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.

Basic Details

Unfortunately due to family commitments (it’s school holidays after all) we’ve had to scale this back as an activity. As a unit we will only be attending the SATURDAY. CDTs are welcome to join in the rest of the weekend, but this will NOT be as a recognised unit activity.  The No. 13 Squadron GPS units can be made available if you wish to attend Sunday as well, however you will need to provide your own AA batteries (2 per unit – if you provide Energizer or similar you should get 5 hours continuous use).

The day is comprised of registration at 8am, breakfast (provided) and then a chat about Geocaching.  From there, the whole group will go on a combined cache find.  In the afternoon our group will be going on the “Adventurous” cache hunt at one of our favourite haunts, Everetts DOC camp.  Details of the cache can be found on geocaching.com

You will need to bring a standard outdoors day pack. The organisers have also advised bringing the following:

• strong shoes
• a torch
• a rope
• pruning secateurs
• first aid kit
• drinking water
• insect repellent
• togs and towel
• some food for energy

The event is free, however there will be a couple of raffles being run (with Geocaching related prizes) and dinner on Saturday night will be Fish and Chips so bring enough money for both.

13 Squadron will be providing GPS units for our team.

If other NZCF units are interested, we purchased Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS units from www.mapworld.co.nz who gave us a terrific deal!

APPROVAL OF ATTENDANCE

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…

 

Just ran a quick update on upcoming events in our Calendar.  Check out the events page for more details.  If you’re not familiar with Google Calendar, simply click the name of the event to get more info – then click on the “More Details” link to find any attachments.

These updates include:

• Breaking the Cat Show into 3 different shifts – Saturday, Sunday AM, Sunday PM
• Adding a list of pers who have their name down for the Cat Show shifts.   As discussed ALL pers with their names on this list are expected to attend unless they are dead or dying.
• Kaitawa – added the 13-8 (Approval of Attendance/permission form) for Kaitawa to the event as a downloadable PDF.

Please note: we have thirteen confirmed pers for Kaitawa already, so there are only FIVE places left.  Get in quick or miss out!

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.