News

Some of our ships company were lucky enough to be awarded Her Majesty the Queens Diamond Jubilee Medal for those who have been in service for over 5 years.

The medals were handed to those qualifying individuals by Colonel (retired) Mike Bennett, a Deputy Lord Lieutenant and a Vice President of our unit.

Left to right:  Lt Cdr (SCC)Jason J Kinghorn, RNR, CO Tewkesbury Unit, PO (SCC) Mark Hobbs, CPO (SCC) Ross Burton, PO (SCC) Marianne Cottee, CPO (SCC) Les Stamp, Lt (SCC) Ron Matthews, RNR, PO (SCC) Ian Fowler, First Lt., PO (SCC) David Simons.

In July we set off to Bristol for the Area Rowing and Power Regatta hoping that the rain and wind would die down before the start of the competition.  Due to poor conditions this summer there had been very little opportunity to get on the water to practise and the district rowing competition had actually been cancelled due to high river levels. 

Teams were then selected on ability through Severn District Units to compete at the Area competition with our senior girls’ team going through joined by 2 of our senior boys to make up a team with Malvern unit. 

10 cadets from Tewkesbury, 4 staff, a Padre and a parent made up the crew and we all settled into the day ahead with brollies going up and down and cadets nipping in and out of boats and gazebo’s. 

The girls had 3 2^nd’s and a win in the final race which had us all screaming in encouragement as they crossed the line, an amazing result considering they had only been on the water together as a team a couple of times.  The boys also had 3 2^nd’s plus one non-finish due to the strength of PO Ashley Macrow breaking two oars in one race – whoopsJ.  The boys also had a great result considering the team only met for the first time that day so had never rowed together. Their last race was probably the most exciting of the day with a neck and neck finish between 2^nd and 3^rd place with Tewkesbury just taking it over the line.  Both the Padre and I needed a lie down after that!!

District Sailing Competition

On a windy Saturday morning The Sailing Team of Tewkesbury Sea Cadets arrived at Whitefriars Sailing Club for the 2012 Severn District Sailing Championships. The team consisted of 7 cadets POC Ashley Macrow, LC Thea Griffiths, AC Danny Gurney, OC Callum Macrow, Cdt Louis Fowler, AC Stuart Bailey and Cdt Will Curwen, who entered a strong team consisting of 2 bosun crews, 1 topper crew,  1 Laser Pico Crew and 1 PY crew.

After strong deliberation by the Officer of the day due to the extremely strong wind, racing was to commence at 1100, and as soon as the racing began, it was clear that Tewkesbury Sea Cadets were a league above the rest. Although varying levels of experience were in the team, all had trained hard even though much of the training was cancelled due to the river being in flood; but maximum effort on the day meant that the team did extremely well coming away with almost all the trophies of the competition including the winners of the Bosun, Pico and PY class. This meant that Tewkesbury Unit won the Championship Cup and more importantly 3 teams were off to the area championships in Portsmouth the following month.

Although the area competition was not quite as successful, all competitors from Tewkesbury Unit represented their district well; watch this space next year as we will surely have some teams go through to the national championships! BZ to all cadets who participated, you made your trainers proud!

Our Power Boat Competition Team, comprising, AC Danny Gurney (cox’n), OC William Fish & OC Hayden Green, achieved a spectacular win in the District Competition held on the 9^th June, gaining 93 points out of a possible 108; beating their nearest rival by 50 points!

Lt Matthews who trained them stated, “Their boat work & communication skills produced a truly professional team which was a joy to watch, and I look forward to them doing well at the Area competition in July.”

Tewkesbury Sea Cadets joined others from around the United Kingdom to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend. Cadets; LC Harry Griffiths, LC Ashley Marcow and Able Cadets Thea and Jack Griffiths were led by the Unit's Commanding Officer, LtCdr (SCC) Jason Kinghorn DMS RNR.

Taking part in the Thames River Pageant, the cadets crewed one of 56 Trinity 500 class boats that flew one of the Commonwealth flags, leading the Royal Barge.

A selection of images from the Pageant are in News - Picture Gallery - Events.