BSES Expeditions

BSES Expeditions is a youth development charity based in the United Kingdom. It operates expeditions for young people, to wilderness environments. The expeditions aim to develop confidence, teamwork and the spirit of adventure. BSES also promote awareness of the natural environment through scientific projects. BSES Expeditions is the longest running and most experienced youth organisation of its kind.

History

BSES Expeditions is a youth development charity that organises challenging scientific expeditions to remote, wild environments to develop the confidence, teamwork, leadership and spirit of adventure and exploration of its Young Explorers.

BSES Expeditions is one of the longest running and most distinctive youth development charities of its kind. Based at the Royal Geographical Society, BSES Expeditions was founded in 1932, by an original member of Captain Scott’s final Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13, George Murray Levick to provide young people with an intense and lasting experience of self-discovery in some of the world’s last true wilderness environments around today.

For over 75 years, BSES Expeditions has provided the opportunity for young people, aged 16–23 years old, from different schools, universities and many other walks of life to take part in valuable adventure and environmental research projects in challenging areas of the world from the Arctic to the Amazon Rainforest. Led by experts drawn from a host of professions such as universities, teaching and The Services, all the expeditions aim to help in the development of young people through the challenge of living and working in remote and testing areas of the world. Previous names for the society were:
* The Public Schools Exploring Society
* The British Schools Exploring Society

Membership

BSES is a society which is formed from those who have taken part in a BSES Expedition. Typically, students of age 16-23 apply to take part in an expedition. They are selected by interview, and are then members of an expedition, known as a Young Explorer ("YE").When a YE successfully completes an expedition, and on the recommendation of the expedition Chief Leader, they are admitted to the society.Society members may vote in the AGM, and help to govern the future of the society.One other way of entering the society is by becoming a leader.

Activities

Expedition locations

BSES is most renowned for its expeditions to the Arctic. However, BSES Expeditions also mounts expeditions to warm climates.

Places visited by BSES Expeditions:
*Alaska
*Antarctica
*Canada
*Finland
*Greenland
*Iceland
*India
*Kenya
*KwaZulu Natal
*Ladakh
*Province of Lapland
*Lesotho
*Malawi
*Morocco
*Newfoundland
*Norway
*Papua New Guinea
*Peru
*Peruvian Andes
*Sinai
*South Georgia
*Svalbard
*Sweden
*Tanzania
*The Amazon
*Tien Shan
*Yukon
*Zimbabwe

Funding

Participants are expected to raise money to pay for expeditions through personal fundraising. A typical expedition may cost in the region of £5000 (excluding flights).

BSES science projects

Early expeditions collected valuable fieldwork data and brought back specimens for the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. These days BSES collaborate with a range of scientific research institutions from universities and world-respected scientists; to in-country NGOs and conservation organisations. Some of the organisations BSES currently have links with include the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), The British Mountaineering Council (BMC), Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), University of Cambridge and the Peruvian University of Amazonian Studies.

The expeditions contribute to long-term research projects by:
* Helping gather objective scientific data
* Funding and training local fieldworkers and university students
* Involvement in local community conservation and education initiatives

Many of the Society’s full members, who qualify as such by successfully completing a BSES expedition, have gone on to play a leading role in major international adventurous and scientific projects.

Notable BSES members

The society has a strong record of developing young people and its alumni include:

Professor David Rhind, Vice-Chancellor of City University, London, began his early surveying with BSES Expeditions as a Young Explorer in a 1962 expedition to Swedish Lapland. Prof Rhind was previously Director General and Chief Executive of The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (1992-98).

BSES president Field Marshal Sir John Chapple GCB CBE DL went on an expedition in the 1950s and went on to become a the Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, between 1989 and 1992. He also served as Governor of Gibraltar from 1993 to 1995.

Roald Dahl, author, joined a BSES expedition to Newfoundland at eighteen, instead of entering university.

Admiral of the Fleet Terence Lewin, Baron Lewin, KG, GCB, LVO, DSC went to Newfoundland with BSES in 1938 as one of the first young explorers from a state school (The Judd School in Tonbridge, Kent). Influenced by his leader on the expedition he entered the Navy in 1939 where he served with distinction being mentioned in dispatches three times and being awarded the DSC. Post war he rose rapidly through the ranks and was eventually appointed First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff . He was Chief of the Defence Staff and member of the War Cabinet during the Falklands War and it was for this role and also his longer term contribution to the restructuring of the Armed Forces in the 1980s that he was created a life peer, as Baron Lewin, of Greenwich in Greater London, and appointed a Knight of the Garter.

