I really enjoyed my DofE experience, it helped me to build skills in which I already had along with skills that I found due to the award programme.

I have so many fond memories of my experience, there's no better feeling than getting to the end of a long hiking expedition after hiking and camping in miserable weather. However, the group always helped to boost morale, I seem to remember a lot singing on the journey to the end!!

As well as these fond memories I have so much to take from this experience, the skills that I gained and developed are very important to me and continue to be to today. I was able to challenge myself physically, training to compete in a 10k run and for silver a 10 mile run. I was also able to gain some opportunities in leadership in being a young leader for my local cub section this has been something that I've continued to do throughout the pandemic on Zoom and have enjoyed helping with nights in person before COVID and online during and also the camps in which I've been able to offer support on!

Overall both bronze and silver DofE have been fantastic to be part of and I thank everyone involved, it has certainly given me confidence, even in my daily life and I've been able to throw myself into any situation knowing that I have pushed myself before in taking part in such things as DofE.