Foundation Magazine 2021-2022 | Mount Kelly

ADVENTURE
COMBINED CADET
FORCE
ADVENTURE
The CCF returned to regular
Wednesday afternoon parades in
September 2021 as a single Royal
Navy Section. The renewed focus on
the Royal Navy has allowed the section
to grow in size and pack in another
busy training year. Access to the usual
MOD facilities still has some restrictions
as service personnel were catching up
on courses post-pandemic. The cadet
forces did, however, work to ensure that
national courses could run and that our
weekly training could continue.
With a bumper intake of new Year 10
and new Year 11 cadets there was much
ground to cover with many having never
done any drill before, knots to learn and
charts to become familiar with. In March
we had a weekend at Britannia Royal
Navy College, Dartmouth. An excellent
insight into both life in the Royal Navy and
young officer training. Whilst at BRNC we
had access to many of the impressive
facilities including spending time on the
boats on the river and aboard Hindustan
– the permanently moored minehunter.
Our sail training continued in the Summer
Term with weekly sailing sessions at
Roadford Lake and a summer camp
at HMS Raleigh. A group of 20 cadets
decamped to HMS Raleigh to use the
training facilities at Jupiter Point working
towards RYA Dinghy qualifications. Of
course, in true British fashion you can
book everything except the weather! We
managed three, very windy, days afloat
but were blown off the water on the
fourth day. Nevertheless, there was lots
of impressive sailing and perhaps even
more capsizes. Everyone earned their
RYA Level 1 Dinghy qualification.
Throughout the year both staff and
cadets continued to go off on their
holidays on national training camps. Over
the year this include leadership courses,
first aid courses, offshore sailing and
dinghy sailing. An impressive range of
qualifications being gained and for many
an exciting residential camp away.
The end of the year was also marked
with the traditional Senior Cadets Dinner
where we said farewell to not only our
Upper Sixth Leavers but also SLt Susan
Roberts-Key who has been involved with
the CCF throughout her time at Mount
Kelly.
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