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Junior Ranger Programme
in North York Moors National Park
I was one of the people invited to the Berchtesgaden National Park workshop in September 2003, to find out about the EUROPARC Junior Ranger Programme that had been started in various countries. My remit as far as the North York Moors National Park Authority (NYMNPA) was concerned, was to investigate whether it was something that we could become involved with. So after very useful and interesting seminars I went back to formulate a plan that would work for us in North York Moors National Park.We have had two very well-received training days
Most of the continental European Junior Ranger Programmes revolved around a Youth Camp. This was not really an option for us, as the Junior Ranger Programme would be run by full-time Rangers and would be too time consuming for our limited resources. So the best option was to initiate a long-term programme with individual training days based on the EUROPARC training framework.
Once this step of finding a way of delivering a Junior Ranger Programme was reached, the next stage was to find funding. We were very fortunate in this in having a contact within the Nationwide Building Society who came on board as our commercial partners to fund a two year trial programme. This funding was mainly to cover transport and corporate identity costs as well as some external training funds.
The programme outline involved recruiting 12 Junior Rangers (Year 10) and one Mentor (Year 11) from two schools on the edge of the National Park, and to involve them in 12 training days over 21 months from November 2004 to July 2006. I spoke to all Year 10 students at Ryedale School on the southern edge of the National Park and likewise at Laurence Jackson School on the northern edge. I invited anyone who was interested to apply to become a Junior Ranger. Once this was done we selected the 12 candidates and initiated the training programme.
The training programme is being delivered by my colleagues in the Ranger Service, whilst I concentrate on being the point-of-contact and take responsibility for logistics. The twelve training days are:
So far we have had two very well-received training days looking at the first two topics. All we need now is some luck with the weather, as we have had to postpone the two most recent training days due to high winds and heavy snow respectively.
Simon
Bassindale
Ranger: North York Moors National Park Authority