In2venture

In2venture at Work.

Young people …………………… different viewpoint.

In Borrowdale with the Salvation Army.

On Good Friday In2venture went caving, venue was Great Douk followed by Sunset Hole both on the flank of Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales. What a winter its been, Ingleborough looked great.

There was the usual faff over kit

Before we set off to find the “Bear Cave” entrance to Great Douk

Its a nice trip through Great Douk, starting with some walking – but I always forget how long the crawl is. I was convinced it would be dry given the conditions but it wasn’t!

So, Great Douk finished & spirits still high we set off across the moor to Sunset Hole – a long time favourite of mine! Sunset presumably named after the orange colours that decorate the walls in several places is a fine clean washed meandering stream passage with several small climbs down, culminating in a really pleasant pitch. We all journeyed to the pitch-head before turning lights out & giving some thought to Good Friday, before those who weren’t doing the pitch returned to the surface whilst the others enjoyed (?) the abseil & ladder climb of this ca. 50′ pitch.

There was an awful lot of endeavour on both the pitch & the exit to the cave. The final emergence back to daylight producing some classic photos

Good effort!!

Sunday afternoon saw the In2venture community meet at Barnard Castle for an afternoon on the River Tees to look at open canoe skills. It was a cool afternoon with the air temperature at just 4 degC but the river level was perfect for our needs.

It was great to see three folk who have never canoed before come to the session along with Paul & Adrian from COAC In2venture and Dave Magnall. We divided into two groups with Ferg working on a range of boat control skills with those who had never paddled before whilst Alan & myself spent time ferry gliding; breaking in/out; reverse ferry gliding with the others – all good stuff! We only had one swimmer and Ferg did a great job getting his group on to the moving water before the end of the afternoon.

It was good to see John & Karen Pear get down for a visit!

Well; Friday the first of March came around; the preparations were complete and the eighth In2venture Activity Weekend at Blaithwaite House got underway. A massive thanks to the nineteen folk who turned out – it was great to meet you all, both new faces and returning friends. Great company; great activities; great food; great location – a very enjoyable weekend.

Folk gathered at Blaithwaite House from Friday afternoon and final activity choices for Saturday were made. The social dimension of the weekend got off to a good start in the evening – I retired at midnight but there was still a good gathering around the log burner.

Day 1

We all met at Seathwaite, which must be one of the best Lakeland access points for all kinds of activity, and after the usual last minute of faff with kit split into groups and set off for an ascent of Sour Milk Gill.

The scrambling in Sour Milk Gill is excellent, ample challenge but with the option to step out at just about any point. We got the rope out twice to provide security on the more exposed sections – everybody reached the top of the scramble without significant incident.

At this point the group divided according to activity choices made the night before with some turning left and heading for an off-piste route on to Base Brown followed by a walk along the ridge before descending towards Taylor Force Gill & Sty Head Tarn and then returning to Seathwaite.

The remainder of the group carried on up the fell from Sour Milk Gill to tackle Seathwaite Wad Mine (as two independent smaller groups). This is a great underground trip: the abseils – a challenge to some; were enjoyed by all with the added bonus of a traverse across the Grand Pipe to finish in daylight!

Back at the Centre sweet & sour chicken with rice and apple sponge were the precursor to another enjoyable evening around the log burner in the Main House.

Day 2

Activity choices were: a very wet day Gorge Walking in the River Lidd at Penton or an open canoe workshop at the same venue. The group split about 50/50. I spent the morning with the canoeists along with Ferg, whilst Alan & Graham guided the group up the gorge – it must have been really cold in the river!

The Canoeists, meanwhile, divided into two smaller groups one of which spent the morning with Ferg looking at a range of paddle skills aimed at being able to get tandem open canoes to go where you want them to on flat water. The rest were with me & we had a go at: moving water skills; forward paddling and a bit of poling!

The weekend wound up with lunch back at Blaithwaite & lots of farewells – brilliant!

Thanks to John Wood for the photography, there are a full set of his pictures on Flickr

In2venture now has a Flickr Photostream.

You can access the photography directly from the tool bar on the right hand side of this page. The most recent photos will appear as “Thumbnails” to access older sets click on “More Photos”

There are just two trial sets published to date:

Caving in Bull Pot of the Witches

&

High Spy via Nitting Haws

Future photography will appear via Flickr in full – hope you enjoy it!

It was another good day with the “In2venture Community” on Saturday.

Dry weather but enough water about from recent rainfall & snow melt provided perfect conditions for the visit of a group of eight to Birkwith & Browgill-Calf Holes caves. As usual there was plenty of good banter & loads of photographs (check out the In2venture Facebook page & those of several individuals who were involved). There’s a rumour about that Alan sang on the way to Birkwith?

In2venture’s new online home (this site) came into being mid-October 2012.

