Double Trouble!

“I blinked my eyes and in an instant, decades had passed.” ― John Mark Green, Taste the Wild Wonder

A few blinks and just like that, we have passed the quarter point of our 12-week programme! Comparisons between work are being made, progress is being calculated and patterns are emerging.

Time management. Key to all aspects of this course. Presenting to a group is great fun, however, in such moments, it is easy to lose track of time. With a few sacrifices and an impromptu conclusion, I managed to finish my presentation on The threat from IS, seconds over the 8 minutes exception. Next week, I shall pay particular attention to my timings, ensuring I stick to a few key points, as compared to my approach of trying to cover everything! To ad lib is to take great risk.

Throughout PODP Individuals with no military experience are given the lessons necessary to form a strong foundation before Sandhurst. Those of us who have served in some capacity, such as the Reserves or Regulars, are given the opportunity to work on our presenting, group influence, and communication, by sharing what we know.

In similar vein to perhaps a school child, we are all excited and looking forward to our trip into London next week. Where we are to explore religions, culture and then to end the day with a visit to the theatre!

Enough from me: I am pleased to introduce you all to Ocdt G. (PRMAS), who has given his account of week 3 below...

Ocdt W

Week three has been a busy week for all on the Potential Officer Development Program. With a wide variety of content covered, including: Eight-minute presentations, Defence and Internal Affairs classes, Art and Theatre Analysis workshops, as well as the Officer Cadets of the PRMAS half of the course preparing for and deploying onto Exercise Rough Ramble! A first taste of fieldcraft for many on the course.

Eight-minute presentations were the order of the day on Monday. With a wide variety of topics being presented upon. Varying from the “Russia – NATO relationship” to “NHS Spending” and “Home Grown Terrorism”. The presentations offered students the chance to develop their presentation style and apply feedback from the Winchester City presentations from the week previous.

Defence and Internal affairs played a large part of the week’s studies. With Wednesday morning spent developing students’ understanding of the UK Government system, as well as beginning to analyse political parties and their ideologies in preparation for visits in the coming weeks to Westminster.

As mentioned, one particular area of note this week was Exercise Rough Ramble. This 24-hour field-based exercise focused on introducing the Officer Cadets to the field environment, whilst building the foundations for their time at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. This was achieved through teaching basic soldiering skills such as: kit preparation (see photo below), basic administration within the field, and sleeping under a two-man shelter.

As you can see, the students of the PODP have had a varied and challenging week. However, the foundations of knowledge and the development of presentation techniques will set all students in good strides to tackle what the remaining 9 weeks of the Course has to offer.

OCdt G