that mean we are the only 3 counties who have cavers on UKcaving?

Hi, Maybe only a few posts, but a lot of views, not everybody to tell the world all about themselves

Idris Williams

 

[jiant]

I'm a Scout leader in Oxfordshire and have taken my Scouts caving on a couple of occasions with the help of others on here who have Scout Association authorisation.  However it's only every couple of years on Summer Camp, mostly in South Wales and only 2 groups of four or five Scouts.

I don't know if there are any other Oxfordshire leaders on here.

James.

so the fact that we have only got replys from us west sussex, Staffordshire and Shropshire, does that mean we are the only 3 counties who have cavers on UKcaving?

 

[Ship-badger]

so the fact that we have only got replys from us west sussex, Staffordshire and Shropshire, does that mean we are the only 3 counties who have cavers on UKcaving?

No, I'm here too. I cover Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. I don't know of any other Scouters in Herefordshire with a caving permit, but Gloucestershire have a couple. I'm the County Caving Assessor for Gloucestershire. There's not much Scout caving done officially, but a bit goes on under the radar. It's going to improve though.

 

[Ian P]

Central Yorkshire Scouts (Leeds, Wetherby, Wakefield) 7000 members approx.
We run 2 "County" weekend events for Scouts and 2 for Cubs. These are just "taster" trips, generally half day trips (approx 4 trips over the weekend).
Numbers vary, depending on Instructor availability, demand of the Scouts. Roughly, approximately give or take; about 50 participants per day.
Other trips happen to cater for specific requests when possible, including late start trips for Explorers !!!
We have 3 "Scout cave assesors" and whilst still working within the Scout "guidelines" run our assessment criteria to mirror the BCA system.

Ian

 

[idriswilliams]

Hi,

Are Ian P & Ship Badger aware of the Association of Scout Caving Teams? Are you on our contact list? I wasn't aware of any one in Hereford or Glouscester, If you send me your "email" addresses I'll see you are added to list.

Idris Williams

 

[RichardB1983]

As I probably hinted in the earlier post, I'm a new member of Phil Lilley's team - I ended up signing up after his team took my group round. Most of the trips I've been involved with have been in the Alderley copper mines with groups booking a troop night activity. My scout (mine exploration) permit is issued by Derbyshire, but most of the groups on the trips I've done so far have been either Cheshire or Greater Manchester East.