International Air Cadet Exchange Update

The International Air Cadets were with only with us for 3 full days but we managed to pack loads of stuff into the few days they were here. Unfortunately, the Caithness Highland Gathering was cancelled due to bad weather so we didn't all get together on Sunday. Each host family did their own thing, with most going out doing some local sight seeing.


Monday saw 25 of us doing the Orkney day trip from John O'Groats. It was a beautiful day in the main, with lots of sun shine, and only one brief torrential downpour. The bus tour took us round main of the Orkney sites including the Churchill Barriers, Scapa Flow, Orphir Round Kirk, Yesnabay Cliffs (see photo), Standing Stones of Stenness, Ring O'Brodgar. The highlight of the trip though was Skara Brae and the Italian Chapel - they never fail to amaze!


Our visit to the Castle of Mey on Tuesday was equally well received with the cadets commenting on how relaxed and plain the castle interior was and on the number of 'normal' family photographs on view. The especially liked the Queen Mum's wellie boots and waterproof coat hanging at the front door. I have to say, my personal favourite bit was the fresh scones with clotted cream and jam from the cafe! Tuesday afternoon saw all the cadets enjoying ten pin bowling and some arcade games at the Viking Bowl.


We held a barbeque, at our home in Forss, for all the visitors, cadets and hosting families to round off their visit. This proved to be a successful evening with all the older exchange cadets and our younger local cadets really mixing well and enjoying each other's company. The highlight of the evening was an International Giant Jenga tournament, which the International cadets won with a tower that was over 6' tall.

Our Wing Commander, Brian Munro joined us for the evening as did local Lord Lieutenant, Anne Dunnett. I bet there are not many Squadrons who can boast that their Lord Lieutenant was cooking at their barbeque!

Machrihanish Camp 2007 - The News

All our cadets and staff had a great time at Machrihanish. Haven't managed to get all the details from the cadets yet, but the staff are on a high! All I've heard about since Paul got back is "when we were at camp" and "then this happened" - definite "band camp" feel (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've ever watched American Pie).

The cadets doing Radio Controlled Flying managed to crash 4 planes the first week, and 3 the second week but they did manage to build some planes too so I guess that makes up for it. The cadets doing fieldcraft had a great night exercise, which didn't finish until 6am - how cool! The shooting module cadets passed Weapons Handling Tests for both the No. 8 and the L98 rifles and managed some pretty good scores in the live firing.

Other modules available included First Aid, Duke Of Edinburgh Expedition, Police Flight and Leadership. Stole this leadership video from YouTube which shows what they were up to during Week 1.



All cadets took part in Air Experience Flying in the Grob Tutor and some got flights in a Lynx helicopter. Cpl Gray took his bagpipes with him and was lucky enough to be asked to pipe the RAF Scotland Commendant onto the camp.

Air Experience Flying

I had a telephone call from Jim tonight regarding our allocation of flying places for August. We have 16 places (a minibus full) but unfortunately, rather than a daytime slot, we have a 5pm to 8pm slot on Wednesday 8th August. This is due to AEF having a commitment to fly Summer Camp cadets during the day. A little bit annoying considering we have a 3 hour drive to get to Kinloss and a 3 hour drive home. However, if we arrive early they will give us priority so that we can get away early too - how kind!

Now comes the difficult part - who gets to go flying? How do you allocated 16 places to 25 cadets? What criteria do you use:

• Those who have never been flying before
• Best attendance
• Best behaviour
• Those who have missed out on other activities
• A combination of the above (how complicated)
• Eenie, meanie, miny, mo!

It is not easy and I hate making these decisions because ultimately, not everyone is going to get a place and, to be honest, they all deserve a place. Oh the joys of being a Squadron Commander.

1322 Squadron Air Cadet video - I Get Knocked Down

This has to be the best Air Cadet video I have seen! It is really well done and simply rocks. Take a look everyone! I came across it when I asked Matt Hughes for permission to use photos, that I found in Flickr, in our website and this blog. Matt then kindly sent me the link to this video. Three NCO's at the Squadron created it. Brilliant!

Thurso Air Cadet Group on Flickr

A GOOD WAY TO SHARE CADET PHOTOS

I have created a Thurso Air Cadet group on Flickr, a great photo sharing site. I thought this would be a really good way to share all our photos with the cadets, staff and parents of the Squadron. Visit the group at

http://www.flickr.com/groups/thursoaircadets/

Plans for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Well, today I have been working on finalising the arrangments for our trip to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Personally, I have wanted to attend the tattoo for years and we have been trying to get tickets but they are like gold dust. This year though we decided to go as a Squadron and yippee we got 30 tickets (booked in November last year), excellent!

We are staying at the Sea Cadet accomodation at Rosyth and are going to make a bit of a weekend of it. We hope to arrive at Rosyth around 4pm on Friday afternoon and after dinner plan to take the cadets to one of the local Air Cadet ranges for some .22 marksmanship (an excellent tool to teach youngster self discipline).

On Saturday we are going to visit the Royal Yacht Brittannia at Leith. Their website states we will tour "five of Britannia’s magnificent decks, taking you through the fabulous State Apartments and crew’s quarters, and ending in the gleaming Engine Room". Photo "Men's Quarters in the Britannia" by cyocum, Flickr.

