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Visit Report RAF Shawbury

RAF Families Federation Receive Warm Welcome from Shawbury

RAF Shawbury gave the RAF Families Federation a warm welcome and an invaluable opportunity to learn of the challenges facing serving personnel and their families when they visited the busy training unit in rural Shropshire.

Jenny Ward and Colin Jones spent a very pleasant evening dining with the Station Commander and OC Support Wing prior to the formal visit. After an informative in-brief the team began their busy programme which included having the opportunity to formally deliver their message in two sessions, to the Station Commander and his Execs and also to the Community Support (CS) staffs. A number of interesting questions were raised after these sessions, which ranged from how the Federation worked alongside the other two Service Family Federations to the mechanism by which evidence passed from RAF personnel and their families through the Federation and directly on to senior RAF staff and Ministers.

Jenny and Colin spent the day with the newly appointed Service Community Support Officer (SCSO), who ensured the packed programme ran smoothly. They were given a tour of the Station, met the HIVE Information Officer, visited the Coffee Shop and had a chance to chat to the Mums & Tots group in the Station Chapel. All this took place before a lively lunch in the Sergeants’ Mess with the SWO, the new Community Development Worker (CDW) and the SCSO. A windscreen tour around the local Service Family Accommodation (SFA) estate and the more remote quarters at Market Drayton gave the team an appreciation of the type of accommodation available to families at Shawbury.

As the Federation is still in its first year, the team was keen to inform personnel of their role, their independence from the RAF and the unrivalled opportunity it gave families to have their concerns heard at senior RAF and Ministerial level. The team was particularly interested to hear about local issues such as: concerns about the Defence Estates (DE) allocations policy; how the CS staff were striving to provide effective welfare support, especially to families while the serving members are away on detachment; concerns about speaking to those outside the chain of command on issues connected to RAF service and ways of increasing local community support for Station activities and facilities such as the Mums and Tots Group. The team noted these issues as part of their evidence-gathering work, but also encouraged individuals to formally record their personal concerns by completing a confidential Issue Report Form on the Federation website at www.raf-ff.org.uk

The RAF Families Federation would like to thank the Station Commander and his team for arranging such a worthwhile and informative visit and look forward to returning to the Station in the future.

If we missed you during our visit, or you have an issue that you think we should know about, please let us know via the website Click here or call us on (01780) 781650.

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