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Wing is strongly encouraging squadrons to act together to make better use of staff time and resources.  We have had other squadrons on our activities and enjoyed their company.  On 15th May we were invited to join Banbury Squadron in a weekend of fieldcraft exercises.  Cpl Gomm is a keen greens man and he bought back this report. (Ed.)

On Friday 15 May, Cpl Gomm, Cdt Witchalls and Cdt Ruffell arrived at the squadron at 1700 hrs to get ready for the Banbury greens weekend. At Approximately 1800 hrs we left to meet Plt Off Lodge in a 4 × 4 at some services. When we met up with him we had to load our stuff and set off for the camping grounds. When we arrived at the site we were welcomed by Banbury cadets and staff and we set up camp for the weekend. After we had set up we had a Familiarisation exercise (FAM EX) to get used to the surroundings and dangers that could await us in the night-ex. When we got back to camp we had a camp and safety briefs before we were sent to bed. Flt Lt Kisley OC Banbury squadron called all the NCOs for a brief of our guard duty that night. This meant we had to stay up late, get up in the middle of the night or early morning to guard the camp against cows or poachers that might want to kill us all.

On Saturday morning everyone woke up and got ready for our P-T (physical training) before our breakfast of beans (yummy). For most of Saturday we had lessons on camouflage and concealment, field hygiene and hand signals. After we had an exercise to see if we listen to what we were taught (except field hygiene). This meant we had to sneak up on two of the NCOs from Banbury, which was near impossible. Then we were invaded by a bull that had escaped from the field next to us, so we had to move out of the camp site and wait. After about 20 mins one of the NCOs from Banbury decided to do another FAM EX so we would definitely not get lost. Once two guys had helped us get rid of the invading bull we had lunch and a big game of rugby with included some of the officers too! Before the night-ex we had a lesson on building bivvies and temporary shelters which was interesting. Then we had a very nice BBQ and free time and 10 minutes to get camouflaged up and ready for our mission. After the first night-ex the staff decided we should do another exercise which was to have one team defending a bridge and another that had to steal the object on the bridge which we were defending. Then we headed back for our second night of guard duty and sleeping.

On Sunday we got up and got ready for our second dose of P-T and breakfast followed by a medi-vac exercise witch was also followed by a cold chicken stew or veggie curry which was very interesting to eat. We had one more exercise and debrief, before we packed up camp and made our way to the car park for a journey home.