Air Cadets Shine at Annual Dining Out – Eating In Event

The Air Cadets from Coningsby’s 17 Squadron assembled wearing their finery to attend the Squadron’s annual, “Dining Out – Eating In” evening.
The event took place at the Abbey Lodge, Kirkstead. The guest of honour was Wing Commander, Claire O’Grady. Along with other guests, Rev (Wing Commander) Alasdair Nicol from RAF Coningsby and Squadron Leader, Simon Dunn from Trent Wing. The evening followed the traditional RAF format, right down to the table layout. This was to emulate the RAF experience, which is at the core ethos of the Royal Air Force Air Cadets (RAFAC).
Unfortunately, the Squadron’s Officer in Charge, Flight Sergeant Keith Clark was unable to attend, but a speech was read out on his behalf by Civilian Instructor, Malcolm Emsden. In this speech he celebrated some of the squadrons many achievements during the past year. These achievements included; raising £891.25 for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal, taking part in the Central and East Region Air Training Corps 75th Anniversary parade at Lincoln Cathedral, coming fifth in the Annual Wing Field Day competition and taking part in many Air Experience Flights, leading to many of the squadrons cadets flying for the first time and some of the cadets even taking control of the aircraft, to name but a few of the squadrons’ many achievement’s over the last 12 months.
During the evening there was several promotions awarded to cadets who had worked hard and shown themselves worthy of a promotion. The Cadets promoted were;-
Sargent Chris Sykes was promoted to Flight Sargent.
Corporal Kobe Sandiford was promoted to Sargent.
Cadet Rowan Thompson was promoted to Corporal.
Cadet Luke Hogg was promoted to Corporal.
Following the promotions, Wing Commander, O’Grady gave a highly inspirational speech drawing on her personal experience of been an Air Cadet herself. The Wing Commander, shared some interesting statistics with the Squadron, these being, 50% of the current serving pilots and 40% of the current serving officers in the RAF at one time used to be members of the RAFAC, which gave plenty for the cadets to think about.
Of the evening, Wing Commander, O’Grady said, “It has been a real privilege to attend 17 Squadrons annual dinner this evening. It brought back lots of great memories and reminded me what a fantastic organisation the Air Cadets is and what a great tribute 17 Squadron is to the organization on a whole”.