Airborne Systems’ Queens Award Party

Thursday 3^rd September 2015, just an ordinary morning at Airborne Systems with employees busy making parachutes and other safety & survival equipment. Unknown to them, hard at work behind the scenes, preparations were well underway for a day of madness, mayhem and celebrations. Just the month before Chris Rowe, President and Ken Waylett, EW Engineering Manager, had visited Buckingham Palace and had accepted from HM the Queen, the Queens Award for Enterprise: International Trade award.

Now it was time for everyone to join in with the celebrations!

1pm saw the arrival of the Lord Lieutenant General of Mid Glamorgan Mrs Thomas, Vice Lord Lieutenant Mr Roy Noble, their Secretary Mary Squires and Huw Irranca-Davies MP. All employees were called on to the shop floor where the presentation of the official Queens Award certificate from David Cameron was presented to Chris Rowe, President, by the Lord Lieutenant, followed by the presentation of the Queen’s award bowl which was held up high in triumph by Chris, thanking everyone for their contribution to this award and announcing that the company had also just been notified that it had been awarded with the Investors in People Gold Award! A double celebration! A big cheer went up through the factory!

Employees then made their way outside into the “tunnel” where the madness and mayhem began…

The aroma of a delicious hog roast greeted everyone as they took in the sight that the tunnel had been transformed into a traditional street party, with bunting blowing in the wind, a dazzling mix of red, white and blue everywhere and tables adorned with goodies. The chocolate fountain flowed, the sweetie table and desserts enticed and the band, Little Giants, played some good, old British hits.

Then the fun began! Everyone was split into red, white and blue teams, captained by the Sales & Marketing Director; the Finance Director and the President. The games planned had been kept top secret but now was the time to unveil the surprises. First the rules: points would be awarded to the winning team for each event and extra points were up for grabs for the most innovative ways of scoring points. The winning team would be allowed to go home as soon as the event had finished; the losing teams would have to clear up before they cleared off and best of all, the two losing team captains would be placed in the stocks and the winning team would get to throw wet sponges at them. The Team Captains did not want to lose!

First event was limbo from your traditional bend your knees and lean back or duck limbo, to using straps and even the conga was seen! The second event was blind folded hobby horse racing which was met with roars of support and laughter from the teams, followed by dizzy football. The next event saw volunteers running down the grass adorning clown shoes, tutus, feather boas, the Queens mask and lastly her crown. Finally, the end game was a sight to behold with the Finance Director and President head to head, inflatable sumo wrestling much to the amusement of all!

So who won or more to the point who lost? To the delight of the crowds that were gathered to hear to results, the President and Director of Sales and Marketing were led to the stocks and ambushed by soaking wet sponges, ending with buckets of cold water being poured over them!

Rumour has it that a special appearance by HM Queen also took place, albeit a life size cardboard cutout, which was last seen occupying the Reception desk at Airborne Systems…