After dinner we will then be attending the highlight of the Trip, the Tattoo before heading back to Rosyth. On Sunday we are taking a trip down the Edinburgh Dungeons (bit scary for me but hey ho) then we are heading for Fordel Firs activity centre for some archery, climbing and the challenge course. We will then round off with some swimming or bowling on Sunday evening before heading home again the following morning.

Sound great, I'm so glad I am part of the Air Cadets!

International Air Cadet Exchange 2007

I have spent most of today trying to sort out our programme of events for the International Air Cadet Exchange visit. I am pleased to say that Thurso Squadron are hosting all of the international cadets visiting the highlands from the 21st to the 25th July.

The party, who share a common interest in aviation, are visiting us as part of a two week, UK wide vistit. The visiting cadets are from New Zealand, the USA, Canada, Turkey, Austria, Belgium and Ghana - a fair old mix.

The aim of the programme is to foster international understanding, goodwill and friendship among young people and I certainly hope that Highland Hospitality will go a long way to meeting those aims.

On Sunday, after a relaxing morning, we plan to take them to the Caithness Highland Gathering in John O'Groats (a small games, but I am sure enjoyable none the less).

I don't believe a visit to Scotland is complete without visiting Orkney so a Maxi Day Trip to Orkney is scheduled for Monday including Skara Brae, the Standing Stones, the Churchill Barriers, Scapa Flow, the Italian Chapel and some time in both Stromness and Kirwall. Dinner will be provided in the Albert Hotel in Kirwall who, I have to say, were extremely helpful in organising a reasonably priced meal for 25 people.

On Tuesday we are visiting the Castle of Mey and then letting our guests have some free time in the afternoon to recouperate and prepare for a more hectic time ahead. The Squadron are hosting a barbeque on Tuesday evening as a farewell before the party heads south on Wednesday morning.

I hope that both our guests and my own cadets, and their families, enjoy the experience. This is an opportunity that is available to our own cadets once they hit 16 years old. Of course, they don't do visits around the UK but they travel to one of the other countries to take part in a similiar activity. Hopefully, the visit will inspire them to apply for this opportunity!

Off to Machrihanish Camp 07

Five our our cadets and 2 staff left Thurso this morning to take part in a Regional Camp at MOD Machrihanish. During the week each will be working on a particular module, as well as doing some flying, sports and general getting to know everyone. The modules our cadets selected were Fieldcraft, Shooting, and Radio Controlled Model Aircraft Flying but the staff members were more adventurous and selected the Duke of Edinburgh Expedition module.

Machrihanish is a former RAF station, close to Campbeltown in the south of Scotland. It was formerly home to the US Navy SEAL commando unit but at the end of the cold war it was handed back to the MOD. The base is now on a 'care and maintenance' contract which means that it can be used by civilian airlines but the MOD still use it for exercises.

Lets hope all our cadets behave themselves. I did have a little chat with them all about "representing Thurso Squadron" and "behaving accordingly". I am not really concerned, as we are very lucky and have a really good bunch of kids at the moment. I might be slightly more concerned about the staff though!!!

Summer Camp - RAF Rheindhalen

Flight Sergeant Gray and Corporal Richardson are at Summer Camp at RAF Rheindhalen in Germany this week with 38 other cadets from across the UK. They flew out from London on Wednesday and the Flight Sergeant has been made senior cadet of the camp. This will be a very good experience for her and I am sure she will rise to the challenge, as she always does.

The camp programme includes karting, bowling, shooting, drill, fieldcraft, sports and visits to a Movie Park, Museums and Arnhem Bridge (of WWII fame). The week will round off with a final evening disco. Sounds great, wish I was with them!

Pic: Eusebius Church, Arnhem by Derek Lilly, morgueFile

Welcome to my Air Cadet Blog

I have decided to log what happens at the cadets. Seems like a better idea that writing a book. Don't know where this might go, nor how it might be used, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I am the Squadron Commander of the 1769 (THURSO) Squadron Air Training Corps. I have been a member of staff with the Squadron since 1989, initially as a Civilian Instructor then, going into uniform several years later. I got involved because my husband, Paul, was a member of staff with the Squadron and they were short of female instructors. He begged me to come along and help out. I bet he regrets doing that, given that I am now in charge!

The Squadron meet on Monday and Thursday evenings, from 7.30pm, in the Drill Hall, Princes Street, Thurso and have many weekend and holiday activities. We provide the cadets with many opportunities from flying, gliding and aircraft recognition, to skiing, parachuting and hillwalking, to sports, leadership & academic qualifications, with lots of others in between.

The most influential people, in my ATC career (well it might as well be, it takes up as much time as my regular job), has been Flight Lieutenant Stuart Dunnett, my first Squadron Commander and Anne Dunnett, the Lord Lieutenant of Caithness.

I worked alongside Stuart for many years and despite being a civilian member of staff was his 'right-hand' woman (I don't think he would disagree). He then moved away from the county, for another woman no less, and he ended up marrying her. Stuart was the one who got me into skiing and hill walking, much to my initial disgust, but I am very grateful now. I learnt so much from Stuart and he became a very good friend. I still miss him around the Squadron and would stand down any time he wishes to return. He is now the Squadron Commander of the Whitehaven Squadron in Cumbria.

Anne Dunnett has been an inspiration both to myself and the cadets. Her dedication and commitment to the County's youth is insatiable and they all admire her for it. There have been times when I have contimplated giving it all up and a few unwitting words of praise from Anne have made it all worthwhile. It is so nice to have someone who notices the work that my staff and myself put into the organisation.