Walk leaders' training day

Every so often we like to gather together walk leaders and hear what they have to say about how the festival is run. We sometimes do a bit of training. This time I've had to organise 2 separate days to catch most of the leaders, but it turns out that the numbers were perfect for what we had to do.

In the morning we sat and shared ideas and thoughts about the things that might go wrong when you are leading. (Enough to put any potential leader off I fear, and most worst case scenarios as very unlikely to happen.) We did a bit of compass work.

After lunch we headed up to a small section of Thorngrafton Common where we practised taking bearings, walking to a bearing, etc. People took it very seriously as you can see here. (Helps to get your specs on Henry!) Harry was our leader/tutor for the day and, as usual, had put in a lot of preparatory work. Thanks Harry.

It was a very happy day. I'm trying to remember some of the things that were said. Harry "What is due north of .....?" Walk Leader A," It's the lime kilns". Harry "Look again". Walk leader "Oh, it's the blue star!". Harry, "If you're planning to follow a star, you're on the wrong course!!" (Well it was funny at the time..)

Another one, Walk Leader B "Are we in the mist at the moment?"

We finished with a drink in Twice Brewed. A pleasant end to a good day out.