Saturday 29th April saw the National Drill and Piping Competition take place at HMS Raleigh. After four long weekends of intense training, 9 of our cadets headed off late evening on Thursday 27th April to attend the competition as part of Team Northern Ireland. There are six other areas from around the UK to compete against in this competition.
After a long day of performing their various Drill displays, the results came in and it was a success for Northern Ireland and the cadets from Belfast Eagle! The NI Colour Party, commanded by our own OC M MacLennan, attained a Bronze Medal. This makes them the third best colour party in the UK which is a tremendous achievement! This squad was made up of 5 cadets, 4 from Belfast Eagle and 1 from Lisburn. The Eagle Cadets in this squad included CFC C Peden, OC E McQuitty, CFC D McKee and CFC M MacLennan.
Our very own CFC D Totten attained a Silver medal in the Individual Piping. This means he is the second best piper in the UK! We are very proud of Drew as he only achieved his basic piping qualification a few weeks before attending the competition.
Other cadets involved in the competition were AC O Smith and CFC D Curran who were part of the Armed Guard and CFC L Rutherford and CDT N O'Neill who were part of the unarmed squad. Due to very tough competition, these squads did not place this year but this has not had any negative effects on the cadets as they are already talking about competing again next year
The commitment, dedication and self-discipline these young people have shown towards perfecting their Drill routine was admirable.
Five of our staff members gave up their weekends to help train the cadets for this competition. PO L Tipping, PO N McCoubrey, PPO K Gray, PPO R Hammond and PCI R Hanna These members of staff are all former cadets who took part in the competition as cadets. After turning 18, they all made the steady progression to become staff members to give back to the Sea Cadet Corps what they got out of it.