40 (NIH) SIGNAL SQUADRON ENTERTAIN THE BOYS BRIGADE

40 (NIH) Signal Squadron hosted the 92nd Boys Brigade (BB) at Clonaver Park Army Reserve Centre, Belfast, providing a round robin of 5 stands to give the participants a general overview of being a reservist. There were 29 BB members accompanied by 8 adults.

The Squadron hosts greeted the arrival of the mini-buses and to their surprise the 29 boys that stepped off the mini-bus had been through a time machine!  The team were expecting 29 boys within the age range of 11-15, but were hit with 29 kids of approx 5-6 years of age known as the Anchor Boys.  From this point they knew they had their work cut out for them. They ‘tried’ to march the boys into the drill hall in some sort of orderly fashion to be briefed up on how the night was going to be run. The boys were then split up into their five groups accompanied by their adults and sent onto their stands.

Stand One – Bowman Detachment Setup 
The boys were briefed on the equipment on show and general detachment routine, however they were more interested in jumping inside the landrover and trying on the radio head-sets.

Stand Two – Dress-Up 
Cam Cream was generously applied all over each of the boys’ faces.  The third group of boys arrived to find out the cam cream had sadly ‘mysteriously disappeared’.  That said, everyone enjoyed trying on the equipment that is used in day to day life as a soldier; the Instructors enjoyed it more than the pupils in most cases.

Stand Three – Casualty Physical Training (PT) 
When the age of the boys was realised, this stand layout and lesson plan was quickly rethought and the 40kg Powerbags were quickly replaced by 7.5kg bags.  The boys were given a lesson on how to drag a casualty and a couple of the adult instructors happily joined in on the fun. There were also a couple who used excuses of ‘Injuries’ to get out of it – glad to see it’s not just in the military that people make excuses up to get out of PT.

Stand Four – 24Hr Ration Pack demo 
Each group was shown the basic 24Hr Ration Pack; they quickly established that they had a captive audience as the kids had all spotted the boiled sweets that come supplied with the Rations.  Luckily for them the rotation for each stand was only 10 minutes for each group, otherwise the sweet supply would have run out!

Stand Five – Weapons
This was the noisiest stand by far, as everyone was excited by the prospect of getting to see and hold a ‘real gun’!  Maybe having the 24Hr Ration Pack stand before this wasn’t such a good idea due to an overload of E numbers in the boiled sweets…!

Burgers/Refreshments

Florence, like her namesake (Nightingale), saved the night like always, coming in and supplying the visiting detachment members and of course us older boys with delicious burgers and drinks to quench the thirst.

It was a great pleasure to host the Anchor Boys and their adult leaders. Everyone who took part showed great enthusiasm and professionalism throughout the evening which helped to deliver a night to remember for the youngsters.  This in turn makes receiving this message below from Lt Jim McGardle (Lieutenant in charge of Anchor Boys, 92nd Belfast Company, The Boy’s Brigade) even more special:

“This comes with a huge word of thanks on behalf of the 29 boys and 8 leaders for what was a fantastic evening over at the base.

“Special thanks to every member of the team for making the boys and leaders feel so welcome. Your guys put their heart and soul into each of the activity stations and had a great rapport with the boys who just loved it – not forgetting the burgers and goodies that were generously served to end it all!

“A few of the boys in our BB company come from tough backgrounds here in the Ballysillan area of north Belfast and as an officer here in the 92nd I was so happy to allow the boys the chance to meet such positive role models even if it was for just a short time.

“Once again, please pass on our sincerest thanks and best wishes to the team.”