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Mountain Leader Training Association Developments in coaching MLT has also been tasked to set up a parallel coaching qualifications structure. You can click here to access the preliminary report on coaching, which led to the coaching project.
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| What does MLT actually do? |
Have you ever wondered what MLT actually does, other than registrations? |
| Major job vacancy at Mountain Leader Training |
Mountain Leader Training (MLT) Executive Officer A new post to lead the development and coordination of Mountain Training in Wales, Scotland, England & Northern Ireland. Mountain Leader Training is seeking to appoint an individual to manage, modernise and develop its business. The Executive Officer’s primary purpose is to undertake this task. The successful candidate will lead on the work of MLT and coordinate the contributions of the Home Nation Board (HNB) Technical Officers to the benefit of all mountain training. He or she, with the Technical Officers, will act as the spokespersons for mountain training in the UK and develop its role and profile. He or she will liaise with a wide range of user groups in the promotion of the interests of MLT and mountain training in general. The person appointed will effectively be the voice of MLT and will need to have the capacity and drive to take on that role. The role will focus on collaborating with the Boards to formulate a business and finance strategy to ensure the continued commercial development of the exceptional range of services the Boards provide. The ability to manage complex organisations will be essential. Experience of strategic links with Government, business and partnership working at all levels will be important. The successful applicant should have: • Company financial development experience • Budget management experience. • Committee administration experience • Effective written and verbal communication skills The successful candidate will need to be familiar with the mountain training awards and a mountaineering background would be an advantage. A knowledge of the complexity of national & local government initiatives for sport & education will be a major asset. MLT actively promotes equality. Starting salary for this post will be in the range of £40,000-£44 000 Application details are available from Sue Doyle, MLT, Capel Curig, Conwy LL24 0ES Tel: 01690 720 272 Fax: 01690 720 248 Email: sue@mltuk.org Closing date for return of completed applications is 12 Noon on 26th February, 2010 with interviews scheduled for 17th/18th March 2010. |
| The Climbing Wall Leading Award - new in 2010! |
The CWLA has been designed to train and assess those who wish to teach lead climbing skills on indoor or outdoor artificial climbing walls and structures with fixed protection. This includes a wide range of structures (including, for example towers and mobile climbing walls) which will be referred to throughout as ‘walls’. These structures are deemed to have safety equipment, such as top anchors, in place and are maintained through a management regime. The award is concerned with ensuring good practice when developing leading skills. It covers the introduction, coaching and on-going development of the technical and movement skills required to lead routes. The scheme will launch on March 19th 2010 and MLT will begin processing registrations in the near future - watch this space |
| British Mountain Guides Open Day |
Saturday 22nd May 2010 The British Association of Mountain Guides, BMG, is to hold an Open Day at Plas y Brenin, Capel Curig, North Wales on Saturday 22 May 2010. The BMG first ran this event in 2006 with 25 participants attending the day which was aimed at promoting Guiding as a career and explaining the BMG training scheme; it is open to alpinists who would like to find out more about the profession of guiding as a career. The life of a mountain guide is very rewarding, yet can be very demanding and it is important from the outset to attract the right calibre of climbers and mountaineers. The pre requirements for joining the BMG training scheme are extensive, and part of the open day will focus on helping participants achieve these objectives. This is a great opportunity to meet the BMG Training officer, Guides involved in the training scheme and also to get to know BMG guides who can assist you on your road to becoming an IFMGA guide. All participants must have extensive British and Alpine climbing and mountaineering experience and have a genuine interest in guiding as a career. This day should be of particular interest to experienced alpinists and MIC holders with alpine experience. Potential applicants should not worry if they haven’t yet achieved the level of the BMG training Scheme entry requirements, as part of the open day is to give you advice on how best to attain these pre requisites. You should however expect to be able to meet these entry requirements within the next 5 years. If in doubt send in an application and we will advise you. There is a small charge of £30 to cover lunch and all presentations / activities (which is, however, only to be paid when an application is successful) Application forms must be submitted by email or post to reach the BMG by the 1st May 2010 and are available, along with all details of the open day and the scheme in general, in the ‘guide training’ section of the BMG website: www.bmg.org.uk For further information email: guiding@bmg.org.uk or contact the BMG office at BMG, Siabod Cottage, Capel Curig LL24 0ES. Telephone 01690 720386. |
| Coaching qualifications |
MLT has begun work on developing a coaching qualifications pathway, after the National Source Group completed a 3 year UK-wide consultation process. The relationship between mountaineering activities, performance, competition and motivation has always been a complex and sensitive balance. Understandably there has been a lot of interest in this and also not a little consternation from current award holders. Fear not! we don't intend to undermine the existing qualifications. The coaching qualifications will be accessible as training for people who don't hold our qualifications - perhaps being locally accredited to use a specific wall. However the existing qualifications will be an essential qualification for anybody who wishes to become a nationally qualified coach. In the meantime, the BMC's Long Term Athlete Development workshops are expanding in 2010 beyond the original, influential FUNdamentals workshop. These workshops are highly recommended as training events for coaches, and the next title, "Learning to train" will be piloted in early 2010. Background reading about the coaching qualifications: |
