The National Navigation Award Scheme is a 3 level Navigation scheme, Bronze Silver and Gold, taking people from a level where they can’t read a map or use a compass to being accomplished Navigators. At a time when these skills are at a premium amongst people going to the hills for the first time due to Covid, it’s a very useful addition to our products. We offer at the moment, Bronze and Silver Courses, we will be offering Gold courses in the near future.
Our Bronze courses are delivered over 2 days in Mugdock park and Carron Valley on the Campsies, with a journey and ascent of Meilkle Bin, the highest point on the Campsies on day 2. The bronze course teaches you to Navigate on paths and uses pacing and timing to achieve accuracy in both planning a trip and executing it. Our first few courses have been offered mainly to our existing clients in order that we could achieve realistic and meaningfull feedback on the products we were delivering.
Day 1 of the bronze begins with a socially distanced Coffee and an explanation of what the 2 days will entail and an explanation of maps and their different scales. We then move out into the park for a map setting exercise and a journey through the park using an orienteering map. Our candidates take a turn at navigating us along different legs of tthe journey. They are introduced to pacing and timing, contour lines, handrailing, collecting and catchment features ea ch skill is progressively introduced and built on the previous skill before we know it is 4 in the afternoon!
Day 2 is the assessment day. It’s continual assessment and working on the skills we learned the day before. We go on a journey summitting Meikle Bin. It’s a long walk working on pacing and timing and orientating the map. It’s amazing how much people’s skills improve as the day progresses and their skills increase! At the end of the day we have a debrief and tell people their results! After a happy ending people generally leave with a desire to learn more.
