The third and final Ulysses Trust Expedition Award 2022 was presented by HM Lord-Lieutenant of the Royal County of Berkshire, Mr James Puxley CVO (pictured left) last week.
The Trust’s Expedition Awards highlight the very best in leadership, challenge, courage and planning. The latest awards were selected from the 95 cadet and reservist expeditions supported by The Ulysses Trust in 2022. Each recipient receives a certificate signed by our Chair.
The winner of the Cadet Category was Round The Island 2022. This expedition was undertaken by cadets from UTC Reading CCF who completed the Round The Island yacht race around the Isle of Wight in June 2022.
Receiving the award on behalf of the unit is Mr Neil Pouney from UTC Reading CCF (pictured right).
The presentation took place on Thursday 28th September 2023 at at His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of The Royal County of Berkshire Awards held at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The event was organised by the South East Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Association.
EXERCISE: ROUND THE ISLAND 2022
Ten students and two teachers completed the Round The Island yacht race around the Isle of Wight in an expedition that stands out for its many months of organising and training, including a training week in March and an additional day in May in Brighton. The training week in March saw the students undergo learning new skills in sub-zero temperatures, being thrashed by the wind and snow and yet demonstrating their physical robustness, being able to learn and perform new tasks despite the conditions, one cadet summed the challenge up nicely by saying it was ‘scary, but thrilling at the same time’. The skills learnt weren’t all nautical however, with the students encouraged to plan meals and go shopping for the food they would need for the sail. The students were further tested, working 12 hours days with skills that were still new to them, demonstrating resilience and teamwork to achieve a very impressive result of 634th out of 1156 boats. Importantly, the impression that this expedition has made on the cadets that were there will stay with them for a lifetime and will hopefully encourage more like it in the future.
Read the expedition report.
Details of other award winners from 2011 are available on our Expedition Awards page.
For further details please contact Paul Randall on M: 0774 141 2371 paul.randall@ulyssestrust.co.uk.
Photo credit: Stewart Turkington
