On Saturday the 22nd February, cadets from 1145 Squadron went to the six nations rugby to help with holding the flag on the rugby pitch during the opening ceremony. Many of the cadets that went to this event had already been before so they knew what to do but for the cadets that had never done it before we had a few run through's. During the actual opening ceremony you can feel the adrenaline pumping being in the middle of everyone but the crowd have a great atmosphere and every cadet thoroughly enjoyed assisting with the flag. 

I recently attended a JNCO (Junior) where I learned about many different aspects of being a NCO, this included; leadership, teamwork, uniform and drill. The course started on Friday at around 6 pm where 14 Cpls were given a briefing on the activity’s that would take place over the weekend. We were then taken to our accommodation and tried to get an early night sleep for the busy day ahead.

The next morning we were on parade early and went to the lecture room where we had a small power point course before breakfast. We then filled the day with many other course and drill practices for the test the next day. The drill test consisted a sequence which we had to command and perform the movements. We then spent the night doing uniform and study for the test the next day.

The Sunday we had another early start and had a uniform inspection first thing. We then did some more drill practice before we went for breakfast. We had 3 different test that day, the first was a uniform regulations test where we had to answer question about specific parts of uniform, some of which were very uncommon. The second was the drill test where we had to instruct our drill partner around a 5x5 meter square using the drill movements provided, this was to test our drill voice. Then our partners instructed us and we were tested on our drill movements.

In the afternoon we changed into our greens and began the leadership test. We were split into teams of five and each person took leadership for the five different problems that we had to attempt. Some of these tasks were very enjoyable and required the team to work closely together.  They included problem solving tasks like the leader directing his team with blind folds on through a maze.

 We were then debriefed and went home. I learned a lot about the general cadet organisation .The whole course was a great experience were I learned a lot about how to be an effective NCO. I would recommend this course to anyone looking towards becoming a NCO.