No alleged about it. I was sat in the front row as an 'official guest' - representing my CO who lost the coin toss and got the Management Board instead - and there were horns sounding all the way through from start to finish and throughout the service of dedication afterwards. Whether it was the strikers with air horns, or whatever they had on their placards encouraging drivers to sound car horns I don't know, but we definitely had the sound of horns including during HRH address.

Fortunately, the sound of backbone being stiffened in the form of an excellent band, the Reds and a GR4 drowned out the sound of selfish spineless whimpering. And as for the caterers who did show up, rumour control says they were flown in from Leuchars last night, they were brilliant and rustled up an excellent lunch with very little notice. My hat definitely off to the 2 WOs who coordinated, the chefs and serving staff - outstanding!

The strikers may have had a point to make, but what they fail to realise is that they made a completely unintended point today. What sympathy they may have had from Cranwell personnel went out the window today. If you must, target the summer ball; after an hour everyone will be too p1ssed to notice or care. But don't target the graduation parade and potentially ruin what people have worked at least 9 months and potentially all their lives to achieve.

Despite the efforts of the strikers, my heartiest congratulations to all the graduates - a splendid parade. I do hope you have stonking hangovers in the morning!

It does appear to be peeing in ones own backyard and with the possible lack of support by those there using the facilities in protest, a self defeating action.

Yes, it was a bloody disgrace, but at least the weather was good for the graduation. By 1600 it had started to rain and by then, all the noisemakers had bu****ered off before their placards melted in the wet. I'm no longer serving in RAF blue but I still work at "Sleaford Tech", I always feel a bit better when another group of IOT cadets graduate and I don't expect disruptive behaviour like this from anyone. As Melchett01 said, any sympathy for the strikers' cause has gone out of the window. It was a Royal Grad today too. One of our cadets on medical hold had attended and he was appalled by the air horns and the general noise being made throughout the entire event. When I joined the RAF (Blimey I sound like some of my old bosses!) all the catering staff were in RAF blue and there was even an RAF Carpenter trade group (albeit obsolete by the time I joined) and, during my time, I've seen contractorisation cause an ever increasing hollowing out of what is now, to me anyway, a mere husk of what things were. The classic for me was the Metrix debacle when we were all going to move to St Athan to a bright new Defence Training College where the future would be so bright we'd all have to wear shades. Now we have Lyneham as a possible future move but I shall not be concerning myself or raising any hopes with that!

When you civilianise Service jobs, you will destroy esprit de corps.

I quote from my PVR application in 1990.

My other two reasons were.
Over-reduction in budgets will make the job more dangerous - see at least 4 threads running at the moment,including snatch landies

The government is going to get us into stupid wars.

It's no fun being right in this case, you know.
Nor do I claim exclusive prescience; I know several who gave at least 2 of the above reasons on their PVRs.

When they are all on Gratuties at £12-£15 an hour? Not likely!

ER, so if RAF catering has been contractorised, how come there is still a RAF Catering Training Squadron, and that the current RAF careers web page is advertising careers as both Chefs and Caterers (Stewards as were) as being immediately available?

The blurb indicates that amongst the various postings available is: "working in RAF messes" and for the caterers "running RAF Officers' and Sergeants' Messes."

My IOT graduation was one of the proudest days of my life. My parents (RIP) were delighted, my girlfriend was impressed and it set me up for the rest of my career.

I'm appalled that our brightest and best had one of the defining moments of their careers ruined by a noisy protest. Regardless of ISS employees gripe, this was poor timing and not befitting of any organisation which serves the country.

Signing off before the swearing starts.

FATTER GATOR

ISS does not "serve the country" that's not how capitalism works. ISS serves its shareholders and Directors, pure and simple.

If, as I suspect, a range of RAF Messes are still service run, surely you would expect that Cranwell would have been one of those?

But it then would not be representative of the rest of the Services. One would have thought Cranwell was the point to instill in ones recruits what was happening in the RAF at the outset and what to expect, as it will all eventually go this way from what folks say.

Out of interest as not all messes have changed over to Civilian staff are they to PAYD, and if they are do they still draw in diners compared to their counterparts.. And if they are not yet PAYD, how does that work if you visit a unit that is ? As you will be paying as we did by deduction from ones wages for meals already.

NutLoose,

Fair point. I suppose that is just as good a reason NOT to have service catering as my original suggested reason to have it.

How many Messes are RAF staffed I wonder?

Talking of contractorisation and privatisation, has anyone seen the tender document for Project GATEWAY at RAF Brize Norton?

It is soliciting bids for, amongst other things: airfield services and operations, including Fire, Air Traffic and specialist airfield MT. Fleet management and TASKING of the RAF Air Mobility fleet. (Tasking?) First line maintenance of ALL the squadrons based there. 2nd line bays, engineering support and logistics support.

What with the existing level of contractorisation at Brize Norton that will leave the station with almost no junior ranks, a very strange position to have at the largest RAF station.

No wonder they put all of the accommodation works on hold...

By the way, it is on the Brize web site so it IS in the public domain.

I haven't seen a service steward or chef for a number of years now, but that's not to say there aren't some around. However, I suspect the Catering trade is not a general Catering trade as you would think, but is ticking over at an absolute minimum to provide trained individuals who can deploy on ops, do the field sqn stuff and work on the AT side of the house. After all, the chances of finding anyone in ISS or other similar contractors who would be willing to 'cam up' and work out of a tent at all sorts of random hours without attracting an overtime bill that looks more like a phone number.

So there might be the very odd mess that is still wholly RAF Catering, my instinct says in one of the two Gp stations yet to move across to PAYD for whatever operational reasons they managed to get through, with the odd smattering of almost digital posts around the wider RAF outside of the specialised areas I mentioned previously.

The remaining Service catering personnel are there to supply the deployed catering requirements (with stewards acting as kitchen hands and "front of house" staff in the mess tents) and also to provide a pool from which to generate the AT air stewards. Rather than being scattered in ones and twos all over the RAF, Service caterers are concentrated in certain locations in order that proper military line management can be in place. Marham is one location that springs to mind, as was Linton on Ouse (although my knowledge there could be a bit out of date).

Messes can become PAYD even with Service staff - the Service staff work alongside the contractor's employees and put the cash in the tills! I guess the contractor must pay the Service in some way for the privilege of receiving some GFX manpower....