The Gino Watkins Memorial Fund administered by a committee, appointed under the joint trusteeship of the University of Cambridge (Scott Polar Research Institute) and the Royal Geographical Society, has awarded £6,000 towards the expedition costs of The Mount School Borealis Society East Greenland Expedition 2024.
This includes £1,000 that constitutes the annual Arctic Club Award that is given to just one of the expeditions that are successful in applying for the Gino Watkins Memorial Fund. This makes it the largest grant awarded by the Gino Watkins Memorial Fund to date.
Nigel Bidgood, Head of the Borealis Society and the East Greenland Expedition Chief Leader commented; “Gino Watkins is one of my heroes. An amazing man who led the British Arctic Air Route Expedition in 1930 to Greenland successfully pioneering the opening up of air routes across Greenland that not only featured in the movement of American aircraft to Europe in WW2 but in subsequent aviation routes post-war. The fact that The Mount School expedition has received the top award from the Gino Watkins Memorial Trust is a very proud moment indeed especially given that we have also been awarded the Arctic Club Award which is only given to one of the successful Gino Watkins Memorial Fund applicants each year.”
The preparations and planning for the East Greenland Expedition are continuing and the next Borealis Society Lecture will be on Friday 21st April 2023 commencing at 7:00pm in the School Hall.
Nigel Bidgood will be giving a presentation on “The origins and adaptations to survival of the Arctic flora of East Greenland”. Within the presentation, Nigel will be outlining the details of the scientific project that the expedition team members will be undertaking in the mountains of East Greenland as an integral part of this essentially mountaineering expedition.
Everyone is welcome to attend the lecture and refreshments will be served commencing at 6:30pm in the Dining Room.
David Griffiths, the Principal of The Mount School commented: “The integration of scientific and other academic studies into an essentially Arctic wilderness mountaineering expedition is something that I wholeheartedly support, as Principal. This is education as it should be, truly holistic in format but with a central academic backbone around which everything else is structured. It is distinctly humbling that such respected bodies as The University of Cambridge and the Royal Geographical Society have supported our aims at The Mount by presenting the Borealis Society East Greenland Expedition with such an impressive award”.