He has been called one of the greatest military leaders of the late 20th century. He retired from service in late 1982 and went on to Chair the Trustees of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

Tori James was a Young Explorer on a BSES Expedition in 2000 to the Vatnajokull Glacier in Iceland. She went on to work in the BSES office for 3 years. In 2005, Tori joined the Pink Lady PoleCats team and became the youngest ever female to complete The Scott Dunn Polar Challenge, a gruelling 360-mile race to the Magnetic North Pole. On 2nd October 2005 Tori became the "highest Welsh woman ever" having summited the world's sixth highest mountain, Cho Oyu (8,201m). Tori became the youngest British female and first Welsh woman to climb Everest when she summited in May 2007.

BSES Patrons, Appeal Patrons and Honorary Members

- Dr Ian Y Ashwell PhD MA
- Sir David Attenborough CH CVO CBE FRS, One of the world's best known broadcasters and naturalists. Widely considered one of the pioneers of the nature documentary
- Tom Avery, The youngest Briton to ski to the South Pole
- George Band, British mountaineer. , he was the youngest person on the 1953 Everest expedition. Chairman of the Himalayan Trust (UK)
- Christina Bassadone
- Saskia Clark
- Professor David Bellamy OBE, English botanist, author, broadcaster, environmental
- Lady Bishop
- Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE
- Sir Christian John Storey Bonington CBE, One of the world's most experienced and successful mountaineers. His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest and the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna.
- The Rt Hon The Lord Brabourne
- Sir Richard Branson, British entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin brand of over 200 companies
- Julian Brazier TD MP, British politician
- The Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Leader of the Conservative Party
- Baron Chorley, Hereditary peer in the House of Lords
- Sir Gordon Conway KCMG FRS
- Dr Sundeep Dhillon
- Sir Ranulph Fiennes British explorer and holder of several endurance records. First man to visit both the north and south poles by land Bt OBE
- Dame Mary Glen Haig
- Michael Gove MP, British politician
- Vice Admiral Michael Gretton CB
- Mr E W Groves
- Hon Lt Cdr Bear Grylls (RNR), British explorer and youngest Britain to climb Everest
- Pen Hadow British explorer. First man to walk solo and unsupported to the North Geographic Pole
- Robin Hanbury-Tenison OBE DL br />
- Dr John Hemming CMG br />
- Sir Wally Herbert, Polar explorer, writer and artist KT
- Sir Edmund Hillary KG KBE, New Zealand mountaineer and explorer, famous for being one of the first known climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- Dr Sir Martin Holdgate CB
- Sir David King ScD FRS Chief Scientific Advisor to H.M. Government and Head of the Office of Science and Innovation"
- Neil Laughton
- Dr Phillip G Law AC CBE
- Dr Hal Lister
- The Lord Mayor of the City of London, head of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London governs the much larger area of Greater London. Current Lord Mayor of London John Stuttard
- Joanna Lumley, English actress
- Sir Mark Moody-Stuart KCMG, Chairman of Anglo American plc and an ex-chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and a director of HSBC Holdings and of Accenture. He is a member of the UN Secretary General's Advisory Council for the Global Compact
- Polly Murray, British explorer and first Scottish female to summit Mount Everest
- B A Nimmo Esq
- Sir Christopher Ondaatje OC CBE, Sri Lankan Canadian businessman, philanthropist, adventurer, writer and Olympian.
- Borge Ousland, Norwegian polar explorer, photographer and writer
- Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork MBE FRAeS RAF (Retd)
- Professor David Rhind CBE FRS FRGS FBA FRICS BSc
- Aubrey Roberts
- Paul Rose, BBC television presenter, explorer, expedition leader and British Antarctic Survey base commander
- Ben Saunders, An adventurer, endurance athlete, and motivational speaker. He is best known for solo skiing to the North Pole in 2004, when he became the fourth in history and the youngest by ten years to reach the North Pole alone. He made three separate attempts to reach the North Pole between the ages of 23 and 26, skiing over 1200 miles (2000 kilometers) in the Arctic. He is the youngest person ever to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by someone of British nationality
- The Rt Hon The Earl of Selborne KBE FRS DL
- Lord Stevens of Kirkwelpington QPM DL
- Mr Robert Swan OBE
- Mr and Mrs Roland Tucker
- Mr J Vermilion
- Sir Peter Williams
- Nigel de N Winser, Executive Director, Earthwatch Institute.

ee also

*George Murray Levick - the founder of BSES Expeditions.

External links

* [http://www.bses.org.uk/ www.bses.org.uk BSES Expeditions website]
*UK charity|802196|British Schools Exploring Society