The Air Cadets offers a number of national camps throughout the year where cadets from across the country are invited to apply to attend. One such camp is the National Marching Band camp, which this year, saw 216′s Cdt Cpl Keme attend.
“The week 13th April to the 20th April I went to the National Marching Band Easter Camp, this year held at DTE Beckingham. At the start of the week we would be checked by an instructor that we knew all the rudiments, as I play the snare, after this we would progress onto learning the songs which comprised of Aces High, RAF March Past, Holyrood, and many others.
About halfway into the week we would meet up with the brass and the woodwind section to start rehearsing outside. In between rehearsing we would also practise the drill routine for the parade. On the penultimate day we travelled to RAF Cranwell to practise on the parade square with our instruments and uniform on. We also got presented with our gold band badges. Finally it was the Friday and after a hard week of practising and rehearsing it all came down to 30 minutes of playing. It went very well! We got an applause as we marched on and an even bigger one as we marched back. And finally the last thing to do was to get our bags and go home!
This week long camp has been the best learning experience I’ve had throughout my cadet career and I cannot wait to get back to drumming again when we have the summer camp!”
Cdt Cpl Keme