Latest news from the Royal Dragoon Guards Regimental Association.
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Latest news from the Royal Dragoon Guards Regimental Association.
If you have a news story you would like to share, please get in touch
with us.
Fri, 18th Dec, 2020
Major General T D Hyams OBE
Home Headquarters
The Royal Dragoon Guards 3 Tower Street
YORK
YO19SB
info@rdgassociation.co.uk www.rdgmuseum.org.uk
Colonel of the Regiment The Royal Dragoon Guards
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The next few years see an exciting and rewarding period for the Regiment, as it establishes itself in Warminster, conducts operational deployments in Eastern Europe, and converts to AJAX and the Strike role.
Whilst the detailed planning for this lies with the Commanding Officer, the Regimental Council has been setting in place the wider context within which that work can be taken forward. This has included agreement of a Regimental Vision, which is that the Royal Dragoon Guards should be:
To give substance to this vision, we have produced a Regimental Engagement Plan. Critically, this includes a focus on enduring and appropriate engagement with our veterans and with the
Regimental Home Area of Yorkshire and Ireland.
As part of this, we have looked afresh at the Regimental Association. In so doing, we have agreed the aims of the Association -comradeship, the promotion of esprit de corps and the provision of support to those veterans who may be suffering physical, mental or financial hardship -remain as valid now and into the future as they always have been.
But we have concluded there is a need to bring delivery of those aims to life; and in so doing to bring closer together the serving Regiment and the Regimental Association such as to give substance to the understanding that each one of us is a Royal Dragoon Guard for life.
As a result, the Council has agreed the Regimental Association will henceforth be referred to as V Squadron; a Squadron within the Regiment is just the same way as A, B, C, D and Prince of Wales's, and as E Squadron, in which those at ERE serve.
To add to the sense of Squadron identity, and as with the sabre squadrons at Regimental Duty, V Squadron will carry an affiliation to one of our antecedent regiments. In this case, the 22nd Dragoons; formed during World War Two from cadres drawn from The 4thllth Royal Dragoon Guards and the 5th Royal lnniskilling Dragoon Guards, and named 22nd Dragoons because 22 is the sum of 4, 5, 6 and 7 -the four original regiments from which the current Regiment is descended.
Within V Squadron, for whom the Chairman of the Association will be Squadron Leader, will be a series of regional troops, each with a Troop Leader and Troop Sergeant; not necessarily former officers or senior NCOs, but rather those veterans who are placed best to draw together activity and support in that local area. The latter point is critical: one of the less formal but essential purposes of the Squadron is to provide the network of support; to be there for each other.
Alongside this, we will create a single forecast of events, which will be maintained jointly by Home Headquarters and Regimental Headquarters. For V Squadron, the existing pattern of events such as Oates Sunday in York, Cavalry Memorial Parade, Blackpool Weekend, the Yorkshire pub-walks and the Balaclava Dinner in Ireland will be supplemented by a Squadron weekend with the Regiment in Warminster each year. And the programme will be informed by proposals from the various regional troops, such we are able to respond to the evolving requirements at a local and Squadron level.
A further update will follow in the New Year, with details of regional troops and a full programme of events. In the meantime, might I take this opportunity to wish you and your families a very happy Christmas and New Year.
Your Sincereley
Major General T D Hyams OBE
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