Armed Forces Day 2010
 

Armed Forces Day is Saturday 26 June 2010. The day is an annual opportunity for the nation to show support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community: from currently serving troops to Service families, and from veterans to cadets.

In 2010 the National Event is to be held in Cardiff, but Cardiff is just one event being held in support of Armed Forces Day.

If you want to know more about how to get involved and what’s going on in your area, click here to find out how you can celebrate Armed Forces Day in support of our nation.

Great, just clucking great. So those of us in the Armed Forces get to march up and dowm, practice marching up and down and generally get clucked about so the MPs can say they have introduced a day to celebrate our AF... by making us do additional work instead of perhaps making it a National Holiday, or just giving us a day off.

Defenceheadquarters, how are you going to spin that into a positive?


Thought so. :ugh:

Yes, this was always a great idea just like the Station Open Day which required a leave ban for a week on either side of the Saturday event! I feel your pain and will celebrate you all by raising my glass. Thank God I am retired.

Bladdered, agree, I did a straw poll.

"Would you rather chuck £20 in the kitty and have the weekend free?" or

"Would you prefer to slog your guts out preparing, running, and wrapping up an air show?"

Now on an Station with 2,000 personnel that would have been a guaranteed £40k to charity and no fiddling the fuel bill. And no incidents or accidents or weather abandonment.

Yup, it came out as No Show. Unfortunately in the race to the stars every little helps.

Now I wonder how many of our top brass actually ran an air show?

Ones I had been involved in resulted in: Staish retiring and a Gp Capt, his successor made ACM but ran one air show unsuccessfully and stopped. Another reached Air Cdre and the Waddo show went from strength to strength.

I guess the B-word was successful.

Op Deny Weekend strikes again....:D

I clicked the link and was surprised to find there will indeed be an event within 40 miles. I also remembered that last year the Jug and Bottle in Holton le Clay offered a free pint with a meal - £1.69 is £1.69. Don't know if they will do that this year.

I dunno Ponty, ask someone for "One Sixty Nine" and it just might make your day. Might have to buy her a few pints first...

I've got free tickets for me and my family to watch Harlequins v Wigan at the Stoop on 26 June.

And there's no requirement to turn up in uniform, no requirement to wander on the pitch at half-time in combat kit, no requirement to march around for the amusement of others - I can just go and have a free day out!

Nothing goes out of fashion, quicker than fashion. This New Labour/imported from the US bull**** idea to gloss something up quickly, instead of instilling within the population a genuine and long lasting deep seated respect for the military, will return to haunt.

It isn't in our national psyche to applaud or whoop our troops in air terminals, not should we be encouraged to do so - lets leave that to the Americans. All our troops want is a proper ethos that isn't dependent on civilian groupthink, decent pay, nosh and digs for themselves and their families, and warm and fluffy kit that looks sexy and works. The rest, it can do itself without this idiotic jumping through hoops.

And if anyone uses the word 'Warrior' when describing a serviceman I will er.. put the kettle on in frustration.

... and if she's Chinese, you might just finish up with Duck & Pork Fried Rice .... ba boom! :ok:

Al R as ever goes to the nub of this (much teeth gnashing ensues in admitting that!). This is as bogus as all the other "initiatives" from the late and unlamented administration. Write to your MP, especially if you are a serving member of HM Forces in which case make that clear. Demand that this pointless trivia be abolished WIE before the card companies and others cash in with Happy Armed Forces Day products and whole aisles in Tesco are allotted weeks before hand. Stop this madness now!!!

Having just come off a cruise ship I wondered if the Spams realised that the name of the pub on board fitted nicely with Cockney rhyming slang. I just could not stop thinking after mentioning the name of the Dog and Duck.

Back on the Jug and Bottle, that is also rhyming slang as the pub is on an old airfield dispersal and has photos of the Lancs and crews that were there at the time.

Chug, they cashed in last year did they not? Union Flags half defaced?

They say that a proportion of every sale goes to H4H or so on, that proportion could be as little as £10 per thousand or less.

Union Flags, Pontius? How unimaginative! Anything can be flagged (sorry!) with Armed Forces Day logos; Crisps, Toblerone, Cereals, Beer, Beer, Pet Food, Lingerie, Beer, there is no limit except one's own imagination. I want ideas, and then even more ideas! We'll run them up the flag pole (sorry!) and see how many salute (sorry!). Come on people, think!!!

Chug, I was merely correcting your suggestion that the merchandise would start to point out that it already had.

Now back to the Dog and Duck - ****

Not implying anything of you Pontius, I should have added the available and required smilies, sorry! I meant rather that "they" were unimaginative last year in restricting themselves to merely defacing the Union Flag. Perhaps I should further make it clear that I do not really endorse them defacing the Union Flag, nor indeed anything else, including those items listed in my previous post. I remember now, it all started when I thought to endorse Al R's post. When will I ever learn; when, when?

Now back to the Dog and Duck - ****

Still creases me and it was 5 days ago that we left the ship.

What was it Liam Fox said?

"Defence cuts will be ruthless and without sentiment."

Can't get much more sentimental than opening up for the public, flying shows etc. Are we to see the last of all that sort of thing in the future?

Lorraine Kelly launches Armed Forces Day in Glasgow | Glasgow and West | STV News




Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Cleethorpes - 26 June
 

A good turnout on a wamr sunny day. Many standards were paraded and a goodly number of active service personnel paraded together with cadets and vets. Lots of red beret, a couple of arctic and many RAF. After a service at the Strike Wing memorial there was a flying display.

A Sea King had loitered off Bull Sands Fort before running in at 1500. It may have been intended to act as Air Coord for shortly after the Duxford Mk V Spit flew over at about 1000 feet, after a loose orbit he returned and did a few loops, wing over, barrel rolls and low passes. Brilliant from where we were about half a mile away from the ceremony as he seemed to have a totally wrong display centre.

He was followed by a Tiger Moth and DH2 pair. They confined themselves to a slow and stately procession down the front and back again.

After that there was to have been an aerobatic display by the world No 7 but we didn't wait on for that.

Nice day, low key, but enough to show the flag. Of that, very few flags evident today. Lots of England flags but I suspect that was coincidental.