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Visit Report RAF Lyneham

First Unit Liaison Visit

The new RAF Families Federation has undertaken its first official liaison visit to an RAF unit, namely RAF Lyneham, home of the Hercules fleet and several thousand Service personnel and their families. Why Lyneham first? Well, blame their WO Welfare who heard the Federation Chairman speak at the annual Community Support Conference in September 2007 and promptly invited her to visit the unit at the earliest opportunity.

Having launched the Federation on 21 November, Dawn and the team were keen to get out and meet some RAF personnel and their families. RAF Lyneham offered a perfect opportunity to launch the programme of unit visits that will see every Main Operating Base visited within the year and all other units within a 3-year cycle.

Dawn and Jenny arrived at Lyneham to be hosted to supper at the local Indian restaurant (any excuse for a naan bread and some poppadoms!). The supper was attended by key unit welfare staffs including OC Base Support Wing, OC Personnel Management Squadron, the afore-mentioned WO Welfare and, a surprise but welcome addition, the wife of the new Station Commander. A most enjoyable evening set the tone for the rest of the visit and we can honestly say that we could not have been made to feel more welcome. Staying in an Officers’ Mess was a new experience for Jenny and, once she had got used to the concept of toddling down the corridor to the shared ablutions and the lack of home comforts in a standard transit room, she declared herself quite happy to compensate for this by taking advantage of the price of beer in the Mess bar!

The next day started with a windscreen tour of the unit so that Dawn and Jenny could get a feel for the type and condition of the SFA available to RAF Lyneham families. The team then set up for a presentation in the HIVE and were pleased to meet a small (but vocal!) group of family members who were interested to hear what the Federation intended to do on their behalf. Not surprisingly, there was a healthy dose of scepticism amongst some of the audience but that lead to good exchange of views and it was quite clear that the families at Lyneham certainly have a range of issues they want to see represented at the very top.

Dawn and Jenny then went to meet the brand new Station Commander and were able to brief him on day 3 of his command tour – talk about catching the poor chap at his most vulnerable! Nevertheless, he was extremely enthusiastic about the Federation and was keen to establish close links between us and the unit welfare and community support staffs; his genuinely positive attitude is one we hope will be mirrored at all the units we visit over the coming months.

The team then returned to the HIVE for some lunch (beautifully presented by the HIVE Manager). We then went to visit an airman’s quarter, to provide a more detailed insight into the condition of some of the Lyneham SFA. This visit was particularly eye-opening and resulted in some high-level correspondence between the Federation, Modern Housing Solutions and Defence Estates Housing staffs once the team got back to base.
After visiting the quarter, the team returned to the HIVE to give a further presentation, this time to the Station Executives and other members of the Community Support staff. Again, the audience was interested in the concept of the Federation, supportive of our efforts to date but challenging in their desire to see real results rather than promises that fail to deliver. The Federation were left in no doubt that the families expect to see progress on a wide range of issues and we left RAF Lyneham all the more convinced of the need for a ‘light blue’ voice to represent the concerns of RAF families to the policy staffs at the very top. We continue to pursue some of the issues raised during that visit and have since had a number of individuals from Lyneham contact the Federation to register issues or seek our support in resolving some outstanding problems.

We would like to send our thanks to everyone at RAF Lyneham who contributed to our first liaison visit and to extend an invitation to any other unit considering a visit by the RAF Families Federation to get in touch – we would love to hear from you. To arrange a visit, simply call Jenny Ward on 01780 781650 or e-mail us via the website Click here

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