Brathay Exploration Group Progress Report on the Review of BEG Expedition Policies and Procedures Currently Taking Place

The Brathay Exploration Group has been committed for over sixty years to running safe and responsible expeditions. Nobody can remove all risk from life; the Group does not pretend to do so. It has sought to blend experience, learning from others and training to best advantage whilst navigating between the opposing dangers of providing its volunteer Leaders with too little guidance on the one hand and on the other hand defining responsibility to such a high degree that reasonable people will not accept the task, leaving the field to rash and incompetent practitioners and increasing risk for everyone.

There are now many more providers of youth expeditions than there were when BEG began in 1947. In line with the general development of ideas about how risk in all fields of endeavour should be assessed and recorded, BEG has participated fully in the evolution of public st andards, culminating in the 2009 revised version of BS8848 and independent assessment by The Young Explorers Trust of the plans for each of its expeditions.

All these precautions did not prevent the tragic death in 2009 of a young man taking part on a BEG expedition to the Picos mountains of Spain. That tragedy has prompted the BEG Board to make public in some detail its current discussions and intentions with regard to all aspects of expedition planning, management and conduct.

The schedules that follow, which will be updated from time to time, are published for that purpose. Comments or contributions from others are welcome. Some broad policies are being established and these are set out in publicly available documents published on the BEG website as and when they are approved; these policies will be reviewed regularly.

Policies provide a framework for more detailed procedure prescription which will be comprehensive, clear and precise. Procedures will be essentially internal documents, but will be available for inspection by anyone interested. Much of the detail which follows indicates the nature of procedural modification/development taking place. The intention is for BEG’s suite of procedures to be subject to consultation and expert accreditation overall, this in addition to provisions for independent assessment of individual expedition plans.

Pending completion of this thorough review of policies/procedures and various other changes in its organisation and operation, BEG is maintaining a degree of activity mainly restricted to participants aged 18 or over.

BEG Board, October 2010

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