Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
Approximately 18,000 young people come to the Peak District every year to undertake a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition. The numbers are only likely to increase due to a drive by DofE Head Office to get more and more young people involved.
As many of you may know I was the Co-ordinator of the Peak Expedition Panel (now the Peak Assessor Network) – the body overseeing DofE expeditions in the Peak District- for the past 7 years. Until my redundancy last month I acted as the “bridge” between incoming DofE teams and the people that live and work in our national park, and over that time I came to realise the importance of such a post.
Alstonefield and the surrounding villages are a honeypot area for Bronze and Silver level expeditions due the fantastic network of public rights of way and the availability of campsites in the area, not to mention the stunning views! With this enormous number of young people and their leaders visiting us there can be frictions.
With this in mind, if you have any comments or issues, please do feel free to contact the Peak Assessor Network through www.dofe.org or email peakdistrict@dofe.org, where the (now voluntary) co-ordinator will be pleased to help.
Alternatively, if you catch me round the village, let me know and I will happily pass on messages.
With very many thanks for all your support, and long may it continue.
Its good to see so many young people walking through our village. They all seem to be well behaved and I don’t have any personal gripes at all. I have heard of three minor problems that may crop up occasionally: 1. Dropping litter. There’s not much evidence of this and in any case its not a big problem. 2. Leaving notes pinned to notice boards, trees etc. These seem to disappear by the end of the day, so again, its not a problem and 3. Climbing over dry-stone walls (when lost?) and inevitably dislodging stones. I guess this equally applies to all walkers. I welcome these youngsters. Our village would be the poorer without them.