TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES – BOOKING COURSES
Trefriw Walkers are Welcome, as an organisation, is keen to support people who wish to improve their outdoor skills and who are committed to volunteering at Trefriw Walking Festival.
THE OUTDOOR PARTNERSHIP
Trefriw Walkers are Welcome is now a full (silver) member of the Outdoor Partnership. You can read more about them on their website – www.outdoorpartnership.co.uk. This means that people affiliated to us who wish to improve their skills by taking an O.P. course (such as walk leading or first aid) can do so at the cost of just £20 a day, rather than the full cost.
Please note the present situation regarding payment for courses –
Organising Committee members : We will pay the £20 daily rate for you on any O.P. approved course, so there is no cost to yourself.
Walk Leaders : We will pay the £20 daily rate for you if you enrol on a First Aid course, so there is no cost to yourself. However, if you wish to enrol on a Walk Leader course leading to a qualification, please do so, using our O.P. membership, but currently you will need to pay the £20 daily rate yourself.
WALK LEADING
An Introduction to Walk Leading
We now have our own comprehensive induction package – a Powerpoint presentation – produced in co-operation with Roger Pierce of the Outdoor Partnership, to whom we are very grateful. You can download it as a .pdf from the Admin page or from here: Trefriw Walking Festival – walk leader training
Accredited Walk Leader Courses:
- Lowland Leader (2 days)
- Hill & Moorland Leader (3 days)
- Mountain Leader (5 days)
These accredited courses comprise 2 parts – the training and the assessment. You might choose to attend the training without necessarily taking the assessment at a later date.
The content and necessary pre-requisites for these courses can be found at www.mountain-training.org (which is also linked from the Outdoor Partnership website).
Please note that these Leadership courses require you to create an account on their Candidate Management System, and to register for the Scheme, which costs £44. You will need to pay this yourself.
REC (Rescue Emergency Care) FIRST AID COURSE
We wish to encourage Walk Leaders who work with us to keep their First Aid qualification up to date, or perhaps to get one for the first time. This 2-day REC course, geared to the outdoors, leads to a qualification valid for 3 years.
BOOKING PROCEDURE FOR THE ABOVE COURSES
(It’s not as complicated as it might at first appear!)
Note: All Outdoor Partnership bookings are now done online. The website is occasionally ‘tweaked’ to improve it, but the following notes should still apply.
STEP 1 – Register with the Outdoor Partnership. (Skip this if you have previously registered – you only need to do this the once.)
To register with the Outdoor Partnership, go to their website: www.outdoorpartnership.co.uk.
Click on ‘volunteer support’, then scroll down and click on ‘register’.
Set up an account with your email address, and make up your own password. You’ll be sent an email to verify the email address. On clicking the link in that email, you’ll be asked to give some personal details for your ‘profile’. (These can be changed at any point later from your ‘dashboard’.) When it asks for your club, scroll down the list to find ‘Trefriw Walkers are Welcome’. Having completed the form you’ll get an email back; clicking on the link will activate your account.
STEP 2 – Let us know that you’ve registered. (Again, skip this if you have previously registered.)
Having registered, we will need to ‘approve’ you as a member of our Trefriw group before you can book on a course (it’s their security check), so please now email us (contact.trefriwwalkingfestival@gmail.com) just to say that you’ve registered as a member of the O.P. and are now ready to book on your course (tell us what it is, please). Within 24 hours we’ll ‘approve’ you on the O.P. website and email back to say that you can now book your course.
STEP 3 – Book your course.
From the O.P. website, log in using the ‘person’ icon (top-right) on the home page. This takes you to your ‘dashboard’.
Click on ‘courses’, then choose the type of course you want (for First Aid, click first on ‘Walking & Hiking’) then choose a provider. The O.P. recommends locally-based companies such as 1firstaid1 (http://1firstaid1.co.uk), Active First Aid (www.activefirstaid.co.uk), Snowdonia First Aid (www.snowdoniafirstaid.co.uk) and Emergency First Aid (http://effectivefirstaid.co.uk). All these providers are good, and their websites will tell you about their locations and what the Emergency Outdoor First Aid course entails.
On submitting this, this requests approval from the O.P. for you to attend the course. (This is just so that they can ensure that they fund appropriate courses and that they have adequate funding for it before the providers invoice them.) They will email confirmation that you’re good to proceed.
STEP 4 – Go to your chosen provider’s website and book your place on the course. (If they want to invoice you the full fee of £100+, please contact them and inform them that the Outdoor Partnership should be invoiced because you’re with Trefriw Walkers are Welcome, and ask how you should then proceed.)
STEP 5 – Pay
Once you’ve reserved your place on the course with your chosen provider, you can then ‘add to cart’ and pay.
The O.P. website will ask for the £20 (daily) fee, payable online; they accept credit cards and also PayPal (click on the yellow ‘pay with PayPal’ button to then either ‘Log in to PayPal’ or ‘Pay by Debit or Credit Card’). In the first instance, please pay this yourself. If it’s a First Aid course (or another course where we have agreed to pay your course fee), please email us a copy of the payment receipt and we’ll reimburse you, so there will be no cost to yourself.
If you have any queries or difficulties with the booking process, please get back to us, but your best bet is probably to contact Siân at the Outdoor Partnership – she’s very helpful: sian.williams@partneriaeth-awyr-agored.co.uk or ring her on 01690 720168.
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OTHER (NON-OUTDOOR PARTNERSHIP) COURSES
City & Guilds Basic Food Hygiene – Level 2
This course can be done on-line and takes 2-3 hours to complete. Details here: www.virtual-college.co.uk
To book you will need to:
Step 1 – Initially inform us of what you want to do (contact.trefriwwalkingfestival@gmail.com)
Step 2 – Approval will be quickly given by a designated person on the Committee. We will reimburse your on-line payment, provided there is a record of the payment.
** IMPORTANT ** – OUTDOOR PARTNERSHIP CANCELLATION POLICY
IMPORTANT – Please note that any person cancelling without adequate warning (within 4 weeks) or who fails to attend any course/workshop will not be able to reclaim their course fee and will be asked to pay the remaining cost of the course incurred by the Outdoor Partnership.
Please note that if you cancel, and fees are payable, these will NOT be covered by Trefriw Walkers Are Welcome – YOU will be asked to cover this cost.
If you have any further queries about training, please contact us (contact.trefriwwalkingfestival@gmail.com) and we’ll do our best to help!