| New edition of National Guidelines |
The new fully-revised edition of the National Guidelines document is now available for download from the MLT website. This booklet has been very influential and include the matrix of qualifications and operating remits. Click here to open the document (print resolution)
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| September 2009 Board meeting at Tollymore, Northern Ireland |
A report of the September MLT Board meeting is available here. |
| AALA Safety Alert - Belay Devices used with Ground Anchors |
AALA have published a useful and interesting document about the use of belay devices with anchors: this can be found at the following web address: http://www.aals.org.uk/lessons_learnt.php/articleTypeID=4 |
| MLTA annual conference 2009 |
The now annual MLTA Conference took place at Plas y Brenin in the last weekend of October, when 50 members braved the stormy weather. The event included a wide range of further training workshops, delivered by leading experts. Delegates were also able to socialise and network with a great exchange of ideas and enthusiasm on show. Workshops were run by: Martin Chester and Dave Rudkin from PYB; George and Maggie Yeomans; Katherine Schirrmacher; James Thacker, Neil Johnson and Dave Hollinger from Peak Mountain Training; Nick Liley from Calvert Trust Lake District; Pete Robertson( Lyon Equipment) and Dan Middleton ( BMC). One delegates was overheard to be saying that his highlight of the weekend was the trip to the DMM factory in Llanberis, courtesy of Chris Rowlands of DMM! Thanks go to all staff involved in making the weekend such a success and especially to PYB and staff for the fantastic welcome. Thanks also to sponsors of the event who included Trekmates, Paramo, DMM, the BMC, Lyon Equipment, Joe Brown shops, Cotswold and Trail magazine. |
| MIA review survey |
| Mountain Leader Training is conducting a review of the Mountaineering Instructor Award and has been actively seeking feedback and suggestions from a broad range of stakeholders including award holders, employers, voluntary organisations and other interested parties. We have designed an online survey which we believe is reasonably straightforward to complete but will give us a lot of useful information about how the award is perceived and used. I would be most grateful if you can complete the survey before our closing date of October 31st, 2009. Please feel free to pass this link on to anybody else who you feel would wish to be consulted. We would prefer all forms to be completed online so that we can process the data more easily, but appreciate that this does not suit everybody: you are welcome to contact me directly if you would prefer a printable version of the survey or would like to discuss the MIA with me. The survey is now officially closed but actually you can still make your voice heard until the end of November at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=k2ny8OfI5zWs_2fK04VtFYlg_3d_3d |
| Designing first aid courses to service MLT courses |
We are regularly getting asked for advice on this, so here's a statement from the chief officer. We don't police this, so it is up to the assessor (and candidate) to satisfy him or herself that the first aid course fits the criteria. Some people use the awards in more remote places than others so we just specify the minimum requirement. For the WGL, for example, the remit criterion is that the area is easily exited within a few hours, so prolonged casualty care is less likely than for an ML holder. When there is any doubt they contact us and we simply go through the syllabus requirements, extracted below. So you can assure your participants that the course meets the criteria required by the Boards if you can go through the syllabus tick list (which is very open as you can see) and agree that it matches all points. FIRST AID REQUIREMENTS For any leader, First Aid is an essential skill and our assessments require a current first aid qualification. The minimum requirement for the outdoor schemes is that such a course must involve at least two full days or sixteen hours of instruction and include an element of assessment. Candidates are further expected to undertake such additional elements of first aid training as are consistent with their work in wild and remote country, including emergency assistance and evacuation techniques. It is the responsibility of award holders and/or their employers to evaluate their likely work and the type of situations that they can reasonably expect to encounter and to maintain current appropriate first aid training and qualifications. In addition, here are some specific items to be covered: First aid training is about risk management, so the trainer needs to cover the sort of things that are more likely to go wrong on the hill. Given the restricted time available, incidents such as poisoning through industrial cleaning fluid, for example, would be a low priority topic for WGL candidates whereas environmental injuries such as heat or cold exhaustion, or even drowning, would be much higher up the list. This is the sort of thing that is sometimes best done by getting the candidates to brainstorm everything that could go wrong on an expedition, and write up the topics that require specific first aid training for the first aid course. In addition to primary and secondary care, casualty examination and basic “ABCDE” life support I would certainly expect the following to be covered (not an exhaustive list!):
Finally, I would recommend that the course should be as "hands on" in emphasis as possible, keeping lecture style to a minimum and group participation to a maximum. First aid training should be about building skills and confidence first, knowledge second. |
