The course was facilitated by members of the NZMSC (Chris Short, Chris Tews, Mike Spray and Joe Green) and by course participants.

Day one focussed on assessor training and highlighted the importance of the NZCF’s ongoing work within MSC in training our future Outdoor Leaders.  Completing the outdoor training syllabus results in awarding of unit standards. This process closely aligns with the work that the NZCF has undertaken in moving our unit and national level training in to the NZQA framework.

Day two focussed on risk management for outdoor activities and for most participants was a refresher for training received during the Commissioning and Officer Outdoor Leaders courses.  Most of this session was facilitated by course participants through 11 workshop and classroom sessions.  The information imparted is critical to NZCF Officers in assessing and managing risks during outdoor activities with Cadets.

Risk analysis and management is undertaken for all activities undertaken by No. 13 Squadron and our RAMS form (NZCF12) is available on request to all parents and Cadets as part of our risk disclosure policy.

FGOFF Faulknor-Murrell is currently MSC Outdoor Leader qualified and holds the NZQA  4098 workplace assessor unit standard.  He is on the MSC pathway towards Bush 1 and assessing to ODL level.

To say thanks for all our efforts, the cadets (and Officers) were taken for a flight in an Iroquois – awesome!

Many thanks to Grant Garrity (Chairperson of the Support Committe) and FGOFF Melissa Cooper from No 11 Sqn for helping out this year.

A new interest has sprung from the camp, geocaching! For all those non-geek type people, its a digital treasure hunt and the cadets are hooked so the are plans afoot for a geocaching day!

Watch this space for a camp report as well…

13 Squadron finally managed to catch up with FGOFF Walton of 11 Squadron and get our helicopter flights done.  These were supposed to be done as part of our aviation camp in February though unfortunately at the time FGOFF Walton had broken his hand in a sporting incident!  Now he is well healed and back flying, we seized the opportunity.

Thanks to FGOFF for giving up his spare time to help us out today.

On the Friday night we got sorted nice and early and headed out of Coote Road around 1745hrs – only 15 minutes after our original muster time.  We travelled out to Everetts DOC camp by way of two 11 seater vans and a luggage trailer, kindly supplied at a reduced rate by our friends at Handy Rentals.  This weekend was also set to be the first camping trip ever for Connor, the Officer’s 3 year old son.  Unfortunately he’d had a bit of a stomach bug and threw up in the back of FLTLT Faulknor-Murrell’s van!  Luckily we weren’t far away from a rest area (with a tap!) where we could stop and clean him down.

Shortly after we left the rest area, FGOFF Faulknor-Murrell remembered the meat, cheese, milk and lettuce he’d left in the fridge back in the unit.  While everyone else organised tents and sorted out supper, he did the 2 hour return trip to town to retrieve said cold items.

Saturday dawned cold and well… dark really.  Breakfast was had by starlight and we leaped straight into our first lesson of the day.  The standard curriculum ensued, cooker safety, cooking skills, camp hygiene, knot tying, environmental care code, firelighting and camp layout.  A very full on day was had by all and when 10pm rolled around there was hardly a peep out of the CDTs who all headed to bed very weary – particularly after the FGOFF’s ear joke!

The NCOs planned a wee surprise for the CDTs first thing in the morning by getting themselves “lost” in dark in the bush behind the camp.  FGOFF F-M went immediately and woke up the CDTs, but sadly for the NCOs the females took about 30 minutes to get their faces on.  By this time it was almost daylight meaning their awesome hiding spots weren’t that good after all.  It still took them a huuuuuge effort to find CPL MacKay who had used his 40 minutes wisely by having a little kip under a tree!

Practical exercises were next, then we moved to have smoko and get our tents packed up as rain threatened.  A light drizzle began falling as we got the tents away (damp).  We huddled under the nearby bush to have a nice hot lunch before the final clean up.  All was going to plan until FGOFF Faulknor-Murrell tried to start the second van… Connor had taken to playing in it for a lot of the weekend and had flattened the battery!! Thanks to some farm-boy ingenuity, CPL MacKay’s suggestion of swapping the battery out of Ma’am’s already started van worked a treat and we were underway… and back at the unit in plenty of time to get the stores washed, sorted and put away and get out of the unit before our 1630 planned finish.

Another successful weekend, thanks to all of the people involved with planning and execution.

