The following is a personal recount by 1SG K. Goutham, one of the participants and Specialists who participated in the Challenge Quest.
During October 2008, 4 NCC (Air) cadets (Balaji, Jit Ray, Goutham and Nicholas) participated in the annual Challenge Quest organised by MCC HQ. It is a fitness competition in which NCC units compete against each other in a fitness test comprising of push ups, sit ups, a run and an obstacle course.
All participating cadets were required to be dressed in their full No.4 (army fatigues) attire. After waiting about an hour for our turn, we finally got a chance to participate in our first event - push ups. Doing push ups in our uniform was harder than doing it in the PE attire though. We had to do as many push-ups as we could in a minute. Right after that,we had to try and do 50 sit-ups in a minute. Then we had to go for a run which i guess was about 1.6km. Most of us found running after the two strenous exercises really tough.
We encouraged each other to keep up and we did complete the run without stopping. Then came the most fun part of the test-the obstacle course. All of us managed to finish the course. Finally we waited for other teams to finish the course and for the results. We were provided with refreshments in the meantime. Though we were disappointed that we had not finished in the top 3, we knew we had all tried our best. It was a very meaningful activity which taught us the values of teamwork and encouragement, pardon the cliche.
I would like to congratulate, on behalf of SJI NCC (Air) Company, our 3 new C/OFFRs Jian Pheng , Lee Xun and Marvin for successfully completing their CLT course. Together with your experience and guidance, I’m positive that we would be able to soar to greater heights as one unit. Round of applause (Clap clap!)
The following is a brief journal as 1SG Ryan Lee gives a short description of what it was like to work on the NCC Pamphlet, an initiative newly introduced this year as part of our ongoing efforts to further educate parents and students about our CCA.
Doing this pamphlet was a great experience for me because it was my first time doing one. With much help from Mr Mok, I’ve finally produced a pamphlet for SJI NCC (Air). It was a challenging task because there are many points and information that have to be written in the pamphlet but there was not enough space to fit so many things into the pamphlet. Besides, the pamphlet would have looked too wordy for a pamphlet. I spent a quite a lot of time on the pamphlet, editing and asking opinions from both Mr Mok and Kok Keat. It was a great exposure for me as I learnt much more about SJI NCC (Air), not just within my Part, but also the Part As and Bs. I’m glad to have this opportunity to do the pamphlet for my CCA.
Written by 1SG Ryan Lee
NB: Anyone who wishes to view the pamphlet may send their request to "sjinccair06@gmail.com " with the subject header "PAMPHLET" in the subject field. Any other email will be ignored. Thank you.
The SJI NCC (Air) unit would also like to acknowledge the participation of one of our cadets in a certain proficiency course. 1SG Ryan Lee attended the Fitness Programme conducted by PTIs from SAF on 26 & 27 Nov. After passing the course, Ryan is a certified fitness instructor of NCC.
The SJI NCC (Air) Unit would like to acknowledge the following cadets for their participation in the Shooting Competition held from 18-20 November 2008. We would like to applaud their efforts and their willingness to sacrifice their time dfor the competition.
Part C : Nicholas,Kok Keat, Lingges, Akid [Reserve: Frederick] Part B : Kevin, Ryan, Sean, Andre [Reserve: Nikolas] Part A : Isaac Francis, Alexander Soo, Anchelski Teo, Elton Lim [Reserve: Dominic, Gerald, Roy]
The 1-Star Kayaking Course is a course which aims to provide cadets with a basic understanding as well as techniques of kayaking, so as to enable them to survive even in marine conditions. Several NCC (Air) cadets participated in the course, and a personalised report follows.
Day 1
On the first day, all of us were excited to start kayaking; have fun and all that, but to our dismay, the fun could only be had later. We were taught the structure of the kayak, the anatomy of the paddles, and also the buoyancy vest. We were also told what to take note of; like the brief checks on our equipment, or if there was a hole in the kayak, if the buoyancy vest was safe for usage etc. But all that stuff was boring me.
