…to our new electronic edition of the World Challenge newsletter. By subscribing to receive it via our website, expedition members’ website or our alumni website you’ll be able to read the latest news about what’s going on at World Challenge at the click of a button. Receiving our newsletter in not only simpler for you to use because you can choose what section to read but, most importantly, we contribute to the protection of the environment using by cutting down on the amount of paper we use.

Since our last edition we’ve introduced a lot of exciting new projects. For starters we look completely different with a very special new brand that better expresses what World Challenge stands for. I hope you like it – find out more in the news section.

It has been a busy summer at World Challenge with 331 teams going on expedition to our amazing long haul destinations this summer seemed to have had a real life changing experience.

This summer, World Challenge welcomed 203 schools to our 5 different Adventure Quest sites (Biggar, Bromsgrove, Bushey, Buxton and Thurleigh) this is a total of 11,195 Challengers!  We also hosted 2,445 Challengers on our residential activities and organised  75 school activities in which 7,454 Challengers participated. We have 4 base camps in Ashdown Forest, Buxton, Cannock and Llangattock that hosted a total of 3,913 Challengers this summer. Our UK expeditions were also very successful with 180 Challengers going on river expeditions and 118 on trekking expeditions.

As the work we do for schools in the UK is so popular, we were delighted to be invited to do some work for colleges and schools in Dubai.   Our ethos to develop young people through adventurous activities has been very well received in Dubai and we’re excited about the opportunities there.  Our experience of working in new cultures and environments helps us to pick up new ideas and techniques in skills development that we can bring back and share with you in the UK!

This year we are quietly celebrating our 20th birthday but the real celebration for us will be next year when we ‘come of age’ at 21!  We’re all looking forward to that and are committed to keep improving and delivering the best service to our schools.  Twenty-one years on and to have you telling us that we are still the best at what we do is the best present we could hope for!

In the mean time, I hope you’ll enjoy reading about what is new and if you have any comments, do let us know!

New World Challenge brand
You’ve probably already noticed that World Challenge looks a little different. After two years of consulting with teachers, heads, parents, leaders, students and staff, we are proud to present our new visual identity. We believe that this new brand has all the ability and dynamic energy of our organisation, represents the environment our business operates within and focuses on the people who take part in all levels of what we do.

Our new logo demonstrates the development that is central to everything we do. You can see the confidence and ability grow in the three characters as you go from left to right with the right hand character leaping off into their future with the skills they need to make it a success. The red/orange colour we’ve chosen is to stress our emphasis on safety – it is the same colour as buoyancy aids, life rafts and other emergency devices designed to keep you safe. Black is the recognised colour for quality which is another key ingredient of World Challenge.

This process has been about much more than just a new logo and colours. We have looked at what we do well and what we need to improve, what you like and what you don’t. As a result we’ve shortened our company name to your preferred World Challenge and removed the former product names (such as Team Challenge and Leadership Challenge) as you told us they were confusing. We have ceased using our jargon and acronyms for the same reason. Most importantly, we have focused time, effort and resources on improving our customer service levels. To achieve this we’ve restructured the company slightly and changed the way be do things over the past 2 years. We’re now confident that World Challenge is better than ever before – and we’ve only just started!

See for yourself how our new identity looks by downloading our new brochure here

20 years on
2007 has been a very good year for World Challenge. We accomplished even more than the previous years in terms of safety, customer satisfaction and corporate growth. A little bit of history…

World Challenge was created by our Chief Executive Charles Rigby in 1987. After returning from a military expedition to India, he saw all the benefits his team had gained from the experience. He soon decided to create a company that could offer this to young people with the dream that one day, every young person would be given the opportunity to benefit from really developmental outdoor education. After 20 years, this dream and the ethos of skills development has been central to everything we have done.

Making a difference in Dubai

Dubai is the location of an exciting new venture for World Challenge, which has partnered with the Higher Colleges of Technology to launch the first 'Learn to Lead' programme of personal development for students in the UAE.

Climbing wall – Dubai style!

More than 500 students from Dubai Men's College have participated in Adventure Quest between 5-11 September 2007. The various activities making up Adventure Quest have been constructed around the stunning College campus by World Challenge over the summer. This is the start of a much larger programme to develop communication,teamwork, problem solving, team building, initiative and leadership skills throughout the region.


Students nervously hold on having made it to the top of Giants ladder through careful teamwork

Students will complete four phases of the Leadership Award, Bronze is the 1-day action packed Adventure Quest, Silver and Gold are a two and three day fun multi-activity residential camps and Platinum is a demanding overseas expedition.

This programme is now being offered to schools, colleges and corporate clients right across the UAE.

According to Phil Corcos, Associate Director at Dubai Men's College, "The series of adventure activities will give UAE students the opportunity to experience tough physical challenges, and learn to manage risk safely."

