Page 36 - Cadet Review Autumn 2024

CEY Wing ATC SECTOR 4
“SQUADROLYMPICS”
By Flight Lieutenant Chris Crebbin
Inspired by the spectacle of the Paris 2024
games, here in Sector 4, we organised a series of competitions across the summer holidays. These were attended variously by cadets from 1953 (Knaresborough), 58 (Harrogate), 35 (Wetherby), 886 (Ripon) and 2337 (Northallerton) squadrons; everyone taking part had a great time. While some of our competitions were Olympic sports, some were not. Some weren’t even sporting events at all, meaning any of the cadets could join in, even if sport wasn’t their thing.
We started off with a night of table tennis followed by team races hosted by Knaresborough Squadron. We were all entertained by the table tennis which took the form of a simple knockout. In the end it came down to a Harrogate vs Knaresborough final with
Flt Sgt Jake Saynor taking gold from Harrogate's
Cdt Daniel Baxter. Bronze went to Cpl Aiden Roberts from Knaresborough.
It was then out onto the field with teams of cadets who were running, hopping, roly-polying and passing balls to earn points towards the eventual win. With plenty of fun and competitiveness and not a little bit of silliness, the gold was eventually taken by Knaresborough, with the silver and bronze going to the two Harrogate teams.
Next, cadets from Knaresborough and Ripon joined hosts Harrogate, for Archery. Shooting barebow at 8 metres (slightly less than the Olympic distance of 70m!), each competitor was given
two dozen arrows, split between two targets for
a maximum score of 240. This time it was a clean sweep of medals for Harrogate with gold going
to Cdt Daniel Baxter (190 pts), silver to Cdt Sam Roberts (181 pts) and bronze to Cdt Seth Kennerley (166 pts). While there were no medals for staff, there was close competition between Flt Lts Chris and Clare Crebbin, OCs 1953 and 58 respectively, with Clare narrowly taking the win (221 pts vs 215 pts).
Returning to Knaresborough, the team’s next challenge was a quiz night. We had teams from Harrogate and Knaresborough and an MS Teams option which allowed a further team to dial in remotely. Taking a "pub quiz" format, cadets had to work out where to play their double points "joker" from rounds with ambiguously titled rounds such as "All things Olympic", "Please, Not the Olympics", "How Much?" and "No excuses". In the end it was the CWOs who won, scoring full marks on their joker round of "No excuses", which they correctly predicted was basic cadet knowledge.
Camps and staff commitments meant that week three saw just a single event with teams from Harrogate and Knaresborough taking part in a series of board and card games. (We did say that
It was super insightful
to see how the next generation of fighter pilots are trained.
not everything was going to be taken from the Olympics). Cadets enjoyed Uno, Exploding Kittens, Kerplunk and Terra, with Knaresborough just eking out the win.
The final week saw two sessions. On the Wednesday, Harrogate, Knaresborough and Wetherby cadets returned to Harrogate squadron for Air Rifle shooting. The cadets shot two scoring details each on 5-figure targets with two rounds per target for a total of 200 points available. It was a close-run competition, with gold going to Flt Sgt Jake Saynor of Knaresborough (161 pts), Silver to Knaresborough's Cdt Daniel Greathead (156) and Bronze to Harrogate's Cpl Thomas Lazerus (116).
Then it was on to the finale, hosted by Ripon squadron. Teams from Ripon, Northallerton, Knaresborough and Harrogate competed in a sort
of triathlon of football, rounders and archery. With individual event wins for three of the four squadrons, the final points winner - by a tiny margin - was Harrogate Squadron. Unfortunately, two broken 3D-printers meant that there were no medals this time, but there was a trophy which Harrogate proudly took home with them.
All in all, this was a fun series of sporting events which served to keep the cadets engaged through the long summer holidays, built good relationships with neighbouring units, and underpinned some of our basic values of fair play, respect, and throwing yourself at whatever the staff have organised this time.
Here's looking forward to what we can organise during next year's summer holidays (albeit without the Olympic theme).
36 CADET REVIEW AUTUMN 2024