Page 42 - The Wish Stream Year of 2020 Crest

Gaza Company Dinner Night
OCdt Lamb-Camarena
Gaza Company, CC202, had its first dinner night of the course on 10th November 2020, halfway through the Intermediate
Term, as we hadn’t been able to organise a Junior Term dinner due to COVID-19. This departed slightly from the usual format for Inters by not inviting guests from outside the Academy. From a planning point of view, this made the job of organising the evening much easier as there were fewer guests and no need to organise accommodation; however, we were all a bit disappointed not to be able to show our friends and family around the Academy, and for the Company not to have an opportunity to meet the
bubbles in separate anterooms. The dining room had to be set with platoon tables, with the staff sitting 2m apart at top (and bottom!) tables. We were able to have a brass quin- tet, kindly provided by the band of the Army Medical Services, but they had to stay seated throughout the meal and couldn’t meet the OC at the top table.
On the night itself, the prior planning paid off and everything ran smoothly – guests were collected from the officer’s messes and moved to each platoon anteroom to meet and chat with OCdts (naturally while
OCdts’ nearest and dearest.
Although planning was slightly
easier than normal because
there were fewer moving parts
to the evening, COVID also
made other elements of the
evening harder to plan – the
green light for the evening was
only given a couple of weeks
before the night, and the date
had to change on a number of occasions. This forced our planning cycle into overdrive, nailing down the date was difficult and other elements like the menu, availability of the band and a piper changed fairly frequently due to the restriction caused by COVID and the short notice. Being adaptive to changes as they occurred was essential, although there were times when we were sceptical that we would be able to host a dinner night at all!
In the end, the dinner night could go ahead with certain measures made for COVID because it was classified as an essential training objective of the Commissioning Course for OCdts arriving at Regiment to understand the format and planning process of a military dinner night. The counter meas- ures implemented on the evening included platoons and staff socialising within their
socially distanced). Each pla- toon dinner night rep called the 10- and 5-minute warnings before ushering their platoons into the dining room, where our first course awaited us. Many OCdts commented on the qual- ity of the steak and wine, with OCdt Ludwig saying the veg- etarian catering, especially the dessert, was particularly tasty. After eating, we avoided having
a comfort break to increase the pace of the evening, and the OC gave a short speech thanking the Company for the hard work that had been put into the term so far – as well as reminding us that the Steeple Chase was on in the morning and we should make sure that we beat the Somme. Little did we know that Windsor Ride Gate wouldn’t be opened in time and we’d have to run the Steeple Chase again the following week!
Following the dinner, the platoons withdrew with their allocated guests to the anterooms for some post dinner drinks and socialising, before retiring to their rooms. Apart from a few sore heads the next morning (and some questionable times on the Steeple Chase), the Gaza Company Intermediate Term din- ner night was well received and very much enjoyed by all who attended.
The green light for the evening was only given a couple of weeks before the night, and the date had to change on a number of occasions
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