Page 4 - QARANC Vol 15 No 2 2017

2 QARANC THE GAZETTE
President’s Foreword
Welcome to the Autumn edition of the Gazette and forgive me for stating again that is seems like only a few short weeks since I sat down to write the last foreword, and yet somehow here we are at the end of another six months, that seem to have passed all too quickly. It has been a busy time for all of us, on many fronts.
I took great pleasure in welcoming Sue McAteer, our new Regimental Secretary and General Secretary to the Association; I also confess to breathing a huge sigh of relief! I am sure for Sue this has been a very demanding time as she has got to grips with her new role, one which is very different to anything she has done before. Not that there was any time for a ‘gentle introduction’ as Sue was immediately involved in the planning for some major events, which many of you will have attended and enjoyed. I would also like to add a very warm welcome to Colonel Carol Kefford who has taken on the role of Colonel Commandant and Chair of the Association vice Colonel Sue Bush RRC. We are very fortunate to have Colonel Carol join us and I look forward to working with her as we continue to navigate the challenges ahead.
For those of us who completed our training at the Royal Pavilion, Corps Day in March brought back many memories and it was great to see that the grounds have been so well looked after in the years since the gates closed on the QARANC Training Centre. Never for a moment did I think during my student officer course that one day I would return and take the salute; mind you I suspect no-one else did either!
We were very privileged to be invited to hold our 70th anniversary garden party at Bagshot Park, the home of our Colonel in Chief, Her Royal Highness, The Countess of Wessex. What a memorable occasion it turned out to be, not least because we were so very lucky with the weather. It was fabulous to see everyone in their finery, all enjoying meeting up with friends old and new. Her Royal Highness was extremely welcoming and generous with her time, taking the opportunity to chat with many of us. As you can imagine an event like the garden party takes a huge amount of organisation, not least from a security perspective, bearing in mind the location, so I would like to pass on my sincere thanks to all those who were involved, your efforts turned the vision into reality; without you it would not
have been such a great success.
It is always a pleasure to escape the desk in Army HQ and spend time with our nurses and HCAs and I have been fortunate to have been invited to a number of units, both Regular and Reserve. I think it is fair to say that this year’s symposium was a huge success and the programme provided something for everyone. We were fortunate to attract some high profile speakers from the nursing world, who shared with us some of the developments and challenges facing the profession. It was also a great opportunity for our own nurses and HCAs to showcase some of their work to their peers and didn’t they do well. We tried to make the event much more interactive by using technology to enable questions and comments to be submitted in real time. Although it was the first time we used Sli-Do, I think we could do so much more with it next time round, so watch this space. The evening function also took on a much more interactive approach in the form of a barn dance. I have to confess to being only slightly worried that no-one would participate, but the dance floor was busy and everyone looked as if
they were having fun.
The Corps has again been involved
in the on-going WW1 Commemoration activities, most recently at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium on 31 July, on the occasion of the National Commemoration of the Centenary of Passchendaele – The Third Battle of Ypres. Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery in the world and is the final resting place of some 12,000 soldiers who did not return home. More servicemen are buried here than in any other CWGC cemetery. Their names, along with all of those whose remains were never recovered or identified, are inscribed on the CWGC’s Memorials to the Missing, including the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial and at Tyne Cot, where 34,000 are honoured. I was honoured to be invited to the service to represent the Corps and our antecedent QAIMNS, and found the whole event a moving and very humbling experience.
With regard to the CNO appointment and the on-going leadership of the Corps, the requirement for the CNO role has been acknowledged and a number of options explored to
provide an enduring solution. The most likely of these will involve the CNO responsibilities being combined with an extant OF5 appointment on a job share basis; where the appointment will sit and what resources there will be in support remains a work in progress; however we are in a better place than we were six months ago. We may not be in a position to move straight to the enduring solution and so I suggest there may be a further period of transition. Most importantly for Army nursing is the knowledge that the CNO responsibilities, the leadership of a vital professional cohort of the defence services , will continue to be delivered as part of a dual role on an enduring basis ensuring appropriate specialist advice and guidance is afforded to the Chain of Command and a clear conduit is rightly retained with our regulatory body and civilian colleagues.
I am eager to develop a professional supplement to the Gazette and you will note just a few articles in this edition. I hope you enjoy reading them and they give you a flavour of some of the professional and academic endeavours of members of the Corps. Now that Lt Col Debra Ritsperis has arrived in post as OF4 Education, Research & Development, she will be looking at how to take this forward.
I would like to end by saying farewell to Colonel Sue Bush RRC, whose tenure as Colonel Commandant and Chair of the Association came to an end shortly after the garden party. I cannot thank Colonel Sue enough for her contribution to the Corps and the Association over the past six years. Her drive, commitment and enthusiasm have been an inspiration and I am in awe of her achievements. From a very personal perspective I have been fortunate to have benefitted from her unstinting support and loyalty throughout my time in post, for which I will be eternally grateful. I am certain she is now enjoying having more time to herself and I’m sure the ‘men’ in her life, Phil and Paddy, are also enjoying seeing more of her.