On my way home from London - a rare day off without cadets or family, just a girlie day with a friend from my days with the RAF FF. Trip on the river, up the Shard and then shopping in Covent Garden - perfect! Time now to update you on my latest week as Comdt ACO. Mostly Cranwell based this week so catching up with personnel casework, and a one-to-one telcon with the new AOC to keep him up to date with our world, which varies from influencing MoD policy one minute to hosting IACE cadets the next. Had a lovely meal with the visiting cadets at CHOM and was honoured to receive gifts and certificates from all over the world on behalf of the UK IACE team. Once again, they have put in many months of hard effort to ensure that our visiting cadets had the most amazing time and everyone I spoke to was fulsome in their praise of our hosting staff and senior cadets. Well done! The rest of my week was spent catching up on plans to restructure the HQ, reviewing the annual Health and Safety report, welcoming the new Wg Cdr at 2FTS, chatting with the music staff and volunteers about plans for a 2016 Cadet Concert, and signing off loads of Thank You letters to all sorts of people who have gone out of their way to support the ACO. I also had to handle a few complaints from disgruntled staff or parents but I guess that goes with the territory and I try my best to respond promptly to any concerns raised. Sometimes, I can sort the problems out, sometimes I cant, but with such a large organisation, we can only do our best and, as the saying goes, you cant please all the people all of the time. Sadly, I also had to attend a funeral for a young cadet this week, perhaps one of the saddest duties we are ever called upon to perform. Cadets and staff were a credit to the ACO and I was proud of their dignified conduct as a Guard of Honour paid tribute to the cadets all too short time with us. I hope it was of some comfort to the family at this difficult time. And I guess it put some of the complaints into perspective, too. I now have only 4 more days until leave, which will include a trip to Edinburgh and the presentation of the Dacre Sword in Devon, with some meetings and paperwork to fill the gaps. Will update this on Thursday and then sign off for a few weeks to ensure I get a proper break. But if I see any cadets in Cornwall, I wont be able to resist saying hello! I hope you have all had a great week - messages on @ComdtAC indicate that cadets are busy on camps, expeds, IACE, etc. Make the most of the summer holidays!
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 16:35:49 +0000