I only did this one because the journey man was full and upon reading the kit list I noticed that if you do the camp craft course you can take an axe 
woodlore campcraft 18th july
- Thread starter Man of Tanith
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Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
just telling you how it was for me , i put a load in(in fact i spent a lot of energy helping someone there who struggled a lot which thugh i was happy to do that kinda should of been the role of the instructors not me), now i worked in outdoor ed for years. i found the course disorganised disjointed and not very relevent and there were a few incidents on the course which were very VERYquestionable.
when i was on it it was shortly after one of there long term instructors had left and he had a great reputation i guess i hit at the wrong time between the changing of the guards.im sure it must have been tightened up by now. also there was too many people on the course and the whole thing had more of a feel of a managment training week rather than an outdoor course.£400 would of been what i would of said the course should of been priced at.(and to be honest i would of rather paid the money and not attended would of been far better for me).
oh so maybe it was me just having a bad time , well again no i had private conversations with several other people on this course and they felt rather cheesed off about how this week was. and kept in contact with a few after and some of the views i have put forward are tame compared to what they have said about the week.
Especially when you consider at £700 a throw 16 people hats just short of £1100 a week brought in per course . Now I have had to run and budgeted courses so I understand over heads costs of insurance equipment instructors hire of venues but even so I do feel I am right that I should of expected far better organised course
however i do concede that maybe this was just a spat of "bad form" for the school but at the price i paid for the week i expected far more professionalism .
i came off the course not only feeling exhausted but also dejected and rather short changed .
i had previously been on a moot had paid a fraction of the cost had a great time and learnt far more from it. and more importantly come away from it feeling inspired.
to rub insult into injury when my friends (who still work in outdoor ed) questioned me on the course i then got endless joshing at spending so much money on it though they didn't know two of the knots i learnt so they thanked me for showing them my £350 a knot knowledge lol.
i had seen other course at a lower price but like many people i was thought well pay more get the best , i could not of been more wrong,as a final bad repercussion i was just put off the whole bushcraft thing for quite a while after
.what annoys me - and this is directed at you southey is that people big up this school so much like its divine and untouchable the simple truth is there are so many schools out there equal if not better but with maybe not such a high profile and there was not a lack of content on the course just a lack of relevance and continuity
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Indeed, it sounds as though you had a fairly miserable time, but as southey has written, surely the best place for detailing this would be in your own thread rather than try to drag down the tone of mortalmerlin's one. By all accounts he seems to have had a splendid time. A comment along the lines of "glad you had a good time but this wasn't my experience" and a link to your own thread would perhaps be more appropriate?
Out of interest can you remember the names of your instructors? specifically who was running the course?
Edited to add:
Having just had a scan through your flickr gallery I see that Willow Lohr was your instructor, things must have really gone wrong on your week. She led my Journeyman course and (I thought) did a superb job.
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Hi william# sandbender hit it on the head there, it wasn't about the course but more about the way you put your feelings across. It's just something i've been noticing a bit lately else where(must add not from yourself), I feel it's just a bit unfair to the guys going. we all know there are a wide variety of schools who offer some great courses, but just because we might choose to go to woodlore doesn't mean we are putting it on a pedestal, or saying it's better or worse than others. Plus you really didn't give as full an expanation, as you did in your last post.
Not my tread, I was just answering the question the tread posed by Sam which was "are you going on the course".
I won't waste much time with people who didn't like, by the sounds of it, a different course. I'm a big boy now and I'll make up my own mind about how I spend the money I've worked for. I like their courses, I buy their kit and I couldn't care less what other people make of that
2007 was a year of change for Woodlore, several people left to pastures new and due to the long training schedule, no one was ready to step into their places and those like Willow had an enormous amount of pressure put on them to keep up the levels of service, and which sadly lead to her leaving. The good news is for folks now, that they are in a strong position with some great knowledgable instructors again and the training regime and new employees undergoing it should ensure that it won't happen to that extent again.
well done jonothan so thats what i experianced
the downside was i spent my money on the course which essentially i would of been better off using as tinder
tbh the money wasnt that inportant to me it was how the course left me feeling
imo they should of cancled some courses in 2007 in favour of quality - looks like we paid for a course and were beta testers
was a bit unfair of woodlore taking money off me without having a proper crew of instructors ready to step up, i have read you guys rave about the courses you hve been on - but can you take a few minutes to imagine i was so excited and keen had prepared loads and looking forward for months for what was supose to be an amazing course
can you imagine how you would of felt if after your course with them you felt totaly conned let down ? how do you think it would paint your view of bushcraft and there school?
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The course was probably correctly manned, it's just that those running them where under more pressure than usual. Happens in every school in every business and in every organisation. I'm sure if courses were cancelled, this would have lead to far more dissatisfaction.
Anyway, this thread is well and truly hijacked and I apologize to the OP for that.
I did a course with woodlore in 2007 and found it to be up to the usual very high standards. Willow was on that one. The experience I had is what prompted me to book again in 2008.
I can imagine how gutted you must have felt, did you raise this with them at the time?
Like mortalmerlin I attended two courses in 2007, with the journeyman in September being run by Willow, everyone on these two certainly had a good time, so the poor showing wasn't consistent throughout the year.
Mortalmerlin I see you pinched a chopping log to use for your morning brew, smart thinking
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