Through the news on these pages & our Facebook and Twitter feeds the In2venture community across the North of England (& further afield) embraces a new method of communicating both among ourselves and with many, many others.

 The sites’ hit counter went through 2,000 views this week that’s about 125 people a week who are now “checking in” with In2venture through this media. That’s more people than queued for the NEXT Boxing Day sales in Dudley!!

Our Facebook & Twitter communities see lively daily comment, discussion and much photo sharing, there’ll be new features coming in this area in coming weeks and months so please keep coming back.

Tell your friends about In2venture. The charity has been making a positive contribution to the lives of young people across the North of England for nearly 30 years. Thousands have participated in adventure; taken a risk; pushed their comfort zones; found new ways of interacting with each other and the created environment that we are all part of & share in.

Please bookmark this page & keep checking back with In2venture

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Thanks for keeping in touch!!

Team In2venture

This is the second in a series of web articles on the organisational members of the In2venture community, last weeks piece featured COAC In2venture.

FOG stands for Forest of Galtres, which for those of you that don’t know is close to York! FOG In2venture was founded in the summer of 2007 and is a partnership between Galtres Church and the Christian Charity In2venture.

 FOG’s “feet on the ground” are provided by husband & wife team Steve & Sarah Windass who are strongly supported by Pastor Bob Mapplebeck and the congregation of Galtres Church. John Brittlebank represents FOG In2venture on In2venture’s board of Trustees.

The work in York strongly embodies many of In2venutre’s core charitable values: strong local community links; youth focus; utilisation of local resources etc. To this end Steve & Sarah run after school “Adventure Clubs” 3-4 nights per week catering separately for the 8-11 & 11-18 year old age groups. These sessions feature: indoor climbing; archery and pedal carts.

Steve’s work with the Joseph Trust is also benefited by the In2venture link which allows him to offer open canoeing sessions on the local canal to the disaffected young people he works with.

Thanks to generous support from a fellow Christian which allows him to commit more time to FOG In2venture Steve hopes in due course to be able to spend some time working on a new initiative “In2venture Intervention” a project aimed at supporting young people with challenging behavioral issues. It is planned that through 1:1 work using outdoor activity to be able to offer help in areas like: self esteem, trust, respect etc.

Its evident that the work of FOG In2venture is very much not a numbers game, rather quality time is invested into a relatively small number of young people within a supportive framework of Christian values with the aim of producing long term benefit.

In addition to their work with FOG In2venture Steve & Sarah are also involved in offering instructor / leadership support to the “Ventures” Christian young peoples’ holidays that take place at Blaithwaite House each summer and have been heavily involved in the Torchbearers Crossroads Camp in Albania to which they are regular visitors.

Group: Ferg, Graham, Alan & Mal

Weather: Lying dry powder snow thigh deep in drifts but with a general covering of several inches; very still; visibility varying from perfect to near whiteout

Where: Helvellyn Ridge from Thirlmere side, Lake District

Moon Over Sticks Pass We left Stannah at about 10:30 in cold, still and quite overcast conditions. The day always had the promise of some good views as the picture to the north towards Skiddaw and Blencathra was one of clearing skies.   Sticks Pass is a real slog either up or down and today we were quite slow with winter gear faff consuming too much time! There was virtually nobody around – which I quite like but was nevertheless surprising given the promise of such good conditions. The trudge through deep snow in places up to the “crossroads” at the head of the pass seemed to take ages and we all agreed was quite tiring in these conditions.   A right turn at the “crossroads” saw the cloud clear for just a few minutes & we could see the summit of Raise (the only peak in this range I’ve not visited before). There was a frantic scramble for cameras at this point but I need to come clean and say that everything I took was rubbish! Hence, can’t share this one with you! We did, however, spy for the first time for any of us the Raise ski tow. Before we got chance to begin the ascent towards the top the cloud had dropped again and visibility was pretty poor.   The main path which broadly follows the summit ridge across the Dodds and Helvellyn etc passes just below the Raise cairn and we deviated off to the East in order “bag” Raise. I’ve often heard this section to the North of Helvellyn described as “boring”, however, under these conditions and at only just shy of 3,000′ it felt like a good mountain to me. We were even rewarded with a short improvement in visibility for our visit.

We began our descent, off-piste of course, aiming for Brund Gill and within minutes were back into low cloud and the loss of any potential views out across Thirlmere. The snow in the area at the head of the gill was the deepest we saw all day with Alan disappearing waist deep at one point.

In clearing skies we reached the lower slopes, still with an ample snow covering and headed back across an impressively frozen Fisherplace Gill to Sticks Pass to conclude the day in the clearest conditions we’d seen! The scene back up the valley towards Blencathra was a bit special!

Approximate route map below: about 5 miles & 2,450′ of ascent