To commemorate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, a team of 12 serving personnel from 50 Headquarters and Support Squadron, 36 Engineer Regiment and the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers (QGE) took part in a community tree plantation programme on Saturday the 12th of March 2022.
This activity took place at the Young Peoples’ Forest associated with the Woodland Trust Foundation in Derbyshire. The aim was to plant as many trees as we could within the allocated time. The allocated time for the team was between 1000hrs – 1200hrs. On our arrival at the plantation site, we were greeted with a warm woollen hat (with a Woodland Trust logo), big smiles and a handshake by Mr Simon our point of contact at the venue. Mr Simon’s father had also served with the Royal Engineers.
Mr Simon allocated us 500 tree saplings and said, “Please return the plants that you couldn’t plant within your allocated time.” It was perhaps, a wrong statement for a group of enthusiastic soldiers. That’s when we as a team decided to set our goal for the day, not to return a single sapling but instead plant all those 500 as quickly as we can and ask for more.
Within those 2hrs we managed to plant the followings:
A total of 636 trees, 136 more than Mr Simon thought we were capable of.
A further two Magnolia trees were planted at Invicta Park Barracks in the presence of the Commandant QGE Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hendry MBE and the Gurkha Major Kamal Bahadur Khapung Limbu MVO on 21st March 2022 making it total of 638 plants for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
By Corporal Deviram Rai, Queen’s Gurkha Engineers
