Page 70 - RAPTC Mind, Body & Spirit

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SMI Taylor (front L) taking the HQ staff on Monument to commemorate Maj Gen (Retd) Sharpe CBE PhD briefing an adventure day out of the office the Battle of the Grande the HQ staff at a key battle location Arapiles – 22 Jul 1812
Sgts’ Mess multi sports challenge. The dynamic is superb at HQ FTC and the integration between staff, the tempo of work, play and family makes it an absolute first-class establishment to work.
In Jun 17 the entire HQ FTC staff (mil & civil service) deployed on two 5-day Battle Field Studies on Ex Griffin Salamanca (Spain & Portugal), which was a study into the Peninsular War 1810-1812. The primary aim of the Ex was to consider and relate the historical lessons we identify to our contemporary doctrinal framework and our core HQ outputs. In 31 years’ Service this was my first Battle Field Study and, apart from being thrown in at the deep end as syndicate leader, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip along with my colleagues.
In the current climate of Health & Deployability I am blessed to have a very proactive SMI (Health). Mr Arlow has driven many initiates such as the DoFit and DHWA courses and he is the “go to” man for supporting delivery on Padres, CO’s & RSM (des) courses at the RMAS.
Ex Griffin Challenge is our annual flag ship military skills competition, which takes places in Nov. In 2017 the PD Branch delivered a revised format in support of CGS’s intent to deliver ‘Back to Basic’ training and to focus on the ‘Soldier First’. All 10 Brigades entered a team of 10 pers including a Reserve and a female. The competition comprised of a kit inspection by the HQ FTC Comd SM, a loaded 3 mile march, assault course, a
complex live fire shoot (fire team assessment), casualty extraction, a real life simulated first aid stand, an observation stand and a final loaded march to the end. The revised format was a real hit with participants and the eventual winners were 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade. I would like to thank the CO and CI at the ASPT (A) for allowing the Class 1 course to support the event and the COs and MAA at ATR (P) for the real estate and Real Life Support.
A final highlight was, following two years of hard work based on a secondary tasking from Army HQ, the PD Branch saw the publication of the Deployed Physical Training Equipment (DPTE) DIN in Apr 18. FTC is responsible for delivering a DPTE capability to the Tri-Service wherever they deploy on Ops World-wide. This will be old news by the time this is published however I wish to thank Capt (MAA) Taylor for the fantastic work he did to get this capability up and running before he ran off and left it all to me.
In closing I won’t list the many day to day responsibilities of the team but needless to say we are extremely busy as we transition to the new look formation, having SMI Jay Gordon new in post, THOR (APTS) just gone live and PES just around the corner. A final thank you to the RPOC SO3s for all of their continued support with the Assurance process, which is no easy task. One year done, one to go and another MBS notes complete. Time flies, I look forward to my final year in post and the fun, adventures and challenges ahead – SO2 PD.