News

Covering 1-20th December

With Lockdown ending, the Command Team and Unit Management Committee took the decision to keep the unit closed, with COVID-19 cases still rising, to protect our cadets and volunteers. With this in mind, our volunteers set to continue the delivery of Virtual Learning and our Training Officer, Admin Officer and Divisional Officers looked forward to the next year of training.

Our unit ceased training on Friday 18th December, with a Kahoot quiz to challenge our cadets in both their unit knowledge, Christmas knowledge and staff knowledge. With a fine 30 points between first and second place. With the parade concluded, we wished our Ships Company Merry Christmas and closed the unit for Christmas.

On Saturday 19th December a small team of our volunteers surprised our cadets with Christmas presents, donated by 4 Steps To A Smile, by travelling to their homes and delivering them, following COVID-19 safe procedures throughout. Our cadets were surprised and jolly at the surprise of presents as we wished them a Merry Christmas.

On Sunday 20th December, our staff had their final conversations before taking a well-earned break after a challenging year. This included finalising the Training Plan for the following year when we could be back face-to-face and allowed our volunteers to pass on their jolly feelings to each other before heading into their leave from the unit.

From all of us here at T.S. Sutton Coldfield, we want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Covering 1-30th November

This month we saw the unit close again due to the second lockdown, but we rebooted our Virtual Learning Environment to keep cadets engaged and had our cadets support the Remembrance Weekend in their own way!

Firstly, we saw the closure of our physical site for the second time this year. Our staff engaged themselves immediately on getting the VLE rebooted and we created a session plan to last the length of lockdown.

Remembrance weekend came next, with our cadets taking to their doorsteps in their best uniform and paying their respects on both Remembrances Sunday and Remembrance Day at 1100. We are so proud of our cadets for keeping themselves and their families safe, whilst still paying their respects.

Our CO and UMC took the decision to continue closure into the New Year, to keep our cadets and staff safe during the pandemic. Our staff members started planning for the rest of the year on the VLE and then creating the New Year Training Plan.

This has been a short month due to the COVID-19 restrictions BUT we keep going to ensure that our cadets can stay engaged with us throughout.

Thank you for reading and we will check-in before the New Year!

Covering 1-31st October

This month, we have continued our return to parading and started our afloat training schemes. We have also rethought our strategy towards qualification training.

The RMC have continued their field-training and the recruits are preparing for their advacement exam. Completing this successfully will allow them to advance to Royal Marines Cadet!

Generic Training has transformed into Unit Based Training, which has become a specialisation! We are now delivering basic CIS to all of our Sea Cadets!

The afloat group has now been allocated either Paddle Discover or YSS Stage 1 as the cadets eagerly begin their afloat adventure to the qualification!

The AT group is preparing for a 'practice' expedition in Sutton Park, where they can accumulate all of their knowledge learnt from the prior weeks into a real expedition!

We had a visit from the SSO, where he got to experience the Sutton Coldfield COVID-19 experience. With a positive report, it showed the training team that what we are doing is working.

Our New Entry Cadet class, after attending two 'mop-up' Saturday's, have now completed their syllabus and gained promotion to Cadet!

That's all for this month, come back at the end of November for more!

Covering 1-30th September

This month, we have seen our Return to Parading, Return to Fieldcraft and Return to Boating as face-to-face training recommenced. We started our September with a Divisional Sunday, awarding cadets with their achievements over lockdown!

We have then finished our Seamanship Assessments, with 9 cadets gaining their Basic Seamanship. Two of these were Royal Marines Cadets, which means that they can now work on advancing to Cadet Lance Corporal.

We have an engaging afloat syllabus, with RYA Stage 1 and BC Paddle Discover in sight. 4 cadets have gained their Paddle Start, with more expected soon.

Our AT groups have completed their first night Navigation, after two weeks of training, with minimal help.

Our Generic Training has ranged from Planex situations, to CIS and re-training the Ships Company to the new Divisional System

That's all for this month, come back at the end of October for more!

Hello Shippers! 

Over the past five months, we have been unable to conduct face to face training due to the COVID-19 restrictions places upon us by government, local councils and the Sea Cadet Corps, to keep us safe. But we haven't been sat in waiting for everything to go back to normal! As usual, our staff at Sutton Coldfield Sea Cadets have gone the extra step to keep our unit engaged!

We started running Virtual Learning for our cadets, delivering one module, per class, per week and allowing everyone, from our Junior Sea Cadets to our Leading Cadet to work towards their promotion!

We've had cadets attend a District Virtual Course where we saw brilliant results, and we've had one of our Leading Hands attend his Petty Officer Cadet board!

10 of our cadets attended a unit run Virtual Basic Seamanship Course, where we've seen a brilliant interest in Seamanship! They all performed well, awaiting final sign off back at the unit!

Towards the end of August we have achieved Lime status, which means we can return to face to face training! Virtual Learning has been suspended and the Command Team, with assistance from unit staff, are working tirelessly to ensure the unit is COVID safe ready for cadet return on Sunday 13th September 2020!

That's all for this update, see you next month!