This event, based at Hornby Laithe, Settle in the Yorkshire Dales, will enable individual young people to form expedition groups for assessment of Gold level foot expeditions and small groups. Those attending must have completed relevant training and the required number of practice journeys. Please make sure that your Record Books are completed properly eg signed in all the required places.

Participants will camp on the Saturday night and cook their first meal as part of the pre-assessment process. Sunday and Thursday nights all will be accommodated in the Barn where meals (as below) and all other planning and preparation will take place.

Participants will be expected to provide all necessary equipment. Each participant will also need to submit a route card, starting and finishing at the Barn, for assessment purposes but the final choice of route for the group will be made on arrival. Participants will be put in touch with each other, prior to the event, to allow for planning of equipment, meals and travel. Campsite information will be provided to groups on the first evening.

Participants will provide their own food for all meals with the exception of Breakfast, Packed Lunch and Evening meal on th e Sunday, Breakfast on Monday, Evening meal on Thursday and Breakfast on the Friday. Participants will be responsible for their own stoves and fuel during the expedition.

The event will finish on Friday. After Breakfast participants will help with the cleaning of the barn prior to departure.

Cost

The cost of the event is to be set

A non-returnable deposit of £45.00 must be sent with the Application Form together with Medical/Consent Forms, which should be received as soon as possible and certainly no later than early July 2009, when further information will be sent to applicants. Cheques should be made payable to: Yorkshire Dales Wild Country Panel

Further Details

Further details will be sent out early July 2009, and in the unlikely event of the Open Gold not recruiting applicants will be notified immediately after that date.

e-mail:helen.atkins@dofe.org

Yorkshire Dales Residential Project, 2009.
- in conjunction with the Yorkshire Dales Expedition Panel Open Gold

Both projects – the Residential and the Open Gold Expeditions – are based, simultaneously, at Hornby Laithe, near Stainforth, North Ribblesdale. This is at SD 8198 6648 on OS map OL2 Yorkshire Dales (South) and Landranger 98, Wensleydale and Wharfedale.

The Residential option is open to 15 participants who wish to complete that section of the Gold Award. They will be involved in a variety of practical conservation tasks, at different sites, under the guidance of staff from Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Natural England and The National Trust. Meanwhile, it is expected that 20 - 25 participants will attend to complete their expedition, supported by up to ten voluntary staff, who are members of the Yorkshire Dales Panel. Expedition participants will camp for a significant part of the week, but will also use the facilities of the Barn, for part of the time. The staff team is resident throughout.

Hornby Laithe is self catering and Residential participants will share catering and domestic tasks, throughout the week, in support of members of the voluntary staff team. This frees the other voluntary staff to supervise and assess the Open Gold expedition groups.

All meals (inc. light lunch on Saturday) will be included in the cost of the event. Successful applicants must organise their own transport to and from the area but can be picked up from Settle or Giggleswick stations, if arranged in advance. It should be possible to provide a participants’ contact list in order to facilitate car-sharing. The first briefing will be early afternoon on Saturday, before the expeditioners arrive. All participants will be free to depart, after helping to clean and tidy the accommodation, no later than 11am on following Friday. A walk, on Sunday, will provide an introduction to the area and a chance to get to know everyone. Daily conservation tasks will run between Monday and Thursday. Exact activities will be decided much later, but over the past two summers they have included path-surfacing, tree-felling, pond-clearing, dry-stone walling, scrub removal and railing painting. A summary of feed-back from the 2007 participants is attached (when posted), or is available at http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/theaward.

COST: In 2008 the cost was £100.00 (including a meal ‘out’ on the catering staff ‘relief’ evenings).

A deposit of £50.00 will be required with each application. Although the closing date for applications is Monday 6th July 2009, please don’t delay, as about 80 people were chasing 12 places in 2007 and the same again in 2008 - first come, first served! Successful applicants will be notified on receipt of correctly completed forms and the deposit of £50. The balance of £50 must be paid by Friday 1st August and final joining instructions will be sent out during the following week.

Please make all cheques payable to "Yorkshire Dales Wild Country Panel".

If you require more details please email e-mail: helen.atkins@dofe.org

Application form