Crawley

Promotion of The Commanding Officer

The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant (SCC) Darren Erb-Smith RMR  has now been promoted to Captain (SCC) Royal Marines Reserve with effect from the 4th November. His promotion was announced to him by the Area Officer Commander Richard Tarr RN.

3rd Class Marine Engineering

Lat night I was able to present three 3rd class Marine Engineering Specialisations to AC Gardiner, Ac Fleming and OC Humphries. This was as a result of seven weeks of training with a written and practical assessement. All achieved very good passes and want to go on to complete the 2nd class level. Well Done.

Cook Steward 2nd Class Assesment Weekend

Following several weeks of Specialisation training in Menu planning, Food Hygiene, Catering Safety and Stewarding skills culminating in an assessment Weekend both AC Fleming and AC Gardiner successfully completed and qualified for their 2^nd Class Cook Steward attaining 100% in the written aspect of the assessment. Working well together they demonstrate their practical cookery skills planning, producing and serving Lunch for four staff Guinea Pigs

Specialisations

I was pleased to award a 3rd class specialisations out last night, Cadet Sophie Glyn was awarded her Communications specialisation. Very well done to her with an astonishing high mark of 463.7 out of 500. Well Done to her.

UMC Annual General Meeting

National Combined Regatta

A huge BZ to MC2 Nick Humphries and AC Andrew Gardiner who competed in the National Kayaking at the Excel Centre in London last weekend. MC2 Humphries won a silver and a bronze medal and AC Gardiner won two bronze medals when they represented Southern Area. They helped Southern Area become the overall winners of the competition.

More Duke Of Edinburgh Awards

I am pleased to publish that another three cadets have achieved the Bronze Award in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. This is a fantastic achievement and the three of you should be very proud of yourselves. Well Done to L/Cpl Georgia Armsby, A/C Nick Rolt and A/C Jake Foster.

Leading Cadet Promotion

I am pleased to announce that Able Cadet Jack Vincent was promoted to Leading Cadet last night. Leading Cadet Vincent attended the two weekends at MACT and was successful in passing the board. A huge BZ to him on his achievement.

Specialisation Training

Specialisation Training will commence the 20th September for 6 weeks. Please let me know what you want to do. You will be expected to be there every Thursday where possible to complete, so pick a subject you want to do.

Seamanship 3rd class

Chartwork 3rd class

Marine Engineering 3rd class

PT Apptitude

First Aid 3rd Class

Comms 3rd class

.22 Mark 8 rifle handling.

Lt (SCC) D. M. Erb-Smith RMR

Commanding Officer

Mayor of Crawley presents DofE Awards

The Worshipful Mayor of Crawley, Councillor Keith Blake attended Crawley unit on Tuesday 21st August along with his wife the Mayoress to present five Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Awards to L/Cpl Marshall, L/Cpl Francis, L/Cpl Evans, L/Cpl Price and A/C Murphy. The cadets had worked hard to achieve their qualifications completing sections in sailing, first aid, kayaking, power boating, service to the unit and expeditions. This is a fantastic achievement and you should be very proud.

The Mayor also presented 2nd Class First aid qualifications, a half marathon kayaking certificate and GCB awards.

Crawleymela

Crawley Sea Cadets & Royal Marines Cadets attended the Crawley International Mela weekend on the 21st and 22nd July. We had a display stand and a couple of boats on show on the Saturday and Sunday. It was a fantastic opportunity to tell the rest of Crawley who we are and what we do. There was a great turn out of cadets, members of staff, UMC, P&SA and parents so thankyou very much for your help. We managed to potentially recruit about a dozen cadets and we will be holding an open day at the unit on Thursday 13th September.

Ardingly 2012

The units major fundraising event at the South of England Showground at Ardingly took place over the weekend of the 6th to 8th July.

The cadets and staff worked extremely hard marshalling the car parking and selling programmes as well as shaking a few tins at the Ardingly Vintage & Classic Vehicle Show. The weather this year was atrocious with torrential rain on the Saturday. The cadets had to be bussed back to the unit in the early hours of Sunday morning due to the campsite being under 6 inches of water.  This obviously affected the amount of people attending the show this year.

In the past years we have managed to raise just over £1,000 through the collections and programs and it is our major fund raising event for the Unit; This year I am pleased to announce that we collected just over £560. A huge BZ to everyone involved who smiled and worked hard throughout and a special BZ to Staff Sergeant McNeill who did a fantastic job with the cooking.

