Page 54 - Mercian Eagle 2016

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Battalion Career Management Officer (BCMO)
7 Months have passed since I arrived at the Dale Bks and assumed the role as BCMO for 2 MERCIAN, after successfully commissioning in April 2015. The majority of effort has been to realign the battalion from the fall out of the Regimental merge and following deployment on Op TOSCA, ASKARI STORM Kenya and more recently Poland. This requires coordination between the companies and ensuring that the established battalion manning roll is correct on JPA.
CSgt Roxborough successfully promoted to WO2 and has now assumed the role of HQ Coy CSM.
CSgt Hawkins, B Coy CQMS, has now settled into his new role as the BCMO’s Assistant. The BCMO’s main responsibilities are to look after the soldier’s educational needs and apply for Criminal Record Bureau checks for soldiers who are identified
for either a posting at an Instructional appointment or for a recruiting post within ARTD.
He is also the resettlement ninja,
ensuring that all our soldiers who wish to leave the Army are fully briefed as to their entitlement. The BCMO’s Assistant sign posts these soldiers to suitable employment fairs and job opportunities. In addition the
Capt Viveash and CSgt Hawkins at work in the BCMO Office Dale Bks Chester 26 Sep 2016
MT Platoon
The MT Platoon has had an extremely busy and successful year. A great amount of hard work has been put in by the whole team.
During late December to early January, the MT Platoon started taking on an additional 200+ vehicles and trailers as part of the VJTF commitment. This was not an easy task as the vehicles had to be collected from several different locations from around the UK. Once all the vehicles were collected and returned to Dale Barracks they then had to be in-inspected by an eager team of 2 MERCIAN LAD.
After the vehicle fleet was in-inspected we then had to swiftly switch our focus
to Ex BRILLIANT JUMP/ANAKONDA in Poland. This exercise would see us deploy 80 percent of the vehicle fleet from Dale Barracks to Marchwood and then boat
BCMO’s Assistant also conducts career management advice to our soldiers.
CSgt Hawkins has settled in well and has focused on the education priority one list delivered by 1 UK Div; no matter how much he updates it, the damn spread sheet never changes!
However he perseveres with the Army stats department, updating the stats to show the ground truth. The next stage of CSgt Hawkins personal development is how to use Microsoft Excel spread sheets, when dealing with the battalion manning roll, PoW Div manning table and the posting plot. This activity is amazing to watch and I highly recommend popping up to our office to view as this is highly entertaining.
The BCMO’s department is currently preparing the gargantuan task of career management for the upcoming battalion deployments, deploying to 4 different locations in 2017 such as South Sudan, Iraq, Falkland Islands, and securing the home bank of Chester (Rear Operations Group).
Before any promotion board the BN convene a grading board to establish the grade and pecking order of all ranks, this in turn supports the reporting officers of those
CSgt Hawkins conducting a CRB interview with Pte Wilson at the Dale Bks Chester 26 Sep 2016
Capt Travis handing over the reins of MTO to Capt Peach
CSgt Hawkins and Capt Viveash in the Warrant Officers and Sgts Mess Chester after successfully completing a FCR1 for a serving soldier within 2 Mercian 22 Sep 2016
soldiers to write their SJARS. Once APC have conducted promotion boards, the Battalion receive the results and then start the process of aligning the right individuals from Sgt through to WO1 incorporating their key skills and experience to empty appointments both internally and externally.
Once the CoC have identified who they want to be aligned to the posts, it is at
this point that the BCMO departs north to APC Glasgow to start the gladiatorial event that is the Divisional Assignment Board (DABO). After meeting and discussing the appointments with the other BCMOs from the Division, the board commences and aligns and re-aligns soldiers to the right posts.
If you thought completing SJARs was hard whilst the Battalion were in Chester, I cannot envisage what constraints will be put on the Battalion whilst on operations!
In 2017 we will be saying goodbye to
the current BCMO Capt Viveash and will welcome in a newly promoted LE Capt from the promotion board that takes place in December 16.
THE MERCIAN EAGLE