Page 5 - LBV 2015

CUOTC
Commanding Of cer’s Foreword
As I write the unit has
just recovered from the Annual Deployment Exercise in Devon, a party of of cer cadets are in Macedonia taking part in a major NATO gathering of of cer cadets and seven students are completing the Reserve commissioning course
at the RMAS. Over the coming weeks adventure training expeditions will deploy to the United States, Madagascar, Italy and a battle eld study will deploy to Cassino, Italy.
This is a snap shot in
time but it is an accurate
re ection of the superb
range of activities offered
to our of cer cadets.
Everything we do has
leadership at the forefront
and this year there has been a conscious effort to brand CUOTC – an extension of RMAS – as the providers of leadership development par excellence. In the Higher Education sector there is a gap in the market for this sort of thing and it is increasingly clear that students,
paying good sums of money for
their education, want this kind of
personal development. The fact
that CUOTC is able to deliver
credible and meaningful leadership
development using the military
training syllabus as a framework
means that our claim as the ‘best
club in town’ is a powerful one. There are signs too that the universities who we work with understand this and welcome our contribution
to wider personal development. Indeed our engagement with certain Cambridge colleges, University of East Anglia, Anglia Ruskin University and Essex University has increased signi cantly.
It is important that the OTC movement is seen to be making a wider contribution within Higher Education.
For this reason we have established two agship initiatives in 2015. First, the Cambridge Leadership Prize, launched by Lt
Gen James Everard Commander Land Forces, is an open competition
for all undergraduates
to demonstrate their leadership experience and potential. The rst award will be made at the LBV dinner at Christ’s College on 14 November 2015 and I am particularly grateful
to Sir Ranulph Fiennes
for agreeing to be Patron and to the Sandhurst
Trust for providing the
annual prize money of £1000 for a period of three years. This is about CUOTC making a useful contribution to extra-curricular activities amongst our universities and it is about raising the pro le of our work. Second, we have established the
East Anglian Army Reserve Unit Partnership, bringing together all Army Reserve units in East Anglia so that training opportunities can be shared and so that our of cer cadets can more easily access units for visits and to inform career decisions. Early indications suggest that these initiatives
are productive and are welcomed by our of cer cadets.
Enjoy reading this edition of the Light Blue Volunteer. It is a magni cent record of the achievements of our students and staff.
Lt Col M A Nicholas MBE R ANGLIAN
This is about CUOTC making a useful contribution to extra-curricular activities...
THE LIGHT BLUE VOLUNTEER 3