Today was one of those days when you don’t get much opportunity to gather your thoughts. I had two jobs on today, both of which were with cadets, but in different places.

Oswestry School CCF had their biennial inspection today, for which a high ranking officer from the regular forces comes to see how training is conducted and, hopefully, to give their seal of approval. Oswestry School had decided to put on a range of stands including an obstacle course (it’s no longer ‘PC’ to call them assault courses), live firing on the outdoor range, the climbing tower and the DCCT range (an indoor computer simulation range) as well as more tactical demonstrations to give the reviewing officer the opportunity to witness a variety of things the CCF gets up to.

I was asked to run the Climbing Tower, with the assistance of one of their senior cadets, for a number of groups as they went from stand to stand on a round robin of activities. Each group only had a limited time on the tower, but everyone did really well. As is always the case, some were more nervous than others, but they were very encouraging of each other, enabling some to climb higher than they thought they’d be able to. So, well done everyone.

The afternoon was spent with cadets from Ellesmere College CCF. After the recent focus on formal orders, we concluded that a change would be as good as a rest, and took some time to look at some basic map and compass work. The compasses seemed to confuse most to start with but, with a little instruction and practice, most were able to take a decent bearing by the end of the afternoon.