Next years dates are the 5th - 7th July 2013.

Lt. (SCC) Darren Erb RMR
Commanding Officer

District Paddlesport Competition

The Surrey District paddlesport competition was held at Woking Unit on Saturday 9th June. The weather was glorious and the conditions were superb. We had cadets in nearly every event in both Juniors and Open classes. The competition was fierce but I am pleased to say we held our own. Out of the five trophies to be won Crawley Cadets won four of them. Winning Junior Boys, Junior Girls, Senior Boys and Best Overall. Well Done to all who participated and a special thankyou to CI Graham Francis for coaching the team.

Queens Diamond Jubilee Medals

I was pleased that the Mr. Robin Lawrence, Unit Chairman was able to present the Queens Diamond Jubilee medals to some members of uniformed staff last night. The medal is an official medal awarded to staff who have completed five full calendar years of service as of 6th February 2012. This medal celebrates the Queens 60th year as our Monarch. Well done to all the recipients, who include: Lt. Darren Erb-Smith (Commanding Officer), Lt Nick Boorman (First Lieutenant), Lt Ray Newman (DSO Ceremonial), CPO James Croucher, CPO Bob Fletcher, C/Sgt Phil Goss and PO Sandra Lowe.

Commanding Officer

First Aid Specialisation & Advancement Weekend

A fantastic training weekend was held at TS Cossack on the 4th - 6th May. There were thirteen cadets completing SCC First Aid Level 3 and Level 2 and five cadets on Advancement. Out of the thirteen cadets participating in the first aid course twelve were awarded 3rd and 2nd class and one just 3rd class, an amazing achievement.

New Entry Cadets Pennington and Nalawade were promoted to Cadet, Cadets Chloe McAllister and Lewis Humphries were promoted to Ordinary Cadet. Ordinary Cadet Callum Bennett was promoted to Able Cadet. The cadets worked extremely hard over the weekend so a huge BZ to you all. Can I also thank the staff for giving up another weekend to make this happen. For photos see the Crawley Sea cadets facebook page.

National Courses

Please check out the National Courses for onshore and offshore courses for 2012. If you are interested please contact the Commanding Officer or the Training Officer. Please click the link to see the programme.

http://www.sccheadquarters.com/National-Courses/National-Training-Programmes

HMS Raleigh Unit Camp

23 cadets and 6 staff from Crawley, Staines and Farnham Units are currently away at the moment on the Unit Camp Course at HMS Raleigh. This is the home to the Royal Navys phase 1 training. The cadets have lots of exciting things in store, yesterday they were on board HMS Courageous S50 a Churchill Class nuclear fleet submarine who went with her sister ship HMS Conqueror to The Falklands Conflict in 1982. Today the cadets have been on a harbour trip on board SD Newhaven down Plymouth Sound where they all had a chance to steer the craft from the wheel house. This afternoon they are all off to Plymouth Pavillions to attempt ice skating.

Commanding Officer gets married

Lt (SCC) Darren Erb RMR, our Commanding Officer married Ms. Sally Smith at 1.00pm on Saturday 11th February 2012 at St. Nicholas' Church, Worth, Crawley. Cadets from the Unit provided a Trinity Oar guard of honour for the bride and groom.

.22 Area Shooting Competition

Sea Cadets from Crawley formed part of the Surrey District shooting team along with Woking cadets at the Area .22 shooting competition which was held at Bisley on Sunday 29th January. The competition from other teams was hard and the team did very well coming 5th out of the eight teams. Well done to AC Humphries, AC Rolt and AC Vincent.

Specialisations

The cadets worked extremely hard over the weekend of January 21st - 22nd at the Unit obtaining numerous 3rd class specialisations in Marine Egineering, First Aid, Rigging & Ropework, Communications, Cook Steward and Physical Training. Well done to all, this is an excellent achievent and a big thankyou to all the staff.

Crawley gets its new Trinity 500

Crawley took delivery of her brand new Trinity 500 which was immediately put to use by the cadets on Hedgecourt Lake. The cadets said this was a much nicer boat to row as it was lighter and much faster. This will enable the Junior Sea Cadets to get on to the water and learn to row. We are looking at securing funds to be able to purchase a second boat.