Well done to Islander Edward Stanford-Clark for earning his Gold Duke of Edinburgh (D of E) award recently. There’s a lot of effort and work involved with getting to that point, so there’s big congratulations due to him.
He started off his particular journey, at the Bronze level, at 15 years old. Progress was swift, with each stage only taking a year, until gold, which took a year and a half – there’s quite a lot to that one. Considering you can take until you’re 25, it’s been a relative sprint for Edward.
He puts much of that down to the support he had at Ryde School, “It’s a reflection of how much encouragement and support the school gives its students taking part in the award: it is normal at Ryde to complete them in a comparatively short space of time,” he told VB. A total of 18 pupils from there gained Gold as well this year.
It sounds like the presentation of the award was quite a bash, so we asked Edward to let us all know what the experience of picking up the Gold award was. Here’s what he told us VB …
It was an enjoyable event and a proud moment for all of us there. I think one of the things that several of us agreed made it quite special was that it had all been laid on for us, rather than us simply being visitors to the palace.
Around 18 people from my school completed their award this year, but unfortunately I was the only one attending this particular award ceremony – a group of 4 had attended one earlier in November.
The day itself was quite short – we were in the palace for about 2 hours in total. The Duke himself visited each of the rooms of award winners, and chatted with some of the winners in each group.
Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to speak to His Royal Highness, but I had my award presented by George Alagiah OBE who later gave an inspirational speech about his life and the challenges he faced to achieve what he has.
I spoke with George for a minute or so while I was collecting my award; he seemed interested in the fact that I’d started learning Mandarin Chinese as my Skill for the gold award, which lead to me choosing to study it as part of my university degree.
What’s involved with getting your awards
As Edward had been through the process, we thought he could provide an insight, we hope it’ll inspire other young people along the way.
Volunteering in the community is a big part of the D of E. We asked Edward what he’d done …
For both the service section of my silver and gold awards I was a young leader with Brighstone scout troop. I had been a scout there for a number of years and wanted to be able to continue my involvement after I’d left, as well as give something back to the troop by helping out. I was one of three young leaders in the troop, and together we helped the leaders plan and run the activities each week.
His residential project was a little less close to home – way up near Liverpool. Here’s Edward’s recounting of it …
For my residential project I travelled to Southport (a coastal town near Liverpool) to take part in BTCV (formerly British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) conservation project at Scarisbrick Hall, a local scout and guide campsite.
About 20 of us of all ages spent the week clearing streams, cutting back invasive non native plants such as Rhododendrons and felling trees to allow better growth of native species such as oak.
There were 5 young people there (by coincidence, 2 also doing their D of E residential) and between us we constructed a bridge across a stream out of trees we had felled ourselves – this was the challenge we had been set at the beginning of the week by the organisers.
It was a great week with a friendly group of people, and I felt that we’d achieved something useful by the end of it.
Get involved
If you want to get involved with the Duke of Edinburgh award, there are lots of details on their Website.
