Is this for going into uniform or for taking on a specific role?
Hope it goes well and Covid doesn’t limit it again. I do like a good function!
(Jealous as I didn’t get a dining in though )
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I’ve been on more units than almost anyone else I know (all of them > 1 yr), and I’ve never coincided with any of them having a dining in. Am I the unluckiest CFAV ever? 
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Naaa… But I actively choose not to go to them
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Will be my first as a uniformed CFAV and my first with my new squadron.
Possibly 
in my time as a CI many years ago in the 8 years on that sqn I attended 8 dining in night.
I always enjoyed them, but then again I also liked the staff The OC of the time is my eldest childs godfather
I love socialising but I’m super anal about how I’m being perceived and I like a beverage In those events and just don’t want to drink too much juice and make a fool out of myself… Also I’m 31 I shouldn’t need to ask to go for a wee especially with the bladder of a small child
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Why ask just go if you need to go.
Seems to be a tradition at the previous ones I’ve been too
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Yup. Same when I had to do my dinners at the Inn. If we left the table to go to the loo before the second grace then it wouldn’t count as a qualifying session.
??? What’s second grace?
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Yeah just bring back a bottle of Port for the PMC
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And hope you still have a chair/cutlery 
Seriously, we have a break after main course I think and if 12 year olds can make it that long without needing to sprint to a sink…
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When I do a dinner it’s SNCO’s and above only.
But how many of the others actually dip out on the regular?
Obviously no one (sensible and trustworthy) is actually going to stop a cadet (or someone who simply shouldn’t be stopped for whatever reason) from going if they need to go. Not worth the suspension, derision, and cleaning bill.
However, when some rando from another squadron’s committee answers their phone at the table and just walks off…
It’s in the paperwork - “these are the rules, let us know if you need an exception. Details not required”. Like you but slightly different, we hold it as close to a traditional level of formality is practical and fair and for us it’s part of the “taste of the military” experience - as long as they get to Macarena after, we’ve never had a cadet have a problem and most enjoy the brief formality. We get nagged to run the next one!
We ask the cadets to give it their best shot at playing the game, gmg when adults can’t be bothered and fail to set an example.
That said, it all falls to chaos among the staff anyway if you get hold of someone else’s place card, or get to swap a chair out before someone arrives. Formal to a point I guess…
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They did grace before the meal and then again after dessert, before the sherry. It was such an arcane system of qualifying for a profession, though I believe it’s been modernised a bit lately
Ahh. Never been to a wing dinner or any cadet formal dinner. It doesn’t really flor my boat.
Which Inn are you? I don’t recall doing any of that.
Inner Temple, I think some dining sessions were less formal, and you could do some lectures, but I ended up doing all the formal ones
… mornington crescent
snap
ours is just a clique. it is hardly a “wing dinner” the capacity is too small to call it such. i can’t recall what it is, and having never been can’t rely on experience but I am sure someone told me there isn’t much more room than 60-70 persons.
on the basis each unit has a CFAV attend, with a date, that is ~50 persons before you start, had a dozen Wing position persons, plus date and that is already mid 60s…
as such ours has never appealed as there isn’t sufficient interest or space for significant representation from each Squadron, meaning it is the same faces turning up each year…
Why not change venues?