Ignoring the politics of recent posts, refer to my earlier moan about this place…
I hear the same across the board. People saying it’s more of a second job than a hobby. Stop the VA, the commitment will scale back.
It’ll also be harder to convince staff to assist with essential courses for onboarding; AVIP/pre-uniform. As instead of helping on something they’d rather not, the days will be used on courses that people actually want to do.
So in one swoop it could stunt a significant portion of staff motivation, and make staffing essential onboarding courses more difficult than previously.
So we end up with longer pipelines for new staff, and less out-put from current staff.
Reduce VA = Less staff motivation = Less staff = less money to spend on uniforms etc and less pressure on the RAF to support a dwindling organisation…
Past 35 years have been a pleasure, but I, like others, get a lot of flak from Home Cmd when I have to be engaged in RAFAC activities as it is. VA is the only sweetener I have to offer at home to cover the cost of the apology meal etc… take that away and then I’d rather cut down on all activities to prevent a divorce!
The Corps relies on CFAVs keeping the CinC Home Command happy and contented, if that is not happening the pressure to cut down or stop altogether becomes unbearable.
In all fairness, that’s the case for some of us who don’t get VA.
I’ve taken a significant step back. Work and home life are not lending themselves to volunteering with the gusto I used to.
I’ve only just got my DBS back after applying for it in May, I’ve allegedly got loads of mandatory training to do that I’ve missed out on. I’m sinking more DLE hours into cadets than I do for my full time work.
That’s a really valid point I hadn’t considered until this stage; I have to do more mandatory training for my volunteering than I do for my day job, and the day job involves working with vulnerable children and adults!
Plus I get paid for doing the mandatory training at work.
If you havent done so already and your within the time limit, think its 7 days, get registered on the update service. Its free for volunteers guidance should have come with the cert.
Was a bit of battle at first due to lack of understanding with admins higher up the organisation but once it was understood confirmation it is renewed took a couple of mins for admin staff and my VP was updated accordingly.
There are moments… maybe 5% of time when it is good because you as OC have made the ultimate difference or it was nice to be the boss one night or something… but overwhelmingly mostly its a cr#p job.
But if i dont do it. Who will?
I reckon we are onto the last generation of Sqn OCs. The job is so bad now, no one wants to take it on.
That is why we need this dial in to contain some tangible, real world positives (and I don’t mean the absence of a negative, i.e. “not stopping VA days” isn’t actually a positive, it’s the absence of a negative).
We have at the moment somewhere between 5-10 OC vacancies. I cannot see that getting better unless someone takes some drastic action to remove the world of bilge that is being forced on us.
this volunatry hobby is too much like a job, remove our pay and we’ll not volunteer anymore…
perhaps the fact the RAFAC is larger than its parent organisation is the crux? the RAF is spending too much money on its own “hobby project” given the size it has grown to?
I think that’s part of the issue, sure. We have over recent years been saved cuts that the ACF have had (I remember them running out of VA days years ago, and not just once).
The problem is if you’re telling us we’re needing to be more self funding, you also need to relax the restrictions on us. If Clarity/Phoenix hire is too expensive, stop making it harder for us to buy/run SOVs. If too much is being spent, scrap 2FTS and outsource gliding to a provider that can do it at cost for us.
Currently we get barely any aviation due to demand on the units, we get no shooting as we don’t have the L144s, we get no fieldcraft as it’s too hard to do, the building is falling apart due to shoddy workmanship, I have to spend years of my life doing training, I have to be a squadron focal fire point officer or whatever it’s called, I can’t get uniform and end up having to buy it (and anything we do get is shoddy like beret badges and brassards), and I could go on.
You can’t have your cake and eat it, RAF. You either need to loosen regulation of us and give us more free will which will lower your costs, or you need to tighten up but pay for it. A halfway house where you expect and demand compliance with unrealistic standards, but want us to pay for that, is untenable.
This is what I also believe is incoming. Whould fall nicely with the astra vision if increasing CCF units by 30%.
The problem we will have, very quickly and apparently is not enough qualified staff to deliver this level of qualifications. It will all fall down to wing/regional level removing even more from what can be done at sqn level on a parade night.