Finally, the fun part arrived. We were told to gather in a circle and proceed into the cold seawater; this was the buoyancy vest test. Most people would have been familiar with this as this was what we had done during canoeing contact time in secondary one. Then we were taught the procedure of launching and also CAPSIZING! This was what I had dreaded at first, but when it was my turn and all had been done, I actually found it quite fun, you know, when water go into your ears and then you shout for help and stuff like that.
Then we had our lunch at the hawker centre. That was one of the times where we bonded not only with our part but also with the Part Bs (next year); although there were only two of them. Later, we kayaked in a small area, more like a canal, where Kevin was the first one to capsize, it may seem easy to maneuver it, but it actually takes a lot of skill; at the beginning, I too also almost capsized. Then were taught the different strokes which really helped during the period.
Day 2
When we reached Changi, we retrieved our equipment, carried the kayaks to the beach and waited for further instructions. Then we were taught the deep water TX rescue, it a kind of recue whereby if one guy capsized in the deep water, this would be really useful. Then, were we told to break into groups to carry out our own practice. In my group was Kevin, John and myself. It’s kind of scary as you could not feel the ground beneath your feet, and your life now depends on the rescuer and the assistant. It was really fun though. After our practice, we were told to gather, and we were taught more strokes to aid in our controlling of the kayak.
Sadly, right after we were told to break raft, I CAPSIZED! The worst was yet to come; less than 5 minutes after I had been rescued, I capsized (yet) again. How sad can that be? I was trying out the J draw, but I was too slow, causing me to capsize. So that was the third time I capsized that day. Then we also began riding the waves as there were many boats passing by, causing waves.
On that day, it was really choppy, so my cockpit was flooded. Notwithstanding, we had a present for NCC land; we were to capsize and they would save us. Haha [sic] , that was really fun.
By the time we reached the shore however, our legs were aching, but there was no time to rest, as we had to return all our kayaks. Then the instructor showed us the Eskimo roll and some other complex moves. So we brought the kayak back to the club, and had it washed before storing it. After washing up, we had our certificate presentation, and we were really proud of it, and I received the altogether unglamourous moniker, the “capsizer” (having capsized the most number of times).
25th November - the first day of the Part B leadership training camp at Pulau Ubin. Everyone had such different feelings about it; excitement, trepidation. Some were excited to be able to camp in the great outdoors with their friends, while others were reluctant and upset about losing two days of their holidays. The purpose of the camp was to not only learn about leadership but also to be able to practice it. As a stimulating aid, CPT Mok Hsu Pan gave the cadets a talk about leadership, thus exemplifying the ideals of leading by example. Through the talk, the cadets learnt the vital qualities a leader should possess and what made a leader different from the rest.
Upon reaching Pulau Ubin, we proceeded to our campsite, pitched our tents and had lunch. Each group then revealed their amusing group names and performed their cheers before going on to their first activity: Formula R. This was similar to “The Amazing Race” where everyone was required to clear checkpoints situated around the island in the space of a certain allotted time. The prize? A 500ml bottle of Coke! This spurred us to do our very best. Through the whole activity, my group went through thick and thin, and was able to bond and strengthen our team spirit. Eventually we were able to achieve our goal and get the prize, after suffering through both hardships and savouring victories.
By nighttime, all of us had eaten our dinner and were ready to set out for the night activities, which consisted of the obstacle course, night walk, and isolation. These activities were the most hair-raising and exciting ones as they were carried out in the dark! We were most fearful, especially when 2SG Derek Tay bluffed us about Julian being bitten by a spider as big as his palm. We took on several roles of leadership throughout the night activities, and this helped us to be confident and overcome our fears, while learning to apply the previously learnt lessons about leadership in a simulated, practical environ.
26th November - it was the second and last day of the camp. Quite a number of us were relieved as the activities were not as taxing as those of the first day. We had breakfast (MARSHMALLOWS!) and dismantled the tents, followed by games session at the concrete courtyard. Grins stretching from ear-to-ear were evident everyone’s face J as it was finally time to have some fun! I could see that everyone really enjoyed themselves, laughing and joking around.It was then time to say goodbye to Pulau Ubin as we headed back to school in Singapore.