Charles Rigby, Chief Executive of World Challenge said "I am delighted to be launching Learn to Lead in Dubai. There is a lot we can do for students here and I can't wait for their journeys of personal development to begin."

Launch of Dubai Men’s College World Challenge - Adventure Quest in the presence of HE Shaikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan

HE Shaikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, HCT Chancellor was present to inaugurate the activities of Adventure Quest Dubai at Dubai Men's College on Wednesday 5th September 2007.

The World Challenge Learning to Lead Award has been recognised for the value it can offer to schools and is now formally supported by the Association for School and College Leaders (ASCL). Learning to Lead is a simple, cost effective yet challenging leadership and personal development programme designed to improve a young person’s confidence and ‘can do’ approach to other learning opportunities inside and outside school. Available for schools, the Award aims to promote the importance of resilience, self-reliance, freedom, innovation and a spirit of adventure to society and the work place.

Previously only available for preparatory and junior schools the concept has been developed and is now available for secondary students, primarily at Key Stage 3, whatever their background. By providing progressive meaningful and practical lessons in teamworking and leadership through outdoor adventure, students learn how to take personal responsibility, handle risk and to make a winning team. These and other life skills prepare students for a competitive world in which enterprise, self belief and persistent endeavour are keys to success.

There are 3 certificated levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold which are launched to a complete year group to encourage maximum participation. It has been compared to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award but they can work together or in isolation. It is more accessible, less admin heavy and is a much faster process (not to mention cheaper!) and also contributes significantly to the 5 aims of ‘Every Child Matters’ as well as to the Key Skill of communication and Wider Key Skills of working with others, problem solving and improving own learning and performance. We think this is why it is already proving very popular with schools.

The programme is flexible, straightforward and progressive and is designed to show success over a relatively short period with minimum organisation and supervision from busy school staff. Each programme is managed, led and monitored in school by experienced World Challenge facilitators in consultation with school staff and may be completed inside a single term or stretched across the school year. Participating schools will have the opportunity to brand the Learning to Lead Award with the school name in order to maximise local PR and sponsorship. Successful participants will receive a certificate of achievement at the end of the programme.

Kyambogho Primary School – Uganda
The Kyambogho Primary School is situated in the west of Uganda on the slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains. The original school structures were built by parents and cater for 270 students from the surrounding area. The overall aim of this project is to improve education and increase income generation by alternative sustainable projects within the community, so that young people can choose to stay in their own region, without moving to the cities.

World Challenge plans to send 12 successive Challenger teams to the site over the next 4 years to build a new primary school that will help raise the standard of education in this area. This will hopefully encourage parents to enrol their children and improve attendance which in turn generates government investment. The school will have a community hall for seminars, adult education, and local performances. In addition to this, five classrooms, a teachers’ room, information and IT centre, sanitary blocks and sports facilities will be built. There is also potential for electricity generation from wind turbines enabling the school to run computers and opening the possibility of wireless internet access. The project has a well-thought out action plan for the next four years, and so we hope that the primary school will be fully functional by 2010.

This work started this summer and here is some feedback we received from our 2007 teams from Stockport Grammar School and Newstead Wood School.

The Stockport Grammar School team reported that the work they did mainly consisted of helping to dig the foundations and then moving bricks in preparation for the construction. The village employed local bricklayers to put the bricks in place and the team assisted with this. The team told us that the school and the village were extremely welcoming. “The school children sang loads of songs for us and most evenings some of the villagers came to us to tell us stories. The school gave us an amazing farewell with lots of singing and dancing, which was very much appreciated by the Challengers. Our farewell performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “The Giant and the Beanstalk” also appeared to go down quite well (there was lots of laughing anyway! )’

The School Leader of Newstead Wood School told us that the project was a great success. “We worked very well and planned extra activities within the school. We delivered three lessons a day which included drama, sports and educational games. We also painted a mural on one of the classroom walls which looked great. We took over from another World Challenge team (Stockport Grammar School) who had done a lot of work by constructing the foundations of the new classrooms and we had the task of building three new classrooms. We purchased building materials from Kasese, this was not a problem at all as there are plenty of building merchants within the town. We employed four tradesmen and two porters for the duration of the project. We got to work by filling in a hole in one of the rooms that took about 3 tons of soil moved by shovels and buckets, this took us just over two days to complete so the floors were level. We moved lots and lots of bricks for the building work to begin. Whilst this was going on three Challengers were teaching the children in the classrooms and the mural was being painted. We worked very hard and interacted well with the local community.”

