Colonel of the Regiment Update Feb 2022
Dear Dragoons,
Happy New Year to all in our Regimental family. It continues to be a real honour and pleasure to be your Colonel of the Regiment and President of the Guild and I wanted to take the opportunity to provide you an update. I took over as your Colonel of the Regiment in June of last year at a quieter ceremony than intended due to COVID. Despite COVID challenges I have been fortu-nate to visit the Regiment including C Squadron a number of times. As you are aware our CO and RSM organized an excellent Leliefontein celebration and it was outstanding to gather the Regiment with their families for a parade and a Senior NCO and Officer mess dinner. We sure hope to include the entire Regimental family this coming Leliefontein.
The high tempo of he Regiment continues as outlined in the Commander’s Officer’s recent up-date. In December I visited the Regiment for their Soldier’s Appreciation Dinner and hockey games. Again despite COVID the Regiment gathered by squadron to serve our Dragoons and recognize and thank them for their excellent dedication to the Regiment and our Canadian Armed Forces. For the last couple weeks in January I was up in Petawawa for Exercise UNI-FIED RESOLVE where the Regiment supported our yearly Brigade Computer Assisted Exer-cise. This was also an excellent opportunity for me to spend time with the Regiment.
My focus has also been on leading our Guild and support to our Regimental family. I will report that the Guild is in good shape and supported by an excellent team, we are prioritizing the sup-port to quality of life of our Regimental family. My intent has been to improve our communication to all and we have designed a new website which is more interactive and will assist in communi-cating our efforts. This website dragoons.ca will launch on 23 February and I encourage all to visit the site. With the assistance of Dave Burnie, Corporal Kevin Langille and Jim Follwell this website will inform all in the Regimental family of our Regimental and Guild supported activities, events and upcoming plans. I thank all of you who continue to generously support our Regi-mental family.
The Guild continues to search for opportunities to support the Regimental family. Over the past few months we have supported the new gymnasium in our new Regimental Lines. The gym is an excellent addition to the new building and the Guild recently purchased 35 K worth of weights and exercise equipment. In addition to our Leliefontein bursaries the Guild has supported a number of our Regimental family in need and we are now looking into providing a bursary to our Dragoon cadets. More to follow on this as we determine the best means to support our Cadet Corps.
For upcoming events the Regiment plans on conducting a Leeuwarden celebration on 14 April and the President of the Association Denis Levesque is finalizing a weekend date in June to hold our Dragoon Reunion. The Change of Command is now set for 28 June between Enno Kerckhoff and Nicholas Forsyth. We are also confirming with our Governor General as we hope to present our Guidon in June as well. I would finally like to note that Muggsie has retired and we all thank her for her absolute dedication and support to our fine Regiment over 35 plus years. Muggsie, always a Dragoon, is joining our Guild as our Guild Clerk in the near future!
I truly believe that we are nearing the end of our COVID challenges and I hope to see many of you at your upcoming events. Please reach out at any time and I encourage all to connect with and support all fellow Dragoons.
Bold and Swift
Dean Milner
Colonel of the Regiment, The Royal Canadian Dragoons
Major General (retired) CMM, MSC, CD