Page 181 - Rifles 2017 Issue No 3

Too......
Mountain boarding
A pause in the battle
THE RIFLES
Warminster School CCF
It’s been an eventful year in the Warminster CCF. We have been doing all sorts of activities and I am going to write brie y about some of the exciting things we’ve done.
Summer 2016, a group of pupils both in and out of CCF went to Cuba for two weeks during the summer holiday. The rst week was spent mainly concentrating on the skills needed to become a certi ed diver. During the second week, we focused on survey and marine conservation, that include: lion sh hunting, shark tagging and manatee searching with all of us coming back feeling enriched.
During the rst term of the new school year we had our annual recruitment weekend. We went down to Salisbury Plain to conduct our two-day exercise. We used paintball weapons to do some adrenaline pumped room clearing exercise. We also put the laser weapons to good use by using them to run through different scenarios with the recruits; this way the more senior cadets can use their leadership skills to lead and therefore both senior and recruit can learn. During the night, we all enjoyed a pizza to make up for the day of hard work.
We had our annual Bloody Eleventh dinner; it was a black-tie dinner to remember those who died on the battle eld. The food was lovely and we also had a guest speaker coming to talk to us. It was a wonderful evening.
Throughout the school year we also did a lot of preparation for both Bronze and Gold D of E. Both groups went out for practice weekends around Warminster or Exmoor. The bronze group also did their expedition weekend down at Lyme Regis.
We put forward a 35 miles team for the Ten Tors Challenge. This year’s team completed the whole 35-mile route and both the CCF and the School are very proud and impressed by the amount of work both the staff and the students have put in to make this possible.
Then we had the June weekend out to the Forest School to do outdoor survival skills and some more laser tag. The activities include laser tag, re starting and axe throwing. We also hosted a group of students from one of the junior boarding houses who came to experience the nature.
At last it was the CCF Summer Camp 2017. We all went away for a full week to Okehampton Camp to do military training and eld craft. We rst had the contingent day where we went and climbed a tor on Dartmoor; it was tiring but that was the joy of it. On the second day, we went off to our 24-hour eld craft exercise. There was a round robin of events; we split down to basic and advance teams and went around to our appropriate stands; they were all very enjoyable. Then we did an ambush exercise at dusk; the operation was beautifully put together and ran smoothly. On the very next day we went on to the live shooting exercise, where the three out of the top four shooters were from Warminster. We were all very proud of their achievement. The rest of the week ran smoothly, we all enjoyed the competition day and entertain- ments in our free time, everyone had a great week.
During this year we did a lot of activities, and we all learnt from each one of them, both knowledge and character. That is why hopefully we could have more weekends out and participate in more events that CCF has to offer. Cdt C/Sjt Danny Ding
CADET FORCES 179