Leader of the Month - November

After convening our panel of experts we are proud to announce...

November's leader of the month is:

Darren Bohanna

"For almost 10 years Darren has been involved in delivering and inspiring young teenagers and adults in various adventurous activities. Darren has been volunteering for the Air Training Corps for the past 10 years and constantly gives up his own time to provide fantastic opportunities and experiences for its members. Darren is an ex air cadet and felt it was important to give back similar experiences to what he had as a cadet. Darren firstly gained his Climbing Wall Award along with his paddling qualifications and progressed to his Single Pitch Award and his Mountain Leader Summer (Training). Darren pushes a very well organised adventure training programme within his unit and his efforts where recognised by winning ‘Best Squadron at Adventure Training’ within Merseyside Wing this year. Darren has not only offered training to cadets but he has also offered training to other staff within his wing and inspired them to gain Mountain Training awards so they can offer similar experienes to young people.

‘Darren has inspired me to progress through my Mountain Training awards, and I have now gained my Climbing Wall award and also completed my Hill and Moorland Leader Training with the view to soon complete my Hill and Moorland Leader Assessment and to complete my Single Pitch Award in the near future.’

Darren holds the Climbing Wall Award (with abseil module) and Single Pitch Award. He was nominated by Liam Wong.

Special mention goes to

Graham Little

"I worked with Graham for seven years when he was employed as an Outdoor Education Tutor at my high school in Blackpool. During this time, Graham impacted on the lives of hundreds of young people (and staff) through running climbing sessions, navigation training, orienteering, paddling, GCSE and BTEC outdoor courses, DofE, and remote expeditions into places like Assynt, Knoydart and Glencoul. Whilst I worked with Graham he raised funds and had a school climbing wall built by Entreprises and then he went on to train over 30 local teachers to run sessions on our wall, engaging hundreds of children every week in climbing activities. Graham also mentored three of our teachers through their Climbing Wall Award and has inspired other staff to take to the hills and crags in their spare time. To showcase the achievements of our pupils, Graham hosted an annual Outdoor Achievement Evening where he showed parents, teachers and the local community what our pupils had achieved.

"Since leaving our school, Graham has gone on to work for a primary school, employed full time in outdoor education. I am aware he has had another massive impact there, with pupils out every day in the hills, visiting crags, and at climbing walls. Graham's school was recently inspected by Ofsted and the inspection team described his work as 'Inspirational'.

"Three years on and I am pleased to say that Graham is back working with our pupils, in his own time, delivering a GCSE PE module in Climbing to give our pupils the best chance of a high grade, and hopefully to start a lifelong interest in climbing."

Graham holds the Climbing Wall Award, Single Pitch Award and recently passed his Foundation Coach assessment. He works as an outdoor education instructor in a school in Blackpool. He was nominated by Ben Whittaker.