AUTUMN 2019 UPDATE

We were so busy over the Summer that we missed our Summer update and Autumn is already passing on. The photo above of the Virginia Creeper on the Centre was taken last week whilst it was still in its Autumn glory. Most of the leaves have now fallen. The seasons move on and so does the Centre. We are very proud to announce the news below:

We have just been inspected for and awarded the AHOEC Gold Standard. This is the highest accreditation for our sector and is the Outdoor Centre equivalent of an OFSTED Very Good to Outstanding. We were assessed in 9 areas such as Learning & Development, Safety Management and Customer Care. All 59 criteria had to average at a least very good standard to get this accreditation.
It is the result of a tremendous team effort from all the staff at Deanfield to make the Centre a great place to visit.

Deanfield is very much about the outdoors and we have even tried to bring a bit of it to our dining room! A new 'living wall' reflects the forest we are surrounded by and is enjoyed by all who dine with us. New paint on the walls, new curtains and plants complete the theme.

As well as our dining room we have also given our lounge a complete refurb. A complete redecoration including new carpet, curtains and chairs that hopefully creates a warm homely feel for relaxing in or using as a meeting room.

Deanfield is always developing and improving (as this Blog shows) and there are several more developments in the pipeline that we look forward to telling you about in our Winter update.

DFSC Spring 2019 Update

The Bluebells are at their peak at the moment, soon to be gone for another year.

This is the scene from our nest box yesterday. Mum and Dad are busy feeding 9 Blue Tit chicks that hatched over the weekend. The live feed goes to a TV in our field studies lab where groups base themselves for our stream study.

The forest sheep have been regular visitors outside the Centre through the Spring, grazing on the grass in the village.

Steam trains are also again regular visitors to the village with their seasonal timetable in operation several days a week.

The end of an era...we recently wished Lyn a happy retirement after 27 years working at the Centre as a cleaner!  Lyn was our longest serving member of staff and we gave her a good send off with a surprise staff gathering where we presented her with a long service award and retirement gifts.

We have also been busy over the last few months doing some bathroom refurbishment. Below is one of two showers on the first floor that have been given a new look with fresh tiles and fittings and are now operational

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.

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...

DFSC Spring 2016 Update

Spring came early to The Dean Field Studies Centre and we had Daffodils in bloom in January. As elsewhere Spring has then lasted a long time!



We made good use of the cold weather to get lots of indoor jobs sorted like painting the Dining Room & the whole of the First Floor accommodation.

We also got some new carpets laid in some of the bedrooms.



The stairs and landings got a full make over with completely new treads and nosings etc.

All the bedrooms on the first floor now have new ceiling tiles to compliment the modern bright flush fitting LED light units.



The Staff Shower on the First Floor was completely refurbished from floor to ceiling.

 

The world class Forest of Dean Bluebells are just coming into their prime now (they should be at their best this weekend if you can make it over to see them) Summer is just around the corner and we're now on to a list of outdoor projects that need doing.

 

First on the list is a new bridge over our stream in the Centre Garden.

Subscribe to our You Tube Channel to see the latest videos we have published. This one is of doing our Zip Wire and a Ropes Course Swing with a wheelchair user.

DFSC Early Winter Update

Coracle Building & Relay Racing is a new activity we introduced this year, but it has certainly now got too cold for what you will see in the following 2 minute video!:

 

The lawn mowers are now locked away for the Winter and we've got the Christmas decorations up:

We are presently in the process of changing all of the Main Centre lights to LEDs to save energy. We are also installing PIR sensors in many areas so that they switch on and off automatically.

The Garden Room now has some new disco lights for those last evening discos and karaoke/talent shows. Also great for our outside groups booking parties.

At this time of year the garden lights have also been useful when finishing afternoon sessions as it gets dark

Some of them act as feature lighting that can change colour, like the ones illuminating our bamboo

The Roundhouse has also had it's Christmas makeover with fairy lights to brighten it up inside and out

Meanwhile the Common Room now has 2 new table football machines and a new air hockey machine. All 3 are durable arcade quality machines

The Air Hockey is proving particularly popular with students when they have a few spare minutes

We have more purchases planned for the Common Room/Games Room. Watch this space...