Lord Mayor expresses thanks to 1710 NAS

Their visit was organised to express their thanks to the squadron for adopting ‘Help 4 Special Children’ as the Unit’s chosen charity, of which Keith Shaw is the CEO.

The Lord Mayor, who has also adopted the specialist children’s charity as one of his for the year, thanked the members of the Tri-service engineering repair and enhancing organisation who came along to a briefing.

Keith Shaw said: ‘The support from 1710 NAS recognises what we do as a charity for Portsmouth children. I was very impressed with what the squadron does, and marvellous to see where they work.

‘More importantly however, it was good to chat with them and incredible to see everyone who turned up to listen to my talk. People have already come up and offered ways that they can help.’

1710 NAS are a busy naval-led unit, made up of both military engineers and civil servant scientific specialists with the ability to repair helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as carry out research and monitoring that provide engineering solutions to the armed forces.

Lieutenant Paul Matthams, 1st Lieutenant of 1710 NAS, added: ‘I think sailors are a pretty generous lot as a whole. The charity’s work contributes directly to the Portsmouth community which we are part of. The squadron is unique and we believe we can help in more ways than others can.

‘The engineering nature of our work and resourcefulness of everyone here adds much more than just raising funds and a pool of manpower. Where possible, and dependant on what’s required, we can offer some technical support as well.

‘We certainly have the facilities and the capability; it’s a matter of matching the two together.’