Mike's Year 2010

Like much of the private sector, work over the past 12 months has been a case of keeping the business running. I continue as the Technical Manager at Icon Electronics with responsibility for the technical customer interface of the contract electronic manufacture business we run in addition to being the internal technical authority. In a recent round of redundancies my colleague was unfortunately affected which means that I've now taken on responsibility for the quality management system and health & safety. This means that my days are spent deciding who to disappoint with not having sufficient time to do it all.

Outside of work my Scouting career continues and I've now moved into 'uniform' having changed roles from group chairman to group scout leader (GSL) of the 16th Harrogate. As GSL is responsible for the delivery and leadership of the scouting programme in all 3 sections (beavers, cubs & scouts) which is a more hands on role to that of group chairman where I was responsible for the provision of meeting place and equipment to allow the leaders to deliver the programme. I'm enjoying the role and the work with the children immensely.

As part of my scouting development I've also trained for, been assessed and award my Terrain 1 Hill Walking Qualification which allows me to take a party of scouts on the hill up to 800m or 3 hours away from 'help'. The syllabus for this course is equivalent to the MLTA Walking Group Leader award I've now started to work towards my Terrain 2 award which is moving towards a full ML qualification which may become a long term goal. I've had quite a bit of opportunity to use this permit whilst hillwalking with the scouts including a mountaineering weekend in The Lakes at the end of November which included sleeping in a bothy alongside Ashness Bridge, a very enjoyable weekend.

My other interest continues to be radio but the only time I get to exercise my callsign is as group controller of Nidderdale RAYNET. We still provide radio communication for several local prestigious community events such as the Rotary Nidderdale Walk and the Knaresborough Bed Race. I also enjoy when I get to combine RAYNET and Hillwalking which this year I managed to do again by covering a remote checkpoint for the LDWA Blubberhouses Challenge.