Forty eight cadets aged between 13 and 18 years from Greater London South East Sector, Army Cadet Force spend the half term break (27 May to 3 June 2023) in Eryri (Snowdonia), North Wales as part of an adventurous training package aimed at challenging and developing the young people by encouraging them to try new experiences and promoting a sense of adventure and challenge.
As part of the action-packed week, the cadets took part in a series of different adrenalin-filled activities which included: mountain walking, kayaking, coasteering rock climbing, and mine exploration. The week also included a local walk including a fascinating and educational visit in and around the Llanberis Slate Museum followed by a trip to Caernarvon. During the week, many cadets also made an effort in learning some Welsh words.
One evening we were also privileged to receive a presenter from the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Centre who provided some fascinating and also sobering tales of mountain safety and rescue which was very popular with the cadets and adults.
The young people are from a wide range of diverse and multi-cultural backgrounds from the South London Boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham, Greenwich Bexley and Bromley. The camp was an opportunity for cadets to learn outdoor skills and stretch comfort zones in a safe environment. It also strengthened their teamwork, confidence and communication skills as well as many other inter-personal skills.
Several cadets overcome their initial fear of water and swimming and quickly developed to the extent that they volunteered later on for quite challenging water tasks and on a following day coasteering which was an amazing achievement in building confidence and stretching their comfort zones.
Notable quotes from cadets were:
“My favourite activity was mine exploration as we put a lot of our skills learnt so far into practice all in one day. I also loved learning about the history of slate mining e.g. that children some as young as 8 years old used to work down the mines”.
“I loved coasteering especially jumping off the high cliffs and rocks, it seemed really scary at first but also great fun at the same time and was well supervised.
“Climbing Snowdon was the best day ever!”
‘The kayaking was wonderful and the best day I enjoyed, it was really good fun, I want to really get into kayaking in the future.”
“I really enjoyed the mountain walk (up Snowdon) it was a real opportunity to push myself”.
“The Slate mine and the mountain walks were fantastic; it was a great feeling climbing the mountain”.
Our adult staff also reported that their cadets were raving about the camp afterwards to adults and to each other.
The weather was exceptionally favourable – warm, sunny and blue skies all week, quite rare for Snowdonia!
Overall, it was a great really positive week. For some cadets this was the first time for many of them to access the great outdoors and from conversations during the camp it appears that some cadets had not really been out of London before. Therefore, this adventurous training camp was very important in building the motivation and wider outlook of cadets and adults in our Sector. And after the success of this camp, we aim to continue providing adventurous training in Snowdonia and elsewhere as part of our wider offer to our cadets.
The cadets and adults are immensely grateful to the Ulysses Trust for their very generous funding provided to this project which was used towards offsetting the cost of each cadet attending. It made our project a real success and was really appreciated!
The Ulysses Trust also wish to thank the generosity of Army Sport for supporting this expedition britisharmysport.com
