I've been in the Royal Marines Cadets for three years. I joined because my sister’s boyfriend was a cadet and I liked the sound of what they got to do. I have made it to Corporal, which is the second rate from top. I love the quality of friends I’ve made there – better than the friends from anywhere else. We have over 20 Royal Marines Cadets in the detachment and I am the most senior.

Our detachment is really good at Drill – we won the National Drill competition two years in a row and got a trophy. It’s basically similar to Sea Cadets Drill but with different moves. Another highlight was being chosen to compete in the Gibraltar Cup. Only six units out of 124 compete, and only eight cadets from each of those units, so I guess that puts me in the top 48 RMCs in the country.

My hero is our Commanding Officer, Lt Wagstaff. She is supportive and encourages us to be independent and have more confidence. She’s had a great effect on my life. She talks to us as individuals and listens.

This is my first Gibraltar Cup, and the first time my unit made it through to the competition since about the 1970s! I’m nervous but I feel fairly well prepared. We’ve been working on our fitness since we were selected to compete. My biggest worry is not doing the right things at the right time when the time comes. I’m not sure what our weaknesses are yet or how we compare to the other teams, but we've done lots of training. We go off most weekends to training camps, spending one night out bivouacking.

My strengths are connecting with the people I work around. As a unit we’re good at drill, navigation and all the things you need to be good at to get through to Gibraltar Cup! We work really well as a team and have a good bond from training together.

I don’t really know what it's going to be like as we haven't been before, but I’ve heard lots about it and hope we are well prepared.

I’ve been a Royal Marines Cadet for two years and was a Sea Cadet for a year before that. Our unit is down by the beach and when we walked past I used to see the sort of things cadets got up to. I liked the look of it, so I joined. I play football and am quite sporty so I was looking for something physical. I hope to go on to join the Navy as a weapons engineer.

Our detachment, Eastbourne, won the Gibraltar Cup for the past two years and we’re back again this year. Four or five of us did the Cup in 2012 so we will be helping the first-timers as much as we can.

We train most Saturdays down at the unit, focussing on a particular skill set each time, such as fieldcraft. We also do weekends away to Crowborough and Longmore, where we sleep out in the field and practice their assault courses. Our training is really tough, but it’s meant to be. We trained really hard last year and went into the Cup expecting it to be even worse. Our training had made it seem much harder than it actually was, so that felt really good.

Training can be tedious, though. Kit inspections mean you have to be really thorough; they check all our waterproofs, make sure all the right kit has been packed and that we’ve kept it clean and in good order. We have to pack warms: thermals and fleeces, and of course the sleeping bags and bivvies. That’s put in transit for us during the competition, though, so all we have to carry all day is webbing and a day sack with our waterproofs. The webbing holds water bottle, mess tins and equipment.

Winning the Gibraltar Cup is definitely the highlight of my cadet career so far. It felt amazing. Having won the previous two competitions, we are feeling pretty confident. We’ve had all the training necessary so we just have to remember to work as a team. Some of us were there last year, but the previous year (2011) was a totally different team from the detachment, and we still won.

We’ve also been down to National Drill twice, winning silver and bronze. In fact we went straight down to that after winning the Gibraltar Cup, so we didn’t have much time to celebrate!

I joined Royal Marines Cadets three years ago because I was looking for something to do in the evenings to get me out of the house and it ticked all the boxes.

My biggest achievement so far was being nominated Lord Lieutenant Cadet for Tyne & Wear, when the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh came up on a Royal visit. We hosted them as they toured a local museum and I was assigned to look after the Duke of Edinburgh – I basically walked around with him in case he needed an umbrella or anything else. I think I was chosen because they could see I was dedicated; I always turn up and I’ve never shied away from anything.

This is my second Gibraltar Cup competition. Last year we came last – one of our cadets broke his leg the day before, so we were a man down and lost points due to that. The travel arrangements were also a nightmare: we’d had to leave at midnight the day before as it's all day on the road. Nobody had had any sleep when we went straight into the competition. This year we’re breaking the journey with an overnight stop.

Fitness also let us down last year. We’ve been working on that for six months – some of us are doing karate and martial arts two or three nights a week. We’ve also been working on navigation and patrol, which let us down last time, but we're more confident now. We’re a year older and keen to get it right this time.

I don't want to come last again, but otherwise I’m really looking forward to it. I loved it last year, even though we were disappointed at the outcome.

My strength is being a good team leader. I get on well with all the cadets; it’s a bad scene if they question you so it’s important they like you. They give the leaders a set of orders when you get there, so it’s my job to think about that and plan the task for the whole team. It’s vital that they’re all on board.