External trainers and assessors

Graham Gain

Graham spent 10 years teaching PE within the state sector before moving into the field of outdoor education. Amongst other roles he was, for over 10 years, the Operations Manager for one of the UK’s leading outdoor education and adventure companies. He has extensive experience in the development of activities and staff training programmes, risk assessment and safety criteria and best practice policies in addition to working closely with many National Governing Bodies and Local Education Authorities. He has also been closely involved in the development and implementation of highly successful adventure activity programmes in the UK and Europe with companies such as Pontins and Center Parcs.

We are delighted that Graham has joined as our Safety Consultant and in addition to the ongoing development of existing activities he will also be advising on the introduction of new activities and ensuring continued improvements in safety and service quality by making regular visits to The Chateau to audit procedures and delivery standards.

Janet Huggins

Janet has been involved in the sport of Fencing for over 40 years. Following a successful competitive career, which included winning numerous county, regional and open titles, she began coaching in the 1980’s.

Janet is a fully qualified County Coach and actively coaches at club level as well as delivering and assessing the British Fencings Teachers Award. She is also a member of the Armourers Guild as a Master Armourer and is heavily involved in the running of both National and International fencing competitions.

Janet is delighted to be associated with The Chateau and this year she has spent time there successfully training and assessing our fencing staff. They all now hold the nationally recognised qualification of the British Fencing Teachers Award.

Philip van Buren

Philip van Buren has been involved in archery for over 30 years and during that time he has shot for Great Britain four times, become UK champion five times and won numerous County and Regional Championships. Philip is a GNAS County, Regional, Senior and International Coach and in addition to being a fully accredited D32/33 NVQ Assessor he has also been an assessor of archery coaches since 1980 and has probably tutored more GNAS Courses than any other Senior Coach in the UK.
Philip has joined The Chateau team as archery coach and advisor. He has trained and assessed all of our animateurs to deliver archery safely and to a high standard as well as advising on our archery range and equipment. He will also be spending time at The Chateau during the season to ensure continued progress in terms of session development.

Hilary and John Palmer

Hilary has trained the animateurs for the British Orienteering Federation’s Level 1 Coach Award and they have been assessed in the safe and effective teaching of the sport to beginners at the Chateau.

Hilary is a competitive orienteer who has regularly been a member of the England team in the Veteran’s Home International. She teaches the sport to school children in Nottinghamshire and trains teachers and outdoor centre staff as well as coaching her club’s juniors. John’s main sporting achievements were in the sphere of racket sports (county tennis and squash and squash for Wales) but back injuries forced his retirement and the introduction of the family to orienteering. His role at The Chateau was to assess the instructors for the BOF Coach award.

Chris Taylor

Chris is a qualified Teacher of Outdoor and Physical Education, with an Honours Degree from Loughborough University. He has been an active participant in mountain, crag and white water activities since 1972. He has trained for the Mountain Instructor Award. He is a BCU Level 3 Coach in inland and sea kayaking. He is a former BCU Contracted Course Provider, and is currently updating this. Since 1987, he has run a very active UK Outdoor Centre, whose courses are staged in England, Wales and the Ecrins region of the French Alps.

He is Technical Advisor for both land and water based activities to over 25 centres in the UK. This status encompasses providing a wide range of operational procedures, risk assessment, Instructor training ans assessment. He is a fairly fluent speaker of French.  Chris is a highly experienced trainer and assessor within the Outdoor Industry, with a vast background of knowledge and experience both as a participant and a provider.

Chris has recently joined the assessors team at Chateau de la Baudonniere.  He is providing in house training to our animateur team both in climbing and canoeing as well as critically reviewing our equipment and checking proceedures.  We are also planning to have Chris help us in the further development of our assault course and  outdoor iniitiative excercise apparatus.  His vast experience in off ground and on -water activities is proving to be a valuable assett to the Chateau.

Ian Wood

Our outside assessor for this activity is Ian Wood, who lives locally and is involved in all aspects of our training and assessment for Canoeing. He has many years of Canoeing experience and runs his own outdoor company. Ian holds both UK and French qualifications including the Brevet d’Etat Canoë-kayak, Qualification complémentaire Mer, Homologation H1 which are all French qualifications and also the British BCU level 3 qualified coach award.

Ian is currently training our team on the .FFCK (Fédération Française Canoë-Kayak) award scheme. All of our Animateurs are trained for the “Pagaies blanches” award, up to the “Pagaies jaunes” level. A part of the team will also undergo more intensive training with Ian to include two aspects of the “Pagaies vertes” scheme; one on moving water and one on the sea. The most able and confident staff will then work towards taking their “Initiateur” course. We are exicited to have Ian on board as one of our assessors and look forward to him developing our staff’s skills in this activity.