What is the DofE?

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is an internationally-recognised award scheme for young people. It challenges you to complete your own personal programme of activities in each of four sections: you'll find yourself helping people or the community, getting fitter, developing skills, and going on a team expedition.

What are we?

WEOAG is an Open Award Group, this means it is not attached to any particular school or group and so any young people who can make it to all our meetings are welcome. We are here to help our young people complete the various sections of their DofE, provide training and support, and help you organise your expedition.

There are also a few things we are not:

• Childminders. We expect good behaviour and we expect you to respect the leaders and other participants. If anyone is disruptive or disrespectful we can ask them to leave the group.
• A drop-in programme. We think it is important to make sure all our young people receive all of their training from the same leader team, this way we can make sure you are successful. So please make sure you don’t miss anything.
• An Open Expedition Programme. We expect all our participants to attend all our meetings and work on all their DofE sections, and we have just enough leaders to organise the expeditions for our own young people, so we can’t take on extra participants just for expeditions. There is an excellent Open Expedition Programme for young people who just need expeditions and we can put you in touch if this is what you need.

Who are we?

WEOAG is run by volunteers – we don’t get paid for it, and we all have full time jobs. We run the group because we enjoy the outdoors and working with young people. Some of us have lots of experience working with young people, some of us have completed our DofE Awards in the past, but other volunteers join up because they have heard about the Award too late to do it! A few of us have walking qualifications which means we can organise our own expeditions and you know you are safe in the hands of experienced supervisors. All leaders have been disclosed.

When and where?

We meet on Wednesday evenings, 7:00pm to 8:30pm. Bronze participants meet approximately every two weeks during term time, all the dates are listed in the calendar at the end of this letter. The same meetings may sometimes be shared with our Silver and Gold participants. Please make sure you can come to all the meetings so you don’t miss out on any important training or planning. Most meetings are held at a venue in central southwest Edinburgh. Sometimes we will hold outdoor meetings for navigation and tent training, for these we will write to your parents giving all the details as we need to get an EE2 consent form filled in. Normally these are in the early autumn and late spring at local parks when there is enough light in the evenings. We might also arrange a social trip out at the end of term.

If you can’t make it to a meeting please let us know by email or phone in advance. We will try to help you catch up on what you’ve missed but that won’t always be possible.

How much does it cost?

As we are all volunteers we don’t charge for our time, and we don’t take a profit on any activities, everything you pay goes towards running the group and your own expeditions.

• Membership for the year costs £25.00 for Bronze and Silver, and £30.00 for Gold. Most of this covers the cost of registering as a new DofE Bronze participant, this money goes to the DofE national head office and contributes to the administration of the Award (a registered charity). The rest of the membership money is kept by the group to cover printing and materials costs, and whatever is left over will be put towards subsidising your expeditions. The membership money is not refundable even if you leave the group or drop out of the expeditions, so please make sure you can make our dates before you join up. Membership money is due by the third meeting in the autumn term. We only take new members at the start of the autumn term, there is no option to join later on because of the training you will have missed.
• The cost of any social activities (usually only about £5.00).
• Expeditions are the main cost although we work hard to keep all costs to a minimum. We need to cover transport, campsite fees and hire of equipment, and the leaders’ travel expenses are shared among all the participants. Usually at Bronze level the practice and qualifying expedition together will be around £60. If you progress to Silver then Gold level it is up to the groups to choose what to do and where to go for their expeditions so the costs are more variable, but walking expeditions typically cost us around £50 at Silver level and around £60 at Gold, remember you need to do at least two expeditions at each level.
  
• Nearly all equipment can be hired from the DofE kit stores, which we are lucky to have in Edinburgh provided by Friends of the Award, a charity serving the DofE in Edinburgh and the Lothians. The hire charges are extremely low but the value of the equipment is high and it is essential you are fully aware of the cost of what you borrow and take good care of it. The kit stores are in high demand through the expedition season so any equipment returned late deprives another young person of the tools to complete their expedition. In light of this there is a charge of £5 for every item that is not returned at the arranged kit return, and in addition to this if any item is not returned by your own arrangements within one week of kit return, you will be charged in full for a replacement at the cost set by Friends of the Award. Please have a look at the kit list of everything you need to have for the expeditions, this also indicates which items can be hired from kit stores and approximate purchase costs. Don’t be too daunted by the size of the list, a carefully packed pack shouldn’t exceed 12kg.

The DofE is open to all young people regardless of their financial situation. There are external funds to help those less well-off participants who might otherwise struggle to meet the costs of doing their DofE. Please contact us early if this is the case so we can arrange support - help is available, but prompt payment of all costs is still required whatever your situation. Please remember that the group does not make a profit so has none of its own funds and the volunteer leaders can never be expected to use their own money.