Our Staff / 29.04.2020
QCCC is re-engaging staff for the essential tasks required to operate, maintain, continue and guarantee the swift and improved recovery of QCCC’s operations. ...
Over the last few years the traditional activities of Outdoor Education have become mainstream commercial activities. It’s possible to fly a zipline in a shopping centre, clamber over a high ropes course on an individual double carabiner setup or scale climbing walls with nothing more than the assistance of an automatic belay system. Activities are getting bigger, better, longer and some of our competitors have installed similar options because it’s cheaper, less labour intensive and allows larger participant to staff ratios. Some climbing walls even offer strobe lights and blaring disco music.
The concept of “sequential school camp” programs have established a foothold in the consciousness of many schools over the last decade. With a lot of schools running camping programs from Grade 3 right through to Year 12 it can be a mammoth task to find an operator capable of offering a program with sufficient variety and quality. No two schools are the same and each school wants different outcomes and has different needs.
QCCC Mapleton's Senior Supervisor of Outdoor Education, Neil Robinson, is a finalist for the Outdoors Queensland Outstanding Individual Award in 2017. Neil is a trusted pioneer of Outdoor Education in Queensland, joining us in 1994 to start a one-man operation. From humble beginnings QCCC is now one of the largest providers of Outdoor Education programming in Queensland, catering to nearly 20,000 guests annually. Two decades after he commenced Neil trains and operates his Outdoor Education to an exacting standard, never being satisfied with anything less than industry best-practice. Staff trained by Neil Robinson are known for their excellence and attention to detail – whether this be in the QCCC workplace, or amongst staff who have been trained by Neil and gone to work in other organisations in Queensland or globally. The comment most often made about instructors trained by Neil is “they go the extra mile.” 
He is renowned for his attention to detail and high level of care, and the expectation all staff will embrace the highest level of service delivery. From the outset Neil has attempted to make Outdoor Education accessible to all. The earliest Mapleton events were camps for single mothers and their children. The vast majority of QCCC’s activities are accessible for people in wheelchairs or significant disabilities, with instructors trained above and beyond normal requirements to make sure all can participate. We congratulate Neil on this recognition of his service to the industry and wish him all the best with the Awards process.
Teachers place a high value on their school’s outdoor education and camping programs. Many tell us it’s the best time they get to spend with their students - an opportunity to build both peer-level and teacher-student relationships. They also say camp establishes an environment for out-of-the-ordinary experiences, which tend to be remembered more than experiences in ordinary settings. Little wonder then that teachers invest so much time and energy to take their classes away on camps where they can have both a quality Outdoor Education experience and observe their class in setting outside of the everyday routine.