In attendance were FGOFF Faulknor-Murrell, CPLs Garrity, Hesseltine, MacKay and McGregor along with CDTs James, Kent, Millan-Lucas & Unsworth.  Also in attendance were a number of RNZAF aircraft including one UH-1 Iroquois of 3 Squadron, Harvard 15 from historical flight and the mighty beast, the C-130 Hercules of 40 Squadron.  A few 13 Squadron personnel even got up close and personal with the Herc on takeoff for their display.

We also managed to get a handful of photos for those that couldn’t be there on the day.  The day was a massive success for us, being that we got a chance to see a top quality display of aircraft and help out the wider Hawke’s Bay community.  Congratulations to all of those who helped out – we received some very good feedback both from the club and the general public who were in attendance.

The Guard was brought to ATTENTION as the coffin came out of the church, they then SALUTED as the coffin passed between their lines. They came back to ATTENTION and remained standing still for ONE MINUTE of silence. They then turned outwards and marched past the hearse and almost eerily out of sight.

IMPRESSIVE

Firstly, let me note that this report will not be an “I got up 0545 today and went to breakfast” type report. It stands as a reflection on the course as a whole.

There’s been rumour, promise and threat on the air for some time now in regards to the New Zealand Cadet Forces becoming a provider of unit standards to NZQA students. This is an exciting prospect, but it seems that the more we try to strive towards this goal, the further away we end up being. I took the first step towards this end goal last week by attending the first of a new breed of Officers’ Instructional Technique courses at RNZAF Base Auckland.

A 10 day stay on an RNZAF base is always a pleasure – in fact for me, really quite a treat. It is doubly so when most of the members of the course are previous course mates or staff and the balance are made up of people who are merely friends I have yet to make. This is the culture of the Cadet Forces that I so love; a network of fantastic people giving up their time to make a difference to the youth of New Zealand. As a non-operational base, Hobsonville (or Hobby as it is affectionally known) is quite a bit different to Ohakea – my home away from home away from home. Limited services and run down buildings gave us quite an isolated feel as opposed to OHK where you really feel part of the action of base life. Quite a different but nonetheless enjoyable experience! So our ten days were spread between the Hudson block barracks and the Cadet Forces training centre. Living close-knit like this for that long really brings a group together as a whole and – in the end – facilitates great learning.

To say the IT course was “beneficial” to me is a bit of an understatement. As an instructor “officially untrained” in the ways of NZCF IT, I was fully prepared to take on board new instructional techniques and tools that I could use to benefit my classroom sessions. What I wasn’t prepared for however was the amount of self reflection and indeed self improvement that came out of attending.

As stated, our classes were run at the NZCF training centre on base and (as this was the first course of its kind) our training partner Tai Poutini Polytech brought in internationally renowned trainers for 6 days. We gained an depth knowledge, understanding and experience of planning, delivering and assessing training sessions through lessons, group work, practical and reflective sessions. Whilst it took hours and hours of class and after-hours work I personally feel like I’ve gained more than just new skills to use in an instructional period. Through well thought out and taught self-evaluation exercises I honestly feel that I have gained a greater understanding of myself and now have a far better comprehension of what it really means to teach and to learn. Even the simple act of watching the various teaching/instructing/facilitating methods gave us a great demostration of these processes at work. It turns out that contrary to my own personal belief, learning isn’t a dictatorial process at all. Learning is interactive. Also, if learning is a shared experience, it is truly a more productive experience. I’ve been given a great grounding for improving classroom sessions to allow our Cadets to have a more important place in their own education.

I’ve completed the course now, but have a number of other assessments to complete until I gain the NZQA credits and unit standards towards my officer training. The great news is that we 10 students are (or will be) the first NZCF officers to acquire unit standards for assessing unit standards under this new form of course. This makes us a valuable resource primarily in the act of assessing fellow officers at a national course level. There is – of course – a filter down effect, which is Cadet-centric – it’s not all about us as Officers after all. As more and more officers become unit standard assessor qualified, we will find ourselves as an organisation in a very strong place for the rollout of Cadet based unit standards assessment – assuming this happens. At this stage however, a rollout date is something we wouldn’t even want to guess at, if it happens at all. Consider the whole NZQA thing as “TBA” until further notice. But in the event that it does (we say “when”, not “if”), we as the Trail Blazers of the new NZCF training system will have had ample time in which to prepare our peers for the changes that it will bring.

So! In summary I look forward to getting back to the unit and back in front of some of your classes to really put this new knowledge into practice. If you have any feedback on this report, the course or my lessons, please feel free to leave it here or use the contact form on this site to reach me.

Bren Murrell
A/PLTOFF, NZCF
No. 13 (City of Napier) Squadron