Page 113 - Light Dragoons 2023 CREST

The North East Branch returned to the Burnopfield Gold Course where We played our 2021 tournament also. Organised by ex WO2 Ted Cox 15/19H we played on a blustery but warm and well kept golf course. We saw 19 players join us this year of which the serving Regiment brought 7 players, some of those who trav- elled were Maj Si Stott who came down from Edinburgh where he is the Quartermaster (QM) of SNIY taking some three and a half hours to travel to be with us for the day, also ex LD Chris Homewood, now a Queen’s Dragoon Guardsman and just fin- ished time as their QM in Swanton Morley also joining us. Donald (Benny) Bennett who travelled yet again (he does this every
year, whilst also attending the Barnsley Branch Golf Day also) from Liverpool the day prior, he stayed in a nearby hotel over- night ready for the days outing on the 10th June, Vince Burns again joined us, himself travelling from Blackpool which was great to see and we hope they will all return next year. Teams organised into one 3 ball and four 4 balls we set out onto the course with a 1000 am tee off time. Once we completed the 18 holes most were ready for a shandy and bite to eat. A two-course meal, fol- lowed by the presentation saw this year’s winner and runner up as follows:
1st - WO2 A Hirst Winner of the Newcastle Hussar trophy this year with Chris (Ginge)
Homewood a close 2nd. Our 3rd place player was an old friend from the 15/19H who served a few years in the 1960’s and joined us for the first time Mr Dennis Meadows, Dennis could not have been more complimentary to the Branch for inviting and looking after him for a day’s golf. We have I feel found one of our lost sheep and brought him back into the fold as he hopes to join us again next year. All in all, the course was in good condition, the sun shone and a little wind to challenge us, we all had a great day. Hope to see eve- ryone and more again next year.
MT
The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
North East Branch
One of the biggest challenges for the reg- imental community is how we keep in contact and maintain connections within and between our veteran and serving com- munities. Currently we have a disparate and disconnected approach to our com- munications, but we have not been alone in facing that challenge as it is common to the vast majority of military organisations.
Over the last 12 months, following the lead set by the Royal Lancers who developed the concept, together with the KRH, QDG, QRH and RDG we have developed an ‘app’, which takes the title vLightDragoon (the V stands for Virtual) or vLD for short.
The vLD app will provide what we hope will become the principal mechanism to connect with and communicate across the Light Dragoon family. It has a range of features which provide guidance to service leavers regarding resettlement, and how to access financial and practical advice through the resettlement process. It will connect not only service leavers, but those who may have long departed the Regiment for mentoring, employment opportunities and social activities. We will use it to pro- mote events, not only large Association led
events but also those organised at a more informal local level and to keep the com- munity abreast of the Regiment’s news and activities. It will enable our community to access welfare and wellbeing support, nota- bly in respect to their mental health, for example to sign up to our Leafyard men- tal health and wellbeing app or to link in with the LD Peer Support Group, and to connect with businesses keen to support/ engage with our community.
As a reflection of how important such an initiative is regarded, we have secured sig- nificant grant funding from the Armed Forces Covenant Trust to cover the vast majority of the costs associated with the development of the app and the initial three-year term of our agreement with the developers to use the app.
vLD is now live!
You can download the app by visiting either the App Store or Google Play and search “vhub for armed forces”.
Our vision is for this to become the pri- mary point of reference to enable serving and former members of the Regiment to
keep in touch. There is no cost to use the app and while we do not envisage that this is used particularly frequently, (it is cer- tainly not going to replace existing social media channels or Facebook groups), if it can provide sound advice or point just one person to a new career opportunity, it will justify its development.
So, in addition to signing up to join our virtual community, how can you help or how can it help you?
The app has a jobs board so if you have a vacancy in your organisation, and would like a platform to promote that to our regi- mental community, you can upload details to this section of the app. If you have a business and would be similarly interested to promote your services to the regimen- tal community, you can become a ‘partner’ business – for further information contact HHQ. As the app evolves and our com- munity grows, we will continue to identify ways in which we can develop vLD to sup- port and benefit our community.
Signing up will take less than five minutes, please get involved, spread the word and all feedback is welcome via HHQ.
Virtual Light Dragoon (vLD) – join our virtual community
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