Our Mission

“I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wheretho’
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades\
For ever and for ever when I move….
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

– Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Our Vision

To ensure that every member of the UK’s Volunteer Reserve and Cadet Forces has the opportunity to undertake challenging adventurous and community-related activities, thereby to help the engagement and development of young people in our society, individually, and as effective contributors to their communities and as citizens of this country.

Our Mission

To provide encouragement, advice and financial support for challenging expeditions planned and undertaken by our Volunteer Reserve and Cadet Forces.

What We Have Achieved

The formation of the Trust catalysed a sea change to the perceived potential of such activity by our Volunteer Reserve and Cadet Forces. Previously, such opportunity was simply not on the agenda for reservists, and cadet activity was modest and UK-based only. Now, expeditions by our Reserves and Cadets reach every part of the globe, providing enriching opportunity of which previously many could only dream.

Since 1992, the Trust has provided over £3.5 million, to help over 40,000 young people from all backgrounds to participate in over 2,980 expeditions around the world. Many expeditions also make a positive difference to communities they touch. Others, such as one over several years to climb the highest mountain of every continent, are ambitious and stretching by any yardstick.

This raises the morale of our Reserve and Cadet organisations. Individuals taking part develop leadership, team-work, initiative, confidence and self reliance – emerging as better able to serve the community. For some, the experience has been simply life-changing. The mother of one cadet, following an expedition to the mountains of Corsica, wrote: “What had gone away was a typical urban, self centred teenager and what returned was a much more appreciative, polite, self sufficient adult. The transformation was astonishing. Nor can I thank you enough for the support you gave the expedition, without it Laura would never have been able to do something like that. The accomplishment was more that a walk; it has altered her self belief and approach to life. My thanks to the Ulysses Trust for their continued support of young people finding themselves.”

How We Do It

We are the only organisation dedicated to supporting the development of our Reserves and Cadets through challenge and adventure. We actively promote the value and possibilities of these opportunities, and provide a speedy and flexible response to requests for our help through a sophisticated on-line application and review process. Review is undertaken by a team with extensive experience in this field, and financial support (typically less than 15% of total expedition costs and 25% of individual contributions) takes the form of either pump-priming funds for major projects, or as support of last resort for others.

As a result, we provide a focus of encouragement for such activity within our Reserve and Cadet Forces, and can direct funds for it at the right time and to best effect. We thus provide a unique service, both to beneficiaries, and benefactors who believe in the benefits of our mission and who wish to recognise the commitment of our Reserve Forces and Cadets to both the nation and the fabric of our society.

Demand for our help is increasing. We, therefore, need the continuing financial support of others to help develop the potential of our young people.

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Join us and help The Ulysses Trust on the next stage of its Odyssey!