News

Gosfort Sea Cadets are encouraged to take part in a weeks offshore voyage as part of their training. These courses are unique to the Sea Cadets and the ones who take up the opportunityspend a full week as a member of teh crew of one of teh vessels.

TS Royalist is teh flagship of teh Sea CAdet fleet and six cadets from the unit spent a week on her as she sailed from Gosport to Weymouth via the Isle of Wight. The six had the cost of their voyage massivly reduced throug generous bursaries.

POCs English and Harper, LC English, ACs Davies and Robertson and OC Marshall all had a fantastic week onboard.

Northumberland District held its first trainng weekend of 2012 in March. AC James Davies attended form the unit and gained his First Aid Class 3, well done to him. S/Lt Healy was one of the instructors for the weekend. PO Jones would have attended but was otherwise engaged passing his Leadership Course at MOD Caledonia near Edinburgh, and Cdt Bell was also in MOD Caledonia passing his First Aid 1st class, an excellent achievement! The weekend before that, 7 cadets had taken part in a shooting weekend on the ranges at Calle

HMS Illustrious returned to the river Tyne 30 years after she was built there. The ONLY aircraft carrier in the fleet welcomed the cadets of TS Dauntless as the ONLY Sea Cadets to get to visit her during her four day stay.

Again the places were limited, only twelve spaces to fight over for the almost fourty cadets in the unit.

The lucky few were in for a treat as they were given a full tour of the ship including watching a Lynx helecopter land on her deck.

All of the cadets had a great day onboard, learning all about what the carrier gets upto and seeing some hi-tech stuff, the goalkeeper guns proved of particular interest to the boys!! Then the girls showed that there is plenty of room on her ski ramp to take off from!

RMR Tyne was the venue for this years drill and piping competition which was a very well attended event. The rivalry was intense between all the units that make up Northumberland District. The events that cadets could compete in were Armed Guard, Piping Team, Individual Piper and Colour Party; we entered all of the individual competitions.

The piping team finished a brilliant first place, with AC Rutherford also taking the bronze medal in the individual competition. Bronze was also the result for the Colour Party and teh Guard commander, LC Sample whilst the Guard finished 4th place, only 2 marks off second in what was a very close competition with a very high standard.

Cadets from the unit then progressed to the area competition where the Guard came an excellent second despite being a man down due to illness and the Squad won the competion and also the best dressed section. Next stop HMS Raleigh for our SECOND national competition of the year!!!!

Some units rarely, if ever, get to see their affiliated ships however the affiliated ship of Gosforth unit, HMS Example, is based only a few miles from the unit. So when asked if the unt would like to spend a day on her at sea we jumped at the chance.

It was names in a hat job to select the lucky few who would get onboard the  P2000 patrol ship, and those selected had a great day. The new Co, Lt Strawbridge and her crew made us feel very welcome giving us tours of the ship and a chance for everyone to take the helm, how many teenagers can say that they have been at the helm of a Royal Navy warship???

Lt Strawbridge visited our unit the following Tuesday and had the pleasure to present the crossed fouled anchors indicating their promotion to POC to Leading Cadets English and Harper who had both passed the Petty Officer Cadet course the previous week at HMS Raleigh in Cornwall.

Check out the Example visit on the Royal Navy website!

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2012/February/17/120217-Example-SCC-Visit