Page 82 - Mind, Body and Spirit No. 105 2021/22

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PD to their respective units across the West Midlands. The support we provide to them is very well received and valued by the CoC both at unit and HQ level.
Midland sports at face-to-face level has been sorely missed and constantly driven over the last year by the Midlands secretaries for the benefit of all. As well as the virtual leagues we were very fortunate in the grip of the COVID pandemic to hold a Festival of Sport (FoS) at 30 Signal Regiment, Nuneaton organised by SSgt (SSI) Brown. There were 12 units competing across the wider AOR from 3 Brigades. It achieved its aim with quality and healthy competition, promoting sport in a great light. All 10 sport OICs produced their individual sports safely, timely and in a fun and organised way. It was very pleasing to see Reserve units entering teams as well as female and males working together in all sports.
The Midlands most recent sporting success was to hold a Midlands Athletics Championships in the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham organised by Sgt (SI) Douglas. This is a brand-new facility and is the same venue to be used for the Commonwealth Games later this year. This is definitely the highlight of the year for us which required lots of planning between Birmingham City Council, HQ West Midlands, and the Midlands secretary to ensure this event could be used as a pre-Commonwealth Games tester event.
Sgt (SI) Hanes on his way to winning the 4 x 100m relay with his unit
During the Championships we had over twenty teams from the Midlands AOR participating and 3500 spectators in the form of friends and family. Equally impressive was the number of officials both old and new who turned out to support; simple outstanding.
I’ve now been at the Unit for 18 months. From having done a long, 8-year stint as an ERI beforehand, it has taken the full year and a half to fully understand how much PT has changed
within a mainstream Unit since my days as an AAPTI. And the job role... as far as I can make out... is that of a juggler! Going from a fully planned diary every day in the rehab world to what I can only describe as mildly organised chaos, was quite a shock to the system. But slowly and surely, I became at one with the chaos and eventually learnt to roll with the punches. And dare I say it, but I may even be enjoying it now!
The initial difficulties started when I first arrived at the Unit. During that time the country was in the midst of one of its many lockdowns and most people had been dispersed for quite a while. Although they had been issued with the Lone Soldier Physical Training (LSPT) Programme, it was evident that few had actually been doing it and most were still in holiday mode. It would prove to be a long uphill slog to try and burst the comfort bubble and get them interested in organised PT again. There were numerous hurdles along the way, especially when the CoC wanted to keep the LSPT in place as the norm when everyone returned to work. Climate assessments didn’t help matters either. If you’re asking a bunch of millennials and generation Z’s if they want organised PT or LSPT, it’s pretty obvious what the top answer will be! However,
after some excessive preaching and the promise of some easy PT (during the foundation block of course) they eventually relented and switched back to organised PT. Only took 17 months!!
Anyway... regardless of the above, the Unit has actually managed to keep itself pretty active in the sporting world. Many fixtures had to be cancelled over the previous year due to fluctuating COVID restrictions, so adaptations had to be made. I made the mistake of thinking a virtual cross-country league would be a good idea until I realised that, as secretary, I was going to be validating 150 Strava results... per race! So, it was a relief to hear that physical racing could commence once again. The Unit hosted 2 races – League Race 1 and also the Midlands Championships as well. Other sports hosted were numerous football fixtures, volleyball and netball to name a few. The buzz in the gym seemed to be returning as every event was a success.
Although we had the hosting nailed, it was fielding teams to compete that was proving to be a chore. This was definitely evident in cross-country. It’s like for some reason everyone had discovered that running around a freezing, muddy field with a plethora of hills... in a blizzard... wasn’t as much fun as people remembered it to be. This wasn’t just restricted to my Unit. Across the board the interest in spicy endurance events seemed
16 SIGNAL REGIMENT
SSgt (SSI) A Briggs RAPTC
16 Sig Regt Athletics Team
Alexander Stadium