Here's just a few photos of what we're looking like at present!

House re-opens 26th February 2007.

A YEAR OF CELEBRATIONS FOR GHYLL HEAD

TO ALL MANCHESTER SCHOOLS:

 We are planning a series of events throughout the year and would very much welcome the involvement of your school.

Events so far....

Primary school competition to design a 40th Anniversary T-shirt logo. Deadline for entries 23rd March 2007. Winning pupil will be presented with an Anniversary T-shirt (complete with their winning logo) at the Open Day on 07 / 07 / 07.

Photographic displays at Overseas House and Ghyll Head.
Have you still got photos and/or any display materials from visits to Ghyll Head by your school? Would you be happy to lend them to us?

Courses in 1967 - 1969 
Do you know anyone who went to Ghyll Head in those first 3 years? Please ask them to get in touch. We know that Levenshulme High School and Wright Robinson High School were amongst the first schools that went in 1967.

Open Day on Saturday 7th July 2007 (07/07/07) 
Activities for adults and young people will be happening throughout the day - in the grounds and on the lake. Displays and videos will be running in the centre, and also musical entertainment. The Friends of Ghyll Head will be organising 2 coaches to transport people to and from Manchester. The Lord Mayor of Manchester and a celebrity will perform the official re-opening (following the extensive renovations and re-modelling currently ongoing at the centre).  Would your school like to have a fund-raising stall/activity in the house or the grounds?

The evening will be filled with live music and good food for all.

Update:Read the latest news on how the day went.

Sunday 8th July 2007
The Friends of Ghyll Head are organising various events for all to take part in, eg. 40 mile cycle ride, walking 40 of the Wainwright's walks, 40 point bike orienteering. More information to follow.

A 40th Anniversary badge is to be produced and will be on sale @ £1 throughout the year.

Any ideas that you may have to contribute to the 40th Anniversary please contact the centre. 

The Autumn may be approaching but there will be a lot of great memories to take from the Summer for those students who took part in the three Expeditions to Scotland that ran in the holidays. 

For the third year running we undertook an expedition across the Great Glen from Fort William to Inverness paddling on canal, loch and whitewater rivers. 

A trip guide can be viewed here for those interested in paddling the route.

We also ran for the first time two trips sea kayaking on the west coast of Scotland near to Oban. All of the expeditions were very successful and involved the students learning campcraft  as well as the hard paddling skills needed to cope with the sometimes wild conditions.  We have uploaded photos into the gallery and will be editing the video over the Autumn term. Two of the trips also updated the website blog using a mobile phone so for a daily account of the trip check out the front page blog items.

We will hopefully be running expeditions again next year for years 10-13 and are possibly looking at one trip abroad too. Places go very quickly on the expeditions so if you would like to join us or know somone who may be interested, get them to send us an e-mail and we will add them to the mailing list.

We have just finished the second Science & Storytelling camp at Ghyll Head. Twenty four Year 9 students from a number of different high schools took part in a week that saw them trained in the use of digital cameras, PDA's, video editing suites and data-loggers some of which were used to record and present poems of their own creation. The inspiration for the poems came from a visit to Wordsworth's house at Dove Cottage, a walk up one of the local mountains Loughrigg as well as a paddle across Windermere by open canoe.

 They also devised and undertook a number of scientific observations including a local bird count, heart rate monitoring on the ropes course, testing the sound absorbing properties of local vegetation and a mapping excercise of the grounds.  The experiments were then presented in video format.

The course was organised by Les Jones from MEP who we have learned is retiring this summer, Les as well as being an inspirational educator has been a strong supporter of Ghyll Head and we wish him well in the future. We would also like to thank the other specialist staff members brought in to help they were Andrew Wild (MEP), Donna Varney (MEP), ALison Glover(MEP), Rachel Eppy (MEP) and also Annie and Eve from the Field Studies Council.

This is the second year we have run this camp, thanks to the financial and technical backing of the  City Learning Centres and Andrew Wild from MEP the new ICT facilities at the centre worked expectionally well. We are hoping in the future to offer more of this type of course that will be run with smaller numbers from the Bungalow.

The week was a great example of  Ghyll Head using its Outdoor and ICT facilities  working together with others to enhance the curriculum for  Manchester's youngsters.

John, Julie and Jill met up last night at Debdale Park in Manchester with the students   that are going on the summer expeditions to Scotland. They took part in an on the water canoe and kayak training session, as well as doing some pre trip planning.

There were a few interesting expressions when they were told the amount of kit they could take will only fit into a small barrel or in the case of the sea paddlers an 15 litre dry bag.

We are planning to film the Great glen trip with the help of the  students and will also be updating an online diary on the website using mobile phones so that friends and parents will be able to enjoy the students accounts of their exploits on a day to day basis,  this of course will be dependent on getting mobile reception.