Autumn 2018 Update

The Centre building used to be the Forestry Commission's college for training their forestry managers over a 2 year residential course. The college ran from 1900 - 1970, with a break during the Second World War when it was occupied by the American Army. We occasionally have visitors coming to see us who once trained at the college and are on a nostalgic trip. It is always interesting listening to the stories of what these men used to get up to when they lived here. Recently we had some of the  students from the last course to run that visited us as part of their reunion.

They were impressed with some of the changes that have happened including the much more modern bathroom facilities than they had! - see below

Over the Summer Holiday, Mike, one of our maintenance team, was busy refurbishing the First Floor Shower Room. It now looks a lot more modern and mirror lights even come on automatically as you enter the room!

With so many digital devices needing charging up these days, we've put in lots of  new surge protected power outlets into the tuck shop. This now allows visiting staff to safely and securely charge up their various devices. We also have our own tablets and cameras charging there that are used for a Photo Challenge activity, along with our two way radios.

 At this time of year we seem to get Ladybirds coming into some of the bedrooms, presumably to hibernate. We've built them some 'Ladybird Hotels' on the outside of the windows that we hope they will choose to use instead!

We've also had several wildlife sightings of a larger kind recently. Several groups have been lucky enough to see wild boar in the forest. This used to be a rare occurrence, probably as children are often making too much noise, but has been more frequent as of late. Mind you it is over the next few months that the Forestry Commission cull the numbers by several hundred and so the chance of seeing these animals may again diminish.

Summer 2018 Update

After a cold Spring we've had a very hot and dry Summer. In many ways this has been great for our groups undertaking outdoor activities, but the ground is parched and to be honest we could do with some rain!

 Despite the thick stone walls of the building, this year heat has been building up in some of the bedrooms. We've now got oscillating fans for all bedrooms to help keep people cool.

Activity wise we have also made some new developments. One of our favourite areas of woodland has been out of bounds to us over the summer due to felling operations by the Forestry Commission. Instead we've been doing some orienteering and den building in other areas of nearby woodland. We've also developed a Centre grounds orienteering star course that is a good practice for these bigger courses or for use by younger groups and as a quick extra activity.

As well as a very busy Summer running courses at the Centre we have also been into schools. Below are a couple of photos from a day we ran at a school where we worked with the whole school from Reception Class to Year 6. The students participated in team problem solving challenges, orienteering and bushcraft.

 Whilst the reception children were toasting marshmallows the older pupils were fire lighting and cooking dough twist dampers over open fires.

We've added another activity video to our You Tube Chanel - this time a quick look at our archery range - click on link below:

 Archery at DFSC - You Tube video

DFSC Spring 2018 Update

 Spring 2018 brought its challenges with snow and cold weather at times. And when it melted our pond flooded!

Despite this we carried on running some very successful outdoor learning courses, predominantly with Year 4 groups, who got on with things despite the weather. They had great fun and dealt with all the challenges with great resilience.

 A lot of our developments over the last few months have been the sort that don't visually stand out but are nevertheless important maintenance and upgrades, particularly for safety. E.g our main fire staircase has had new landing platforms installed and has been completely painted. It has gone form being white to black, to be less intrusive to the architecture of the building.

Also just visible, top right, is a new upgraded lightning conductor and surge protection device that have been installed to comply with new regulations.

 The stair treads all have new high visibility non-slip plates on them so that they can be easily seen.

 Also related to fire safety, we have been replacing all our bedroom fire doors with new more modern fire doors. There are also some new emergency lights in the building and again we have spent £000's upgrading some of our lighting to be more efficient and offer greater security and safety.

Another small electrical addition has been a new water boiler to the kitchen in the Garden Room. This now greatly facilitates making hot chocolate for 60+ students when they're having their disco or talent show evening. 

 In February we ran a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Inspection Training Course. This was attended by 12 Instructors from various Outdoor Centres around the country. It provided useful additional training in the best ways to inspect and record checks on all climbing related equipment.

 Every item is individually coded and reference to its serial number for inspection twice a year in addition to its pre-use check.

Obviously safety is a key priority when looking after our groups but we do still try to keep our activities exciting and adventurous and sometimes there remains an element of risk that is integral to the challenge. Our crate stacking is a good example of this and we have recently uploaded a new You Tube video of this in action - see below. Our risk/benefit assessment manages the main hazards but there remains the possibility of being hit by a falling crate or getting bumped when the stack collapses. An element of unpredictability keeps the activity exciting for all concerned. The benefits in terms of developed teamwork, communication skills, trust and cooperation etc. outweigh the risks and provide learning outcomes that would not be so easily attained with a mundane non-adventurous challenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq3s_CPQQgQ 

Winter 2018 Update

The beginning of January saw us busy with the usual Winter jobs of painting and filling in potholes in the carpark etc.

We've also been making some welcome new developments at the Centre

 

The dining room now has special acoustic muffling panels installed on the ceiling to reduce the noise of voices in the room. So far visiting staff are very pleased with the improvement!

 

The dining room also has a nice new heater on the wall that even just visually helps to thaw you out after a chilly morning outside!

We've added some new emergency torches to all the staff bed rooms that are on a constant top up charge and flash on in the event of a powercut

We've already welcomed our 9th group of 2018 to the Centre and groups have been enjoying their activities and getting back to a warm and cosy house. Spring however  is hopefully just around the corner...