Owner

Lauren has been running The Outdoor Education Company since 2014 and likes to stay firmly involved in attending schools, events and running activities. Her favourite activities are climbing, skateboarding and laser tag.

She isn’t the biggest fan of admin but loves working with customers to find the best activities and packages for them.

You’ll meet Lauren on events, and via email/phone.

Office Manager

Karen refers to herself as a bit of a numpty and a technophobe but is always willing to give anything a go. She has recently changed careers after decades of working in management within the NHS and care. She now works part time for ourselves along side a regular volunteer role supporting homeless people.

How did we manage to recruit somebody as awesome as this? Well..she’s also Lauren’s Mum.

Operations Manager

Richard joined us in 2024 as a freelance instructor and is now our operations manager. Along side his role as a lead instructor, Richard helps to ensure that everything runs smoothly day-to-day by looking at event logistics and by keeping everything working as it should.

Richard has a background as both a driver. mechanic and outdoor instructor which is a pretty perfect combo!

Training and Development Lead

John is passionate about climbing and has been delivering climbing sessions with us since he qualified as an instructor in 2018. He spent 7 years representing his country as a member of the GB paraclimbing team (accumulating 6 international medals) and was the first blind person to summit the Eiger and Rinjani.

During his time with us John has become a core member of our team, regularly taking the lead on activity day set ups. John provides training to new team members on the set up and delivery of virtually all of our activities.

Instructor/Driver

After a busy 2024 with us Josh has joined us as a driver and team leader for 2025.

He brings a wide range of experience with him as an instructor and gets stuck in with almost any of our activities. Whatever he does he always looks like he’s having as much fun as the people taking part.

Lead instructor

Phill is a keen climber, but is always happy to get stuck in with other activities. His favourite colour is orange. Most of his clothing and belongings are orange so it’s pretty nice that he will wear green for us.

Phill will be instructing activities and leading events this year.

Instructor/Driver

Affectionately known as Target Rob by his team mates, Rob specialises in running target sports like archery. Rob has worked for us for 6+ years and fits us in around his own business, Active Aardvark. He’s one of the only instructors we know that can take a nap on a school field during lunch time!

Lead instructor

Steve first joined us in 2022 as a freelance instructor. He is highly skilled as driver, instructor, problem solver and is an all around good guy.

Steve has plenty of outdoor qualifications and also leads walks and DofE expeditions and loves to travel the world

Instructor

Matthew is passionate about the outdoors, he has worked as a professional in the outdoor industry for over 30 years, he has been a part of our team for over 2 years and can run most of our activities.

He brings lots of creativity and fresh ideas to his sessions, he is amazing at getting the best out of the young people he works with.

Instructor

Dev has worked with us off and on for many years. He started with us quite early on in the business and left to get a degree in outdoor leadership and PGCE. He has since returned and it’s been great to have him back.

Skateboarding is an activity that he encouraged us to introduce and it’s been a real success. Thanks Dev!

Instructor

Daryl is an Archery and Climbing instructor but can turn his hand to most of our activities. Outside of working with us, he leads DofE expeditions. He has a lot of experience in the industry and is a dependable, experienced and all around good guy to have on the team.