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Latest News - last updated 27 January 2012

• Adult Sea Kayaking course. This year we are running a sea kayaking course for adults during Whitsun Week.  The 4 day course, Wednesday 6th  – Saturday 9th June 2012, will be based at Marle Hall and will travel to some of the amazing locations around North Wales to go paddling.  We may even do a 2 day expedition if people are up for it! 

  The course is designed to be an introduction to sea kayaking, however, some flat water kayaking experience is useful.

  The course fee of £225 includes accommodation (including campsite fees), food, travel to and from venues and all necessary equipment including kayaks, paddles etc.

  So, if you fancy seeing the world from a unique perspective and getting up close and personal with our amazing coastline and it’s wildlife, let us know. We have 10 places available.

        Please contact Simon for further details and to discuss the course

• Staffroom renovations. In January, we gutted the old staffroom to improve the facilities for our customers.  It is now a very tranquil and peaceful room, just what Teachers need after a busy day out in the mountains. We think it looks great and we hope you enjoy it when you visit us.

• Marle Hall OEC is 40 years old! In December we celebrated our 40th birthday.  Warwickshire County Council purchased the building way back in 1971!  The building itself is a lot older - 400 yrs!! We organised a big party and invited instructors, teaching staff, WCC staff and Councillors to dance the night away to a local Ceilidh band.  Thank you to everyone who helped organise the party and thank you to everyone who attended.

        Our old trainees looking cool....                         Simon and his wife, Crystal.

        Some serious moves on the dance floor.....................................................

• Staff Training news. Will, Steve and Simon went kayaking for a day recently on Afon Llugwy.  Will and Steve are working towards their 3 star kayak which we are planning to complete before Christmas.

• John Muir Award work continues. At the end of November, we had an amazing team of pupils from St Benedict's Primary School staying at the centre. During an extremely busy and adventurous week, we had lots of conservation work happening.  Another great big thank you to the super staff and pupils from the Marle Hall team.

• John Muir Award news. Coten End Primary School stayed with us recently.  During the week we had six conservation projects running!!  We had pupils doing tree surveys, log piles, bug piles, bat boxes and bird boxes. Another amazing week.  A great big thank you to Coten End for all of your help. Photos below....

• Chetwynd PS 25 yrs. In November, Chetwynd visited us for the 25th year in a row!  They are one of our most valued customers and we are very grateful for their continued support. A very big thank you to the dedicated staff and super pupils of Chetwynd Primary School from the Marle Hall team.

• Voluntary Instructor training day. During half term, we spent three days coaching our new VI's, Will and Steve. Helena was navigating with them on Wednesday on Tal y Fan in preparation for ML courses. Simon and the VI's went into the Glyders on Thursday, scrambling and short roping around Idwal slabs area, Cneifion Arete and an adventure onto Glyder Fach via Chasm Face. On Friday, they went climbing on Holyhead Mountain looking at safe rock climbing techniques, gear placement and rope work in preparation for SPA courses.

• Staff training day.  Martin, Helena, Liz, Simon, Will, Steve and Rowan went for some underground staff training on Tuesday.  We visited a local metal mine for some great adventures in the dark. We use these days to keep up with current safe practice and chat about what we should do when underground with our customers.  The day was a great success, we even managed to get Helena underground!!!

• New High Ropes Activity.  We have just had an amazing crate stacking activity installed with the BLT.  The instructors tried it on Monday and had a great time. We hope you find it as challenging as we did!  We managed 17 crates, how high can you go?

        Will and Steve going for the record...                  but Liz and Helena's great design won!

• Work continues...  Brookhurst Primary School joined us recently to help with our big conservation projects. We had some pupils helping us on our partnership project with the Woodland Trust, some continuing to develop our wildlife meadow and finally, a team getting stuck into the major work on our pond.  However the pond work was rudely interupted by a wasps nest which has already been removed! A big "Marle Hall" thank you to all of the amazing pupils of Brookhurst.

         The pupils of Brookhurst Primary School on the John Muir Award conservation task....

• John Muir Award Conservation Project - Our new John Muir Award conservation project is underway!  We are creating a large pond below our high ropes course and a nature garden by our zipline. A couple of weeks ago Woodside Primary School created some toad homes and fat balls for feeding the birds who will visit our garden. 

         Woodside PS toad homes doing well!

Our project leapt into action recently with the help of pupils from St John's Primary School, Banbury. The very enthusiastic team of pioneers helped us to design and name our new projects, experiment with ideas for our willow fence, clear vast oceans of ivy from our pond area discovering another natural spring in the process and find out lots of information to help us along the way. An amazing start to our new development.  A huge thank you to everyone involved.

A few photos of our pioneers from St John's.....

• Fire Warden Training. Some of the Marle Hall team completed the Fire Warden training course today. This course covers all relevant fire safety regulations helping us to protect you, our customers. We also get the opportunity to extinguish small controlled fires with fire extinguishers which was good fun! 

         Gary having a go on CO2...  Duncan blasting away...    and Grace trying to escape the chaos...

• Our New Staff Team. Our team has changed a lot over the last couple of months.  Our new Centre Administrator is Duncan de Silva and he is a keen rock climber. Our new groundsman/storeperson is Gary Mason who goes scuba diving all over the world.  We have two new trainee instructors who will be with us for one year.  Will Adams is from Leicestershire and has worked for Kingsbury Water Park OEC as a sailing instructor.  Steven Daniels is our fifth student from Chichester University and he is also a keen climber.  Click here for photos

• Marle Hall continues to improve its service. Over the last few months we have been improving the service we provide for our customers.  A full salad bar is now available for everyone and a choice of evening meals during your stay!  These recent developments have been very popular with both staff and children. 

• Charlie Trotman, our famous storeman, has retired.  We have reached the end of an era as Charlie turned 65 recently.  We had a great retirement gathering for him.  Many of our freelance instructors and permanent staff, past and present, turned up to walk over The Great Orme on Saturday 9th April. We finished the day off with a visit to Charlie's favourite cafe and plenty of scones and cakes.  Charlie is keeping himself busy by volunteering at our local hospital, the theatre - Venue Cymru, plenty of mountain walking and popping in to see us occasionally.

The team at The Greenery cafe...

• Availability.

We currently have some blank or partially filled weeks still available for this academic year. Dates available from January until the end of the summer 2012 can be seen by clicking here.