Having completed my bronze, silver and ultimately gold award, I was lucky enough to meet HRH himself at my gold presentation. As I had been lucky enough to travel to Japan as part of my residential, I was delighted to be able to answer when our group were asked if anyone had travelled abroad as part of their gold award. I and two others shared details of our trips, and HRH was particularly interested to hear of my experiences of the language and to discuss the similarities of written characters with Chinese/Mandarin. There was such a genuine passion for knowledge there that I knew he was genuinely interested in hearing from the group and me. It was a delight I will treasure forever.
Particularly fitting as I now work in education and volunteer as an assessor for bronze DofE groups and have great pleasure in recalling all the many wonderful times I had as part of all three levels of the award. From horizontal rain, burnt pasta (somehow...), dense fog around Snowdon, to meeting HRH, it really is wonderful to look back and I truly hope this scheme will run for many generations to come.