St Eligius Day – 3XX TDS serving at Land Readiness Fleet Sennelager (LRF(S))

Scribes: Cpl Church 3Bn REME (LRF(S) PP&C SNCO) and LCpl Robinson (First Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers LAD) (LRF(S) Tech Elec JNCO)

Intro

On the 1st of December each year, all REME Soldiers and Officers look to mark St. Eligius Day, including those members of 3XX TDS serving at Land Readiness Fleet Sennelager (LRF(S)). The purpose of the day is to celebrate the Corps Patron Saint, St Eligius. To do this, the Corps seeks to challenge soldiers mentally and physically in order to develop Esprit de Corps and team cohesion.

THE TEAMS and Competition

This year at LRF(S), three teams were created to compete in the activities of the event and were made up of the departments working at LRF(S). Light A Vehicle Repair Line, B Vehicle Repair Line and Heavy A Vehicle Repair Line.

The teams would be judged against three main areas:

1. Collective sporting effort – Triathlon and Kart Race

2. Ingenuity of engineering concept – Kart development

2. Effective outcome – Kart Race and Firing of Armaments

The Engineering Challenge

The week prior to the St. Eligius Day event, the participating teams were charged with designing, testing and then fielding a push powered kart (soapbox) that could complete a pre-determined race route and reach the firing point from which a projectile would be fired on target. The teams had seven days, £100 of funding and their ingenuity to bring their ideas to life; and test their submission for competition as thoroughly as possible.

Work commenced quickly following the announcement of the event, with teams scavenging for scrap and salvage; many of the Workshop ‘hand me down’ bikes becoming sacrificial at this point. As the carriage of karts began to take shape, the teams switched fire (no pun intended) and put their minds towards the weapon attached to the kart that would need to be able to launch a small projectile (potato) as far as feasibly possible.

The Day

The event began with an early start as the Commanding Officer and Wksp SNCO’s and officers delivered breakfast and gunfire to the junior ranks in their accommodation; priming the troops for the day ahead.

The teams then moved towards their first task, the Triathlon. Composed of three events, a 5-kilometer row, a 15-kilometer ride on the Watt-Bike and a 1-kilometer relay. Each team could use as many members as necessary for the first two events, before selecting 4 for the relay race at the end. Each team worked hard, and fierce but healthy competition was evident from the start.

Post Triathlon it was back to the accommodation for personal admin before being transported to Normandy Barracks Garrison Church for a key part of the day; the church service dedicated to REME and St. Eligius. This church service was a welcome break for the troops but also served to ground the event; reminding the participants of the purpose of the day and allowing time to pause for reflection. With the service complete it was back to Athlone Barracks for lunch in the Warrant Officers and Sgt Mess in the form of a classic curry lunch where all REME soldiers and officers sat together for the duration of lunch.

The afternoon’s events began with a safety inspection of the soapbox karts. Following the inspection, teams were given a chance to adjust their karts and fix any identified issues. The karts were presented pre-race to Commander NFS in front of the Workshop. At this point teams were able to explain their ideas and give reason to their karts design; the build concept as well as giving the names of their karts.

Once the presentation was complete, it was time for the race! Each team allocated five members to participate, a Driver, 4 pushers with one later acting as a gunner for the latter half of the challenge. With the race teams confirmed, and set on the start line, the race begun. Each team pushing hard to take the lead early on, remaining relatively close until the teams reached the first mince pie station where they were required to consume 5 mince pies before moving on. This allowed the Light A department (given their considerable eating skills) to achieve a substantial lead as the race continued, and ultimately, take first place on the race.

It was then onto the launcher competition. The three teams were each designated a firing point and 15 small potatoes to launch via their mounted armament, with the furthest ten being counted and then compared to give a winner. With that, the teams began firing to varying degrees of success, whilst being spectated by the same judging team from earlier who observed the race. With the launching complete and the karts (mostly) intact the teams withdrew to the Athlone Barracks Pub for the final speeches and prize giving.

Following the judging, it was Light A who took the win for the Triathlon, kart-race and launching competition followed by B line taking second and Heavy A in third. After the prize giving and closing speech by Comd NFS, the teams were allowed to retire for the evening after a challenging but rewarding day.

Every person involved walked away feeling confident and proud in their abilities to compete and manage challenges given to them within an engineering and military environment. All of this was set against a backdrop of humour, fun, humility and competition; whilst paying respects to the Corps’ heritage and traditions.

WIDER LRF(S)

St. Eligius day is significant to the Corps and is an important aspect of paying respect to our traditions and heritage, and for this reason it is commendable that LRF(S) took time out of its heavy schedule of outputs to provide and manage a day dedicated to the Patron Saint of REME.

Alongside the planning and participation of St Eligius Day, LRF(S) was still required to provide output as a key enabler for Military activity in Europe (the ROTO1 overlay on the next pages provides oversight of all activity we undertook). A large volume of equipment is continually handed over to exercising units or sent to European operations. It is at the forefront of this activity that our REME personnel prove their worth in ensuring equipment is engineered to the best condition possible; allowing units to operate at their maximum capacity whether in Estonia or the Sennelager Training Area. So even as the St Eligius Day teams prepared their karts and the event was coordinated, all LRF(S) personnel remained committed to ensuring their primary role was fulfilled.

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