Shepherd’s Centre Foundation – Malaysia
World Challenge has a long standing relationship with the Shepherd’s Centre Foundation at Seminyih, Malaysia, having sent teams to help out there for the past six years. Over this time the orphanage has expanded from housing 30 to over 100 children and has founded a hospice for terminally ill children as well as a shelter for homeless old folk, thanks to the help that Challengers have given. Educating the children is now a major task of the Foundation and one that causes numerous challenges. The orphans and foster children enter the home without the required documents (identification cards issued to all Malaysians at birth), without which they are unable to attend main stream schools and are therefore at risk of having no formal education. It has therefore fallen to the Shepherd’s Centre to educate these youngsters ‘in-house’.

Over the next few years the plan is for the teams to get involved in setting up formal education facilities at the Centre. This will involve construction and painting, but also other tasks such as teaching basic IT programmes to the adult staff at the centre, running English workshops with the children, creating sports facilities, and helping to set up homework clubs.

Here is what our World Challenge teams told us about this year’s project: “We spent time clearing the football area as well as creating a greenhouse, re-potting a lot of plants, replacing netting in the fish pools and creating a badminton and basketball area.” The group were very pleased with the work that they had done with many of them describing this as their favourite part of the expedition. “Overall the Pastors at the Centre are some of the most generous people I have ever met, the welcome and hospitality were outstanding and they certainly seem to have created not just a shelter but a genuine home for the children there.”

Money management events
The 2008 Challenger events have now been launched!

Challenger Runs

2 venues, 2 dates
Beaudesert Park, Cannock, Staffordshire, Sunday 27th April 2008
Alice Holt, Farnham, Surrey, Sunday 11th May 2008

Challenger Abseils

5 venues, 6 dates
N. Ireland (Belfast), Hotel Europa, Saturday 1st March 2008
Buxton, Bridge 75, Saturday 8th March 2008
Newcastle, Tyne Bridge, Sunday 9th March 2008 (over 16s only)
Buxton, Bridge 75, Sunday 23rd March 2008
Plymouth, Bickleigh Viaduct, Saturday 29th March 2008
Scotland, Falkirk Wheel, Saturday 26th April 2008

Please click here to download the Money Management flyer

Please click here to download the Challenger event application form.

Please log on to your expedition members site to download your sponsorship pack once you have registered.

Expedition Preparation Conferences
Every year, World Challenge organises Expedition Preparation Conferences for all adults going on expedition to take them through all the necessary procedures to help ensure the safety, enjoyment and development of the teams on expedition. Our Operations Director, Nick Everard, updates us on the plans for next year’s events.

“As trialled for the first time last year, we are continuing with the one-day Expedition Preparation Conference format, which the overwhelming majority deemed a success (in previous years, this event has been over two days). Although intensive, last year proved it could also be an enjoyable day and crucially for teachers and Leaders, it means that you don't need to use up as much of your personal time for World Challenge. Our aim is that you should go away with the information you need to perform your role in the expedition leadership team for your particular destination. As well as the essential safety and procedural updates, we will be covering group management, expedition budgeting and the World Challenge ethos for expedition delivery. We hope you will also feel the excitement starting to build as the departure draws closer!

After last year's conference, one piece of feedback stood out as being a particular issue for you, so you'll be pleased to hear that we have changed as a result. We have moved the locations of our conferences to be more accommodating so rather than Birmingham and London, new venues will be York and High Wycombe. Hopefully this means that fewer of you will have such long distances to travel to this compulsory event.

Here is your Expedition Preparation Conference booking form, please complete and return it by Wednesday, 31st October 2007 to ensure your preferred location and dates are available (School Leaders and Expedition Leaders for long haul expeditions departing in 2008 only please)

Click here to access the venue information

Click here for the registration form

School Programme Manager Team Leader
North London, Hertfordshire area
Permanent, full-time.

Through managing a team of locally based School Programme Managers, we are seeking a School Programme Manager Team Leader to maintain excellence of customer service and to drive the development of our relationships with schools in the North London, Hertfordshire area.

The successful candidate will identify and implement new ways to enhance these important relationships and ensure that schools repeat with our unrivalled range of programmes geared towards the education and personal development of young people.

Working on a remote basis, you can expect a high degree of autonomy in this position with an excellent remuneration package plus progressive benefits for this highly rewarding and important role.

We are seeking someone that relishes the opportunity to employ an innovative approach to further develop our relationships with schools, increase the breadth and depth of our delivery and help maintain our position as market leader in an evolving industry.

School Programme Manager Roles – Nationwide
Offered on a permanent, part-time basis.

We are keen to hear from you if you are interested in this rewarding and flexible type of role. Responsible for the management, maintenance and development of a portfolio of client schools within your local area, you will ensure excellent customer service to schools whilst achieving business development targets set with your Team Leader.

Talent Bank
Would you like to work in other areas of our exciting company? Get in touch and we’ll let you know when a position becomes available.

For more information on any of these positions please click here
If you are interested, contact Alex Griffin on +44 (0)20 8728 7293 or email recruitment@world-challenge.co.uk.