Congratulations to Layla Vesela (Year 13) on receiving her St John Grand Prior Award, the highest award a New Zealand St John Youth Cadet can achieve.

The award was presented in Wellington at Government House in July by Chancellor John Whitehead and followed by morning tea with the Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro. 

To be eligible, cadets must complete a range of subjects from a set curriculum along with at least 100 hours of voluntary service, and it usually takes four to six years for a cadet to qualify for the award.

Layla has been a hard working and a dedicated member of the St John Youth Cadet programme for 7 years. These cadets meet weekly all year round, learning and working towards certain badges which takes them a term each to complete. 

There are 3 levels of cadets, starting at Green level, then Blue and the final level is Gold. They must work their way through these levels earning the different badges, of which there are 29 badge topics to cover. Topics include Drill, First Aid, Community Awareness, Civil Defence, Fire Safety and Water Safety. Some of these are very difficult to obtain and take a huge amount of dedication. Gold level cadets often have to attend an out of region camp to obtain this level. 

Once the cadet reaches Gold level, which Layla reached in 2019, they have the opportunity to start working towards the highest achievable award in the programme, which is called the Grand Prior Award. To obtain this, the cadet must achieve 12 Gold level badges, 6 of these on compulsory topics, on top of this the cadet must complete 100 hours of community service, by volunteering their time for a community cause, and doing volunteering for their organisation. Layla has been working hard to achieve this since 2019 until it was finally all signed off and achieved in February of this year. 

Layla has also represented Marlborough in the St John Colour Party (which is a very formal drill formation) and won 2 years in a row for our district.