Willow Bushcraft CIC
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-10)

We, the undersigned, commit to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and support the Armed Forces Community. We recognise the value Serving Personnel, both Regular and Reservists, Veterans and military families contribute to our business and our country.

The Armed Forces Covenant

An enduring covenant between the people of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Government and all those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces of the Crown and their families

The first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. Our Armed Forces fulfil that responsibility on behalf of the Government, sacrificing some civilian freedoms, facing danger and, sometimes, suffering serious injury or death as a result of their duty. Families also play a vital role in supporting the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces. In return, the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the Naval Service, the Army and the Royal Air Force, together with their families. They deserve our respect and support, and fair treatment.

Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services. Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved.

This obligation involves the whole of society: it includes voluntary and charitable bodies, private organisations, and the actions of individuals in supporting the Armed Forces. Recognising those who have performed military duty unites the country and demonstrates the value of their contribution. This has no greater expression than in upholding this Covenant.

Section 1: Principles of the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant

1.1 We Willow Bushcraft CIC will endeavour in our business dealings to uphold the key principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, which are:
- no member of the Armed Forces Community should face disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services compared to any other citizen;
- and in some circumstances that special treatment may be appropriate especially for the injured or bereaved.
Section 2: Demonstrating our commitment

2.1 Willow Bushcraft CIC recognises the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families bring to our business. We will seek to uphold the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, by pledging to the following:
- Armed Forces Friendly
- UK Service Veterans And Leavers
- UK Service Spouses And Partners
- Flexible Leave For Spouses
- UK Reservists
- Discounts
We also pledge the following:

promoting the fact that we are an armed forces-friendly organisation; THE AFC Logo will be added to our Web site, Social media and Documentation, and we will continue to run events and courses aimed at the armed forces community seeking to support the employment of veterans young and old and working with the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), in order to establish a tailored employment pathway for Service Leavers; We are happy to work with CTP in the future as our company grows and we require staff. striving to support the employment of Service spouses and partners; we understand the needs of service spouses and partners because we have lived that scenario ourselves, we fully support them and will continue to do so. endeavouring to offer a degree of flexibility in granting leave for Service spouses and partners before, during and after a partners deployment; We are a family run business that has lived through many deployments and fully support those that support our service men and Women. seeking to support our employees who choose to be members of the Reserve forces, including by accommodating their training and deployment where possible; We will support the reservists with what ever they need where possible with time out for training and deployments, including leave periods post and pre deployment. offering a discount to members of the Armed Forces Community; our Pilot scheme veterans retreat runs this June in the form of a chill out camp we plan to develop this and obtain funding so that it may eventually become free, in the mean time we will keep costs down to a minimum.

2.2 We will publicise these commitments through our literature and/or on our website, setting out how we will seek to honour them and inviting feedback from the Service community and our customers on how we are doing.