LAC Robinson’s report on the Junior Leaders Course, the 7th to the 14th of July:
“On the 6th of July, 2012, the bus pulled up at Porirua long distance bus stop. Myself and Haenga-Sutton, two out of the three lucky representatives of 41 Squadron, fortunate enough to be going on the course, packed our stuff onto the bus and said our goodbyes. Just as our other representative rocked up, lucky enough while the bus driver was still loading bags for bulls. Nice going Cane. Once we were on the bus, we met with another lot of ATC people, also going on the course. Our squadron hadn’t given us a list of who was going, so we were very surprised to see people we knew. After a long bus ride, but not boring because we were all talking to one-another, we were in Bulls for the connection. The moment we arrived, our bags were off-loaded then loaded onto a trailer, and we were taken away to Ohakea Air Force Base. Upon arrival, we unloaded and made the beds. For about 40 minutes, other new arrivals turned up and we started talking to one-another. It was then most of us realised that this was an all-male course, to many people’s horror. After lunch in the mess, we were assigned barracks. I was in a barrack with Cane and two L.A.C.s, Drennan and Gupta.
After we’d got all our gear stored away, we were marched down to the training centre, and marched right back to the barracks because the officers had forgotten to tell us to bring pens and paper. Once we’d gotten our stuff and marched back to the training centre, we began doing our presentations about ourselves, who we are, our hobbies, general stuff about us. We had 10 minutes to “prepare”. For many of us this was actually “Quickly write out any rubbish and hope it passes” time. After dinner, we went back to the training centre for more lessons, until 8 o’clock. Returning to the barracks, we have until 10 to sort out our uniform for tomorrow and clean the barracks.
Over the next few days, we were split into three syndicates. Alpha (Later on known as Alpha Males), Bravo (Bravo Bulls) and Charlie (Charlie’s Angles, or was it Angels?) In these three groups we used our knowledge of drill practice, leadership and presentation skills to go for our terminals. For my drill practice terminal, I was given “Salute to the right”. Leadership, my task was to get them to clean up a classroom before the Chief of the NZ Defence Force came to do a presentation. And for my lesson, (once I’d realise that resource material wasn’t optional, it was needed to write your presentation as no other means were supplied), I did a ten minute lesson on vintage arcade games.
Finally, on Friday, after a long week, it was time for the final parade. One-after the other, we went up and got given our certificate for passing the course.
Over the whole course, I made a lot of friends, not just in my syndicate, Bravo Bulls, but everyone that was on the course. On the final day in which we said our good-byes, we all went around signing each other’s course booklets. One thing an Officer mentioned was that there was a lot more crying on the course that was the week before us (they actually had girls on it). Everyone who was going to a stop that was on the way to Wellington left first, getting into the vans and driving off. After a rest stop at Palmerston North, we said good-bye to another large group. This was how it was up until our stop. People getting off at almost all the stops. Soon it was our turn. We gathered our things and shuffled down the isle, hands shakes or high-five to the remaining people who were getting of later. When we were out of high-fiving reach, we walked down with goodbye being called after us.
I found the course as a whole rewarding. I gained many friends, learned a lot about what its like to be a leader and I also learned a lot about myself. I will remember this experience for a long time.”
