Quote Originally Posted by Witton Park View Post
LJ - it all depends on who's perspective you are coming from but I think we do need to educate better. But my worry is that we are doing it in the wrong way.

Most runners are attached to a club of some sort. They are coached athletically in running fitness and technique. But how many are coached in navigation, mountain craft, dealing with the sort of issues that can be met in a variety of fell races.
I have to say that I don't. I only coach junior fell runners, but they will be running senior fell soon.
It would seem a better policy to try and instigate better coaching in all aspects of fell running at club level, so that then removes some of the prescriptive safety documents that places ROs in a difficult position.
Dark peak has recently put on a non certified Mountain skills course for it's members. The aim was to teach a bit of navigation, mountain skills like awareness of Hypothermia, what to do when it goes pear shaped, kit to carry, dangerous ground, etc. It was run by a qualified ML (C Betts). I had to drop out at the last minute due to work commitments as did a nurse. We will be running more. There is talk of putting it out to other clubs but I want to talk it over with others first.



Quote Originally Posted by jtinnion View Post
Hi Iain

Neither the LiRF nor the Level 2 which I also hold covers navigation in any depth as I'm sure you're aware, and neither I nor my assistant coaches on these sessions claimed that it did. And while, as I operate in an industry where we have to have proven competence at work, I appreciate the need to demonstrate competence, I have to say that we run the risk of not tapping a huge well of experience and goodwill from people who we can clearly see are competent but who haven't as yet had the opportunity to do the course and get the piece of paper.

Right now, my view is that we have a bunch of guys out running in the hills, who want to learn a bit more about it. We also have a guys and girls with a huge amount of experience but (as yet) no formal qual in teaching navigation. Some training from folks with at least a lot of experience if not an MLTB is better than having the "novices" going out with no training at all and not being able to find their way to safety when the clag comes down.

I'd love to do an MLTB, but at Mercia we don't have unlimited resources of cash, or of volunteer time. We're doing what we can with what we have. We started with zero coaching whatsoever two and a bit years ago, and we are now working through a plan year by year in terms of how we train folks up to deliver what we have identified is needed. This is a huge move forward for us.

As a result of the nav session we have 12 attendees who know a bit more than they did about using map and compass to orient themselves and follow a route. I can't really see what's wrong with that, at least as an interim position until we are able to deliver training from someone who's fully qualified.

If you'd like to share the benefits of your MLTB with us as a volunteer coach in the meantime until we can find someone from within the club and fund them through the course and assessment, we'd love to hear from you.

As for the commercial "guiding" issue, as the FRA suite of coaching courses is the only off road running coaching qual available at the moment it's almost inevitable that people will use it as a selling point. I'm not sure, but I would imagine that the benefits of the UKA insurances which apply to those of us doing voluntary leading / coaching probably don't apply to commercial work?

Best regards
Jim
If they are ML's they would be covered as long as they ran it with in the ML remit. I do commercial guided runs in the peak with a bit of hill skills/navving thrown in.