Held
at 88th Manchester HQ 26th Oct 2009
Keith Hampson, Caroline McCann, Chris Harbut, Tim Crowther, Ann Vernon, Andrew Procter, Paul Good.
Gareth Williams, Phil Santana-Reedy.
Both the Hill walking and the climbing workshops were well attended this year and the new one day steep ground workshop worked much better than trying to do it in an evening.
Glossop had been Kayaking, climbing and hill walking.
Ladybrook had been T1 hill walking.
Marple had done a fair amount but it was all at group level.
Manchester South had also only done things at group level, 88th scouts coming 2nd in the Pike View hike.
There will be two levels of workshops, a consolidations, for those who came last year and a basic skills one. It is on 12th – 14th February with an evening on 5th Feb.
It was agreed that as non of those who had asked for a night other than Thursday had turned up on Tuesday and a number who turned up on Thursday could not on Tuesday, that the meets would be on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month.
It was agreed to combine the workshop with the Leader climbing club to start in March, the third Thursday to be held at Linnet Clough where rigging can be taught.
Basic
hill walking (T1)
It was felt that this should be earlier in the year. Theory on Wednesday 14th April practical, Sunday 18th April.
The new venue at Chew had proved to be a good one so it will be there again on 16th May.
Kayaking
Chris Harbut, is working with Linnet Clough to run a workshop for leaders to run interesting and safe sessions on the Lake at Linnet Clough. The details have yet to be worked out and dates decided.
It is intended that there will be a weekend climber badge this year. It was suggested that Bibby’s Farm scout camp could be a suitable indoor venue. The accommodation has been booked and the dates for the w/e are ??.
We now have a water skiing assessor / adviser in the county in the form of Rick Kelly from 6th Cheadle Hulme.
Andrew Procter from Glossop district is now our county assessor and adviser and is working towards setting up club in the county for groups to use, this will be for those above scout age. There is also going to be training in the new year. Keith will put all this info onto the activities website.
Keith has successfully got Caroline though her’s for climbing and authority to do this is now recorded on scoutbase. All assessors who have not done this module need to and can download it, work though it, then have it validated by Keith.
Keith reported that after a long conversation with Howard
Taylor, who used to guide parties in the mines until the caving association
rules and scout rules changed. He is not prepared to take out a scout permit in
order to do this.
As there is no guidance on scoutbase about this Tim asked what we did. Caroline said that Gareth and her were rewriting the cube guidance sheet which would include this and that it would be based on the national high ropes guidance sheet. She will email it out to the team.
Ann brought up the need for risk assessment in light of a case where a cub pack was being sued because they did not have a written risk assessment for a game they were playing. The meeting though this was strange as it was thought that at a meeting night a dynamic risk assessment was acceptable.
Ann had done a bare bones risk assessment for hill walking and thought that maybe the county should have them available for all activities.
The meeting agreed that as risk assessments should be done for individual activities only a list of pointers should be drawing up. Keith eventually agreed to compile it. It will be sent out to the team and put on the website. Also to include the risk assessment fact sheet and the Health & Safety 5 steps to risk assessment.
Caroline had been talking to Neil Wills who is the new national hill walking adviser at the MLTA conference along with other scout hill walking assessors. He was concerned with the syllabus and wanted feed back. She is to get him to send out asking for feed back.
It was reported that scoutbase was now able to have assessors added to the database. However Keith pointed out that after getting an email about this from the activities office, that he miss read and assuming he was to do it that it has to be done by the CC as he is the only one with the right database privileges. There is also some confusion at county level as to who actually appoints assessors. Keith has clarified the correct process with HQ and will talk with Andrew.
Caroline is organising a 16 hour first aid course for those who need one details to follow.
It was reported that after some uncertainty the store is to remain open.
The next meeting is to be on Wednesday 24th March at 20:00 venue to be decided.