At SJI, we ate our lunch (more food!) before having a lecture session conducted by CPT Teresa Lim. The talk was very helpful and it revealed to us the common problems leaders face with their followers, and consequently, how these problems could be handled proficiently and effectively. This was of especial importance for us as we would be taking over the SJI NCC Air Unit as NCOs in the near future.
We then had our promotion parade where we were finally able to be promoted from Lance Corporals (LCP) to Corporals (CPL)! The promotion was successful, with the identification of 7 cadets who had participated enthusiastically in the camp and actively taken on roles of leadership. Congratulations to the 7 cadets and to all newly-promoted Corporals. May we perform up to standard as corporals and exceed our expectations in serving our NCC Air unit! So help us, God!
I would also like to thank the Teacher Officers and Specialists who had kindly taken the trouble and to sacrifice their time to aid in the running of the camp, and making it a successful endeavour. They are CPT Mok Hsu Pan, CPT Teresa Lim, CSM Jeremy Chitty, SSG Kenneth Goh and SSG Muhd Akid, 1SG Eugene Lim, 2SG Derek Tay and 3SG Timothy Lee.
Hi guys. This announcement is for the ordering of photos which will be charged $1 per pictires and it would be A5 .Next, you MUST go to http://s405.photobucket.com/albums/pp138/sjinccair/ to chose your pictures. PLease tell us what pictures you would like to order berfore the end of this TERM. You would recieve your pictures when school reopen. You can inform me:Shayne, Kevin, jeremy chitty. Thank you
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The following is a personal account by one of the selected participants for the Senior Specialists' Course, SSG Nicholas Fung. We hope that in publishing this personal account, more candour can be shown. We hope you enjoy reading it!
Ok. 4th September 2008 - the start our three day long senior specialist course. Prior to the course, we had a course briefing and we practiced our arms drills and foot drills. Who are we? We are Jeremy Tang, Jeremy Chitty, Kenneth Goh, Nicholas Fung and Muhd Akid. We saw senior spec with mixed feelings, some of us were eager some of us were nervous.
Day 1: As me and Chitty walked into the camp and booked in, we could already feel the seriousness of the course. Everyone was eager to create a good first impression. Everyone was showing high standard. We split into our respective companies. Chitty was solo-ing in Echo Company. Me, Akid, Tang and Kenn were put into Foxtrot Company although I was in a different platoon. Tang, Kenn and Akid were lucky. They were in the same platoon. Well, in the morning, we had talks on the roles of the USM, words of command and pace stick drill by 1WO De Silva, SM NCC. The talks were interesting and we learnt a lot from it. Now, we now the proper way of giving a drill and how to use a pace stick properly. After lunch, we began lessons on advanced arms drills. We didn’t even hear of these drills before. Examples are Tatang Senjata, Bimbik Senjata, Baring Senjata, Angkat Senjata, Kaleh Senjata and so on and so forth. The purpose of us learning these drills is to make drills in school more interesting. It was followed by advanced foot drills. This included the official way of getting onto parade and the proper way of forming a “U”-shape formation. We will try to show these to you guys if we have time. We carried out our pace stick drills after that and dinner followed soon. The first came to a close with drill revision and night snack.
Day 2: Reveille at 6. Fall in at 6.30. Breakfast and then the much dreaded drill test. We started with foot drills. I didn’t feel very confident after my foot drill mutuals but after seeing how the others fared......Never mind. As we had so much time, we did our arms drill mutuals and I can SAFELY that I redeemed myself. Lunch was a happy affair as we had finished our tests. Well almost. The NCC Air cadets were busy revising for their air syllabus test. In the afternoon, SM talked to us on the “illegal badges” and how to pin badges on the uniform properly. Then, he talked to us on organising a school parade. As usual, we found his talks very interesting. After dinner, the NCC Air cadets went to the theatrerette to revise our air syallbus. At this point, a sir( I shall not name who )gave us a big hint on what was coming out. We were overjoyed. When we sat for our paper, we found the hint most helpful. Thank you sir! After the paper, Maj Gary asked us on out school training programme and gave us helpful ideas and suggestions. Night snack and a briefing for the last day followed.
