News

Following months of hard work MC2 Liam Mahon and A/PO Patrick Devaney have achieved their Bronze and Gold DofE awards, respectively, being the first from our unit to achieve their DofE awards this year! In order to achieve their awards MC2 Mahon and A/PO Devaney have both spent the last 12 months doing activities such as football and sailing, as well as the dreaded 'expedition' for which MC2 Mahon walked and A/PO Devaney did a four day canoeing trip through Hereford. Now that they have gotten their awards they are both looking forward to their next big challenge, which for MC2 Mahon is going to be his Gold DofE award and for A/PO Devaney is going to be his Mountain Leader award, which will allow him to take cadets into the mountains and assist them in getting their DofE awards themselves.

It's been a busy weekend for TS Conway as we travelled down to Wales for our first camping expedition of the year! After arriving early Saturday our cadets had the day to themselves to put up their tents and take full advantage of the glorious weather, taking the chance to kick around a football and play in the park. On Sunday however our cadets were up bright and early for a walk around the hills of Mold, during which they got the chance to sample the local ice cream and got up close and personal with an overly friendly herd of cows. As well as giving our younger cadets the 'DofE experience' this expedition was also the final assessment weekend for our staff on their BEAL course, which we are happy to say they all passed! This means they are all now qualified to take cadets out walking on expeditions in the future and means there will hopefully be many more of these weekends to come.

Our unit recently entered into the Merseyside West District rowing competition, kindly hosted by Wallasey unit. Two teams were entered by our unit, open boys and open girls, and throughout the day both teams participated in at least two races each as they vied for first place. After much hard work both teams came third out of the eight units in our district, a great result that our cadets can be very proud of!

As has become a tradition for our unit, our marching band was recently invited to Hale Carnival for a sunny day of performances and fundraising. As in previous years our band was given the privilege of leading the carnival parade, providing music for the procession of colourfully dressed youth groups and classic cars. As well as performing our cadets got to explore the carnival itself and go on the fair rides and other attractions there were on offer, such as clay pigeon shooting and a dog show.

This weekend the sun was out, the Albert Dock was bustling, and our unit's marching band was invited once again to perform at the International Mersey River Festival. Throughout the weekend our band did numerous performances for the public outside of the Maritime Museum, as well as providing music to welcome the Warrington unit field gun crew. In their down time our cadets had the perfect opportunity to explore the many attractions of the festival including live music and exotic food stalls, as well as being able to enjoy some of the more unconventional things the festival had to offer such as the human sized bees that could be seen buzzing about and the talking flower pot men...