Page 42 - MERCIAN Eagle 2018

Climbing – CSgt Keane
Over the last year, a small number of soldiers have been attending climbing sessions on a Wednesday sports afternoon. We set up a contract with a local climbing centre, which reduces the burden of the number of rock-climbing instructors to the numbers we can take climbing. The money has come from Battalion funding, so the only cost is for the hire of footwear. (£3 per session for the hire of the footwear).
As we apply for more funding and equipment we can move to the outside world of climbing, as the weather improves, but we will require personnel to get more rock-climbing qualifications for us to be able to do this.
There is a mixed bag of experience amongst the group that go climbing and some have improved massively since starting. Some stand out from the rest; Cpl Williams is climbing some high grades and would do well within future competitions at the higher levels. As a team we would do well at the intermediate level too, with Cpl Hill and Sgt Edge.
Now we are back from Oman, we can look at entering future competitions and compete for silver wear. As we do more, we hope our numbers will increase and we will be able to enter more teams into competitions, increasing our chances of winning.
Cpl Williams demonstrating a Dyno / Southhampton / Jul 18
1 MERCIAN Climbing Team “Hanging Out”
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Boxing (Light Heavyweight) – Lt Dyson
The Battalion’s boxers have finished off the year in triumphant style. The boxing team demonstrated the strength of their character and size of their hearts by emerging victorious from this year’s Brigade boxing competition, defeating favourites The Fusiliers at their home in Tidworth. Victory was by no means guaranteed and is down
entirely to the hard work and dedication of the boxers and coaches. The scale of this achievement is made more remarkable by the fact that a couple of months prior to
the competition most of the squad were deployed in Oman on Ex SAIF SAREEA 3. Indeed, the Battalion were unfortunately unable to hold an Inter Coy competition due
Pte Murdoch / Accepting Bde Boxing trophy on behalf of the Bn team / Tidworth / Dec 18
Lt Dyson / Lt Dyson would go on to win his fight / Tidworth / Dec 18
to the deployment and the training camp for the boxers was greatly reduced.
On return from Oman the boxers had only a month to prepare but despite these difficulties were able to emerge triumphant from the competition with exceptional displays by all involved. Looking forward to next year we will build on our success and target the Brigade competition as returning champions.
THE MERCIAN EAGLE