Sea and Marine Cadets Pass Inspection With Flying Colours

By J. Brock (FINN)

An annual training session and inspection of the Stanley Branch of the Sea and Marine Cadets took place at 1900 on Tuesday evening at the HQ. LCDR Black took the inspection of approximately 40 young students who are at various stages of their training. Besides the inspection, the Cadets put on displays of their skills. The Sea Cadets started things off with a semaphore message of welcome and continued on with a first aid demonstration. Following that, the Marine Cadets showed how to free hostages taken by terrorists. There was a final command task that involved making a birthday cake, striking up the band and serenading a member of the training staff. Following the demonstrations, awards were presented to many of the Cadets.

INSPECTION PRESENTATIONS:

Good Conduct – 3 Years – Ordinary Cadet Andrea Steen-MacDonnald, Ordinary and Cadet Clynt Short

Good Conduct – 1 Year – Cadet Rhys Clifford, Cadet Colette Thomas, and Cadet Terry Sue Clifford

Cook Steward 3^rd Class – Acting Leading Cadet Emma Steen-MacDonnald, Ordinary Cadet Elizabeth Newton, and Cadet Rhys Clifford

Electrical 3^rd Class - Able Cadet Christine Ormond, Cadet Dion Betts, Cadet Christian Minto, and Cadet Shane Mitchell

PRESENTATIONS FOR MARINE ENGINEETING 3^rd CLASS:

Acting Leading Cadet Dema Sytchov, Cadet Terry Sue Clifford, and Cadet Jason Dickson

LCDR Black’s Remarks on the departure of CPO Vanda Steen-MacDonnald:

"It gives me an enormous pleasure to present to CPO Steen-Macdonals with this. She has done an enormous amount of work for this unit over the past few years. I know that for certain because I have seen her in the UK as well on courses and she has held this unit together for some considerable time. And, I offer my most sincere thanks to you, Vanda, for all that you have done and I wish you and all of your family well when you go back to "God’s Country." Have a safe journey and I hope that you will continue to make a positive contribution."

CPO Steen-Macdonnald replied: "I would like to thank everybody who helped over the last 5 years. It was the best time we ever had. Thank you for all of your support."

LCDR Black’s General Remarks:

"May I say congratulations to those who didn’t receive badges this evening. Well done. I think you put on a tremendous display for me this evening. I thoroughly enjoyed this evening and I hope the Mums and Dads that are sitting around the room enjoyed themselves, too.

You are the furthest outpost from the Sea Cadet Corps from the United Kingdom. It’s some 8,000 miles away and we come down here to have a look to ensure that we believe that what you do and what you trained for here is worthwhile. I am thoroughly happy that I can go back on Thursday and report to CDR Prime that a good job is being done down here at TS ENDURANCE in Stanley.

CDR Prime sends hip apologies that he could not be here this evening. He, unfortunately, has a dickey shoulder and was not authorised to fly abroad at all, least of all to the Falklands. So, I drew the short straw and had about two days notice before coming down here. You provided me with some wonderful weather.

You showed some super skills tonight which I think were wonderful. How many of you have friends at school? If you have friends at school, why not let them know what you do here and what’s available to you. You, the Cadets, are the best recruiters. And, if you go back to school and ask your friends to come down and have a look and see what you have been up to down here, this could be a much bigger unit.

My thanks to staff, especially to Vanda for holding it together, as I said. I wish the new OIC, Keith Reddick, a tremendous success in the job that you are about to take on. I am sure you will be a resounding success. I would like to also thank Ken (Newton) and the Committee as well. And, it’s lovely to see so many Mums and Dads and friends. It’s good to renew old acquaintances and friendships and I thank you for that.

(To the Civil Military Liaison Officer) It’s nice to see the Royal Airforce here as well. I trust that you will keep an eye on the Unit. Anything you can do is greatly appreciated.

To one and all, thank you very much. Myself and my team have enjoyed our short visit to Stanley, again, and I trust we will be back in February to give you more training.

Thank you very much indeed.

SEA CADETS INSPECTION: LCDR Black’s interview over FIBS with Lee Hazell.

The Stanley Sea Cadets are going to be put through their paces this week, with the arrival of LCDR Black (LB) and his team of three trainers. But what else are they going to be up to while they are here?

LB: Quite a bit. I am going to be conducting the formal inspection of TS ENDURANCE, which we call the Stanley Sea Cadet Unit, looking at every aspect of what the youngsters get up to. And, my training team, consisting of three other officers will be training the staff and the Cadets to bring up their qualifications and make it easier for the staff, then, to train the Cadets on their own down here.

LH: I know you are going to be doing something like uniform inspection and parades.

LB: And conducting sailing and eco-pulling – that’s actually rowing in the boats and doing some cook/stewarding and all sorts of things, really.

LH: So you are quite busy, then?

LB: O, yes, a very busy time.

LH: You have been a Naval Officer for a few years.

LB: I have. I have done about 32 years n the Royal Navy.

LH: And you recently retired and took the full-time post of – what’s your full title?

LB: Deputy Area Officer for the Southern Area of the Sea Cadets in the UK.

LH: And, you’ve got quite a lot of units to look after.

LB: We’ve got 68 Units and about 1500 Cadets in total. This is my furthest outpost.

LH: Have you been here before?

LB: I have been down twice before.

LH: What do you think of the place and how do you think the Sea Cadets is run?

LB: I love Stanley. I love the Falkland Islands. The Unit itself, is tremendous. Just to see the enthusiasm generated by the staff and the Cadets with happy, smiling faces, is a sight to behold, really.

LH: We had this little chat before, I mean, the Sea Cadets here, they go on the Navy Boats. They do quite a lot. It’s a lot more than the Sea Cadets in the UK would do.

LB: They are very lucky here in that they have an affiliation with HMS ENDURANCE and HMS LEEDS CASTLE. Obviously, if those ships come into harbour, Sea Cadets will go onboard. But, any other warship that comes down, the Unit Staff will approach the Captain of the ship and, thankfully, on most occasions, get the youngsters to sea.

LH: It’s quite important for them, especially if they want to take on a career in the Navy, they get a good look and can see how things are run properly.

LB: Indeed.

LH: We ended with an apology. But Why?

LB: I would just like to apologise for the fact that I am here and not my boss. CDR Prime unfortunately has a dickey shoulder and he was told that he would not be allowed to fly down here. So, I am representing him. He would very much like to say that he wanted to come down and he’s apologising for not being here in person. You got me instead.