BATTLE OF BRITAIN DINING IN NIGHT - The Insight Online

What a busy summer it’s been! It really has been full onfor the last couple of months at RAF Waddington andthis definitely applies to Community Support Squadron.The summer is always busyit seems with ‘business asnormal’ on many fronts butwith the added challengesof short notice deployments,school holidays, our traditional‘Airplay’ Holiday ActivitiesProgramme and beingshorthanded this year due tostaffing changes, this summerhas been busier than ever forCommunity Support Squadron.Karen has been a real stalwart,providing a valuable and highquality service both in her corerole as HIVE Information Officerand also in recent years, as anintegral part of the CommunitySupport Team. Karen leaves largeshoes to fill and her expertiseand commitment providingessential support to ServicePersonnel and family memberswill certainly be missed. All ofthe Community Support Teamwish her the very best in hernew role which will almostcertainly provide a challengein these ever changing times.have benefited greatly from theexcellent RAF Benevolent Fundsponsored ‘Airplay’ project. Theproject that saw a large injectionof funding for stations a few yearsago has provided dedicatedyouth work staff who havedelivered both term-time andholiday youth provision in recentyears. Earlier this summer theStation Youth Worker, Miss KirstyForrester also left to pursue a newrole which was well deserved butalso left us with the challenge ofdelivering a summer programmethat has gone from strength tostrength in recent years. Beforeleaving, Kirsty planned thissummers programme that notonly included our normal tripsand activities, ice-skating, AltonTowers, Low Ropes etc. but alsosaw the introduction of someOn 21 June, Community SupportSquadron saw the departure ofMrs Karen Pearce, one of it’s mostexperienced staff. Moving on topastures new, Karen took up theposition of Personal Assistant Airplay Holiday Activitiesto the Station Commander,having served within the HIVE In recent years, RAF Waddington,at Waddington since December Service Personnel and many2000. Over the last 12 years, of their families and childrenCommunityMattersnew initiatives, watersports, skiingand snowboarding, an ‘airfield’camp out and the re-workingof our ever popular (annual itseems) ‘Masterchef’ event. Thisyear one of the key personalitiesinvolved in the development andcontinued success of ‘Airplay’,Air Commodore (Ret’d) PaulHughesdon (a director of theBen Fund) visited the station tobe a guest judge. Accompaniedby Mr Damian Pinel, the ChiefCommunity DevelopmentAdvisor from HQ Air Commandand yours truly, this years eventhad a delicious RAF theme. Withlarge numbers of young peoplepreparing food menus based ontraditional and cultural delicacieswhere the RAF has bases orpersonnel around the world,the event was a great success.Overall the programme thissummer was hugely successful,in the main due to one of our‘sessional’ youth work staff(Miss Kristina Rodier) steppingup to the plate and ensuringthat over 450 activity placeswere offered to young peopleover 19 different activities. Howwe maintain or develop thisprogramme for future holidayperiods, is one question I haven’tquite got my head round yet!Support To Deployed FamiliesThroughout a Service personscareer it is now almost commonplace that Service personnel willspend time away from home.Regardless if this is part of anOperational Deployment or adomestic exercise or trainingcourse, family members leftbehind can still experience14 InsightMAGAZINE