A unique social value project has seen success in the Ministry of Defence’s annual Sanctuary Awards.

The Armed Forces Equine Charity’s HorsePower Project based at Tedworth Park has won the Social Value award accolade for projects focused on the social aspects of sustainability, including heritage, public access, community engagement and education.  

The Charity, which supports veterans with complex mental health challenges, delivers a mix of clinical and non-clinical interventions that are tailored to the individuals needs and helps them better manage their own emotional state.  

The journey starts with a referral from NHS Op Courage teams. The veterans then attend an initial weeklong residential course and then facilitated equine assisted interventions are delivered by teams from HorseBack UK.  

Commenting on the award a spokesman for the charity said, “It is really great for the team to achieved so much, great credit to all of them and the charity is going from strength to strength.”

CHANGE OF COMMAND

Last week command of 1st Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, was handed from Lieutenant Colonel Dean Canham to Lieutenant Colonel Grant Brown.

Lieutenant Colonel Canham moves on to head the Centre for Army Leadership.

VETERANS DIG AT BOWLES BARROW

In Moby Dick, Melville proclaimed Salisbury Plain to be one of the bleakest places on the planet. It was recently as veterans from Operation Nightingale began excavating Bowles Barrow near Warminster.

 Finds have included a flint blade, Roman pot rims, a Roman coin, lots of worked flints, including tools, and the main exciting find was chalk blocks from the original barrow mound and, toward the end, a layer of burnt sarsen and flint probably at the base of this mound.

HELP FOR TRUSSEL TRUST

Despite a busy workload, soldiers from Tidworth based 4 Armoured Medical Regiment of their own volition, planning and executing community engagement serials, lending support to the Trussell Foundation and the Andover Food Banks.

BATTLEFIELD TOUR FOR GUNNERS

Members of 26 Regiment RA visited Southwick House last week ahead of the Regimental Battlefield Study to Normandy.

Southwick House was where Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, was planned.