Day 3: Fall in at 6.10 with all bedding items and in half uniform. Breakfast followed by returning to bunks and collecting our belongings and heading to the MPH. The graduation ceremony took place after the AAR and we finally were given the coveted red and white lanyard and the staff sergeant rank. It was the end of a course that we found draining and yet useful to our development as leaders of SJI NCC Air.
Written by: SSG Nicholas Fung
Thank you all for your time, and we hope reading this has aspired all of you to continue to strive for your dreams, and to soar to greater heights!
Every year, the Outstanding Cadet/Recruit Award is presented to the most deserving Cadet who has displayed all-rounded ability and proficiency in drills, physical training, attitude, and has epitomised or attempted, by virtue of will, to epitomise the NCC core values. This award is applicable to all 4 levels (viz. Sec.1-4).Of course, this year’s awardees are as up to par as ever, having trained hard and fair to attain their award. In ascending order of age, the awardees this year are, Lim Zhan Kuan Elton (103); Teng Liang Hong Kevin (201); Jeremy Peter Chitty (3G1-2); Timothy Soo Weihao (434). Incidentally, 2SG Jeremy Peter Chitty is the newly appointed Company Sergeant Major (CSM) for this year. Below are some snippets of the interviews conducted with the awardees.
Elton Lim:
1. Why do you think you were chosen to be Outstanding Cadet?
“(I) mix around well with (my) partmates”
“(I) make friends easily”
2. What would you do if you saw someone being victimised in you part?
“(I would) try not to make him feel sad”
“(Try and) cheer him up”
“(I’d) be his friend”
3. What are your aspirations/expectations of the unit in the future?
“(I’d) make them (partmates) more enthusiastic”
“(Convince them) not to skip training”
Kevin Teng:
1. What do you intend to do as Outstanding Cadet?
“Motivate (partmates)”
“Taking initiative”
“Inspire others (partmates)”
“Encourage (partmates)”
2. What made you join NCC (Air)?
“Intrigued by Part Ds’ (presentation at Open House)”
“(I) wanted to be (a) leader, and develop leadership (skills)”
“(Possess) a sense of being able”
3. If you were CSM…?
“(I would) instil encouragement (in juniors)”
“Motivation!”
“(Maybe) punitive measures, as a last, last, resort”
We hope that you have enjoyed reading the interview, and that you will always continue aspiring to soar to greater heights!
The NCC (Air) recently participated in an Orienteering Competition organised by NCC HQ and a personal recount of one of the participants follows.
Four of us, Deeban, Jit Ray, Sean and myself were anxiously waiting in the queue, waiting to take on the theory aspect of the orienteering competition This is it, we told ourselves silently. We entered confident, ready to ace the test. Confident that we did well for the test, we knew that it was also necessary to do well in our practicum.
We were given 2 minutes to jot down all six checkpoints to approach on the map. Without a doubt, we managed to plot the points both accurately and punctually. This was it, the “main event” was about to begin. “Detail twenty one Charlie”. The moment finally arrived. We approached the starting point. Sean, our time keeper was ready with his watch to help us keep track of the elapsed time. After all, the most important factors of orienteering are time, as well as the amount of energy left in the orienteer therefore; much judgment and planning had to take place within our run.
Finally, it was over. The moment de veritas had arrived. We anxiously awaited the results with bated breath. “Will the following schools approach the stage…Saint Joseph’s Institution…” A mixture of emotions ran through us within that split second; joy, thankfulness , yet tinged with sadness that SJI NCC land did not win. From the moment we held the medals in our hands, we realized that we had achieved something that out of all our blood, sweat and tears, and it was a gold medal for the team, and more importantly, for the unit.
