It rained so last night, so much so that I thought the caving planned for today would be seriously curtailed, if not canceled. But my fears were groundless. I awoke to bright sunny skies with excellent prospects for this to continue for the day. There's nothing I dislike more than getting changed in the rain; I was happy...
I had two clients who wanted a caving trip, a father and son combo who were away for the week, killing time over half term.
I decided on Porth Yr Ogof as it is easy - ish to get to and an excellent beginners trip.
We crawled around the maze for much of the morning, exiting for a spot of lunch and then back in for the traditional exploration of the river system and some of the more obscure passageways... we even made it to Hywells Groto, a dirty crawl through muddies water and over achingly placed fist sized boulders.
They were happy, and glad of the wetsuits issued for the afternoon session - man, that water was cold!
So, after a pleasant day, as is usually my thing, I feel the need to put on my complaining hat....
Why did the National Parks Authority install a city style parking meter at this isolated countryside car park? And how is it that a charge of £4 can be justified? And why this when there is still a warden on the gate?
The old system was to pay the warden and in return the warden would look after the vehicles, due to a high rate of car crime in the area. Now, we say 'hi!' to the warden and pay the machine.... Is is just me or is this madness?
There were about five LEA groups in the cave today, not bad for a cold February midweek day. I do wonder what the parents are paying for though.... The LEA's tend to arrive late and leave early, arriving today at about 11.15am and leaving at about 3pm. Of course there is lunch during that session, at about 12.30pm. With kitting up and down, with lunch, this leaves about two and a half hours of caving....
Furthermore, and simply to blow my own trumpet, most of the LEA groups were near the maximum number of clients to staff ratio that is generally accepted 12:1 - and I operate at the safer/easier to run ratio of 8:1.
Following peer group discussions it was decided that there is no way that an instructor can see twelve people at any one given time, leaving some members of the group unsupervised. We felt that the maximum number of clients that an instructor could effectively watch was six but that eight clients was a good operational compromise as there were always a few clients waiting their turn.
This has made life for my instructors easier as group responsibility pressures are less during sessions run at 8:1. I believe that this leads to quality provision as the instructor finds more time to involve each client and to watch over each persons health.
Anyway, it was a good day and with much achieved due to the 2:1 ratio.
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