In December, the Young Explorers' Trust held their bi-annual Forum on Youth Expeditions.

This was the first organised by STC director Adrian Ferraro in his new role on the Trust's National Council.

December's forum was on 'Communicating the expedition experience' - coverering both the benefits and potential problems of arranging expeditions in an hyper-connected world.

Speakers included:

Jamie Buchan-Dunlop, (Digital Explorer): The need and means to bring the educational benefits of expeditions to a wider audience.

Ardy Mohammadi (Student) Chair of the Mountaineering Club at The John Lyon School: Expedition reporting: Communicating expedition field research & results
The Green-Lyon Greenland Expedition – a research and mountaineering expedition

Paul Cornish, Coopers’ Company and Coborn School: Educational Journey of the Year – a presentation from winning trip in 2012

and and afternoon round table debate on:
“Social Media, Mobiles and Safety management” – managing information flow from the field. The pros and
cons of a connected world & how to manage mis-communication and non-containment of incidents.

Full notes from the day can be downloaded here (pdf).

The forum is open to anyone interested in youth expeditions and serves as a platform to debate and discuss a wide range of topics.

The next forum will be held at:

Peter Symonds College
Owens Road,
Winchester,
Hampshire,
SO22 6RX
www.psc.ac.uk

Date to be decided, but likely to be in late April or early May and the topic will be:

Inclusive Expeditions: Issues, opportunities and ensuring expeditions remain open to all, whatever background, behaviour and/or physical ability

On which topic, you may be interested in the a BBC programme from December: ‘The hottest classroom on earth’ about ten pupils with behavioural problems on an expedition to Tanzania.

iplayer Link is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01pd177/