A part of a new and exciting phase in the NCC (Air) training programme that has been recently implemented is the replacement of Physical Training (PT) with what has been come to be known as Modules. These modules are actually a plethora of activities which are intended to instil in the latest batch of Specialists a prominent sense of leadership as well as to provide the cadets with a most diverse range of activities to cater to the multitude of interests, ranging from simple sports like badminton, touch rugby, soccer to more demanding and interesting modules like weightlifting, orienteering and precision drill squad (PDS). These activities attempt to provide our cadets with a holistic education, not only focusing on their drills, but also on their whole physical person, while developing our core values and of course, having fun. The modules syllabus has been structured and constructed from scratch by our very own Specialists and have received approval from the Teacher Officers, and thus are wholly safe. Not only that, they have been crafted with but on end in mind, that is to provide active learning for each respective module. The modules are spearheaded by our very own Company Sergeant Major, 2SG Jeremy Chitty and the Modules 2IC, 2SG K Goutham. We hope that this novel initiative will continue propelling the SJI NCC (Air) Unit to much greater heights than ever before. Furthermore, we will be gathering feedback from the cadets at the end of this trial period and we hope you look forward to that. Thank you for your continued support!
On 12-14 June 2008, our Sec.3 cadets attended their Specialists’ Course, which was their qualifying course to become fully-fledged Specialists to be charged with the duty of running the SJI NCC (Air) Unit once their seniors had passed out. This was most definitely a monumental task to undertake at the best of times, and leadership was as natural for some as it was utterly novel for others. Thus, the main objective of this course was to properly equip the future Specialists with all the necessary skills required to run the unit effectively. For most, the idea of the Spec Course (its affectionate nickname) was damnably appalling, a waste of 3 days of their holidays. Indeed, most were dreading the harshness of the course itself. During the course itself, which was actually a 3D2N camp at NCC HQ, the activities revolved around acquiring the prerequisite skills expected of Air Cadets, which in addition to the standard syllabus (Individual Fieldcraft, Marksmanship Fundamentals etc.), also comprised of the Air Syllabus, an in-depth study of aviation and avionics. Of course, it also involved raising the bar for these future Specs, as their drills were pushed to the most precise limit, as well as their marching, to ensure they set an example to be emulated. Along the way, friendships were also forged as the cadets were grouped randomly with other schools also undergoing the course. At the end of the 3 days, after having officially passed out as Specialists, they were definitely elated to be returning home, though without some twinges (however minuscule) of regret. However, the Specialists more than made up for it by trying their very best from then on to uphold the values of NCC (Air) and to set themselves as someone to be admired for their juniors.
The S4s were definitely treated to an evening of joy, exuberance and recognition of their contributions to the SJI NCC (Air) unit for the past 4 years of their tenure. The barbecue party kicked off with a fiery start, quite literally, as the charcoal fires were lit. The rest, as they say, is history. The recently empowered S3s took charge of the whole affair, headed by ACSM Nicholas Fung, and a dedicated committee. Not only did they plan and organise the event, but they also spent the evening barbecuing and preparing food fit for consumption for their recently graduated seniors. Indeed, what a sumptuous and delectable gastronomic experience it turned out to be, what with chicken wings, satay, sambal sotong and a smorgasbord of other epicurean delights.
After the feast had been devoured ravenously (due mainly to the fact that everyone had expended their energy with frivolity and revelry), every cadet, S1-S4, assembled at a pristine gazebo for the appreciation ceremony, and what a picturesque image it formed, with the waves lapping against the shore, and the balmy evening, not to mention the presence of close friends. As each S4 was presented with a plaque in recognition of their efforts and contributions, there was generally warm applause all around. When it came to the erstwhile EXCO however, several S3s were selected to deliver a short speech to their respective seniors, highlighting their various contributions and achievements. Naturally, being Josephians, everyone delivered their speech with pinpoint precision, with an economy of words, yet with a maximum of poignancy. It was indeed a heart-rending moment, such that even members of the public stood enthralled.
Needless to say, the Farewell Party was irrefutably a resounding success, having only been inaugurated this year, as part of a series of initiatives to further elevate the prestige of NCC (Air) as a Sustained Achievement Award (Uniformed Groups) winner. Doubtless, the SJI NCC (Air) unit will inexorably continue soaring to greater heights.
