Page 56 - RSDG Year of 2021 CREST

54 EAGLE AND CARBINE
CATERING DEPARTMENT
Staff Sergeant (Unit Catering Manager) R Lumsden RLC
2021 has proven again to be an extremely busy year for the Catering Department team - the pace was hot from the word go and never eased!!
The year began with members of the department deploying on exercise with regimental sub-units and heading out of barracks on MACA taskings. Military COVID-19 support was in full flow, setting up vac- cination centres across Scotland, meaning catering skills were in heavy demand feeding deployed troops. Corporal ‘Noxy’ Suguta, therefore, deployed out to Cambuslang on numerous occasions and often with just a few hours’ notice. It is to the department’s immense credit that at no time did our quality of out- put drop below the high standards we always aim to achieve.
Mentoring and qualifying our personnel is a key element of the work we conduct; we aim to provide military catering staff with transferrable qualifica- tions, both to the betterment of the service and the soldier, therefore, every opportunity is seized upon. It is with this principle in mind that Private Brandon
Morrison, through catering for multiple activities over an intense period of 8 months, achieved his Level 2 modern apprenticeship upgrade, an excellent achieve- ment, setting himself up for great things in the future. Pte Morrison also found time to deploy with 6 RLC to Cyprus on Op TOSCA, returning slightly sun-burnt, but a great example of the variety a career in military catering can offer.
Knowing that 2021 was to be a significant year for the whole Regiment in terms of training, as a department we eagerly anticipated the coming challenges. The RHQ team love to test our powers of resource planning and they always set us the problem of catering across multiple locations, therefore we play Chef ‘Jenga’, trying to balance the team and meet demand. It’s a matter of pride that our depleted staff delivered an excellent level of service simultaneously to deployed troops, Cpl Suguta, LCpl ‘Marshy’ Marsh, and Pte ‘Stevo’ Stevenson heading to CAST(N) Catterick to support BGHQ training, whilst SSgt ‘Dave’ Guthrie and Sgt ‘Richie’ Lumsden headed to New Zealand Farm in support of the Regiment’s task of collecting Battlegroup vehicles from Land Training Fleet (not all easy going, Sgt Lumsden is not the happiest when being woken in the early hours to feed hungry troops!)
A major highlight for the department during WESSEX STORM was the setting up of a Battlegroup field kitchen at STANTA. Catering for fighting troops in the field, and to high quality, is the ultimate test for any catering staff, and its fair to say that the team not only achieved its objectives, but we went well beyond what was expected: from the Commanding Officer down, the feedback was full of praise, with OC Headquarters Squadron commenting that the standard