Jean Donoghue

I hold all 3 awards and was presented with my Gold at St Jame,s Palace in 1988.
My Bronze expedition I was not confident at map reading so I kept my head down and followed the rest of the team. .For my silver trainer we went to Windermere and we was on top of a mountain and I realised the shape of the forest was exactly the same shape as on the map , I was amazed and at that point map reading clicked . For my Gold residential I sailed the seas in the hurricane of 1987 on the STA Sir Winston Churchill,. The ship would go under the water rise up again and splash down , I thought that was normal life at sea until I came home to Englnd and saw all the trees and fences down .On the entire ship there was three girls that were cadets that was me an Air Cadet a Sea Cadet and a Army Cadet none of us was sea sick. When I collected my Gold at the Palace The Duke of Edingburgh spoke to me and I told him about my residential experience, he said to me that I should join the Royal Navy
For my Gold expedition I went to Dartmoor we encountered all weather's rain, snow, fog, crosswinds sunshine you name it we had it . On the final leg we was appoaching the finish point and the clock face on the church was shining Gold with the Sun that was a fantastic sight It gave you goosebumps, we had completed our Gold expedition .
I'm now a sergeant in the Royal Air Force Air Cadets and have been running DofE at my squadron with my husband for nearly five years we have helped Cadets pass their Bronze ,Silver and Gold awards ,We achieved our first four Golds in 2019 one being my son and we was supposed to go to the Palace on 11th May 2020 but due to covid it was cancelled .
We have been continuing with the award scheme during lockdown and have just signed up three more cadets to start their Gold award .
The DofE is fantastic scheme I'm very proud to be appart of it .
Our our squadron took part in the Diamond DofE challenge 2016 and pulled a Tornado Aircraft down the runway at RAF M
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