We were discussing this on our coach back from NASC y’day - it’s crucial that the support / logistics / resources / whatever includes ways to expand / enhance the existing opportunities on offer (& the staff quals to run them if needed). Otherwise, pointless (political) exercise.
Major jewels such as QAIC & JL seem to have had very little news spread around recently, wonder if they have bit the dust for good? If so, there’s a few more pennies in the pot.
I did look into this a while back. You need 2 sets of staff to operate as two flights, but you also need a management team who can oversee both. Maybe OC and Adj. The OC can’t do it on their own.
Then you need to decide which night(s) the senior leaders do. One per each flight? Do you have 2 OC’s parades or have them every other month? How do the trg officers coordinate resources across flights?
It’s all possible and there could well be advantages especially for units that have dedicated accommodation that isn’t fully used.
For those of us who share the pressure could be in the opposite direction, would we need to relinquish some of our slots in favour of a 30% larger ACF?
I keep considering responding positively to requests for a Friday night flight, as we’re hitting our limit too.
It would require staff to run, yes, but in the scheme of the unit, would be an easy way to provide a second offering (even though they’d only get half the training nights, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing).
It’d be so much easier than a new standalone unit and most of the planning would just be pinched from the main squadron.
From the last Cadet Expansion Programme!
*Phase 3 (2020 to2024) *
Damn, that sounds like training that’s actually useful.
It’s a good idea, so won’t happen here
As I understand it the SCC has, and some Police Cadet units had, junior sections. This allows younger cadets to parade separately, sometimes on their own night, sometimes before the main unit. @Baldrick mivht be able confirm re SCC.
Pluses include allowing staff to volunteer to help with the slightly younger age group, a more tailored programme and shorter meetings.
I’d not advocate starting at a younger age, or if we did only lowering to 12 rather than 12 and year 8. But it would overcome some of the issues we have with aged 12 recruits being a bit young for the main programme, and unable to do certain activities.
I’d prefer not having 12 year old at and 13 being the minimum age again. The maturity difference is significant and it’s more difficult to keep them engaged until they’re ready for more off Sqn activities.
I completely agree.
SCC have juniors that start at 9 & are a bit like sea scouts in nature of activities.
Some police forces have mini police which is like a weird police version of sea cadet juniors based in a primary school like a CCF
https://vpc.police.uk/be-a-cadet/mini-police-8-11-years-old
It’s the school year link aspect but it can be quite tiring for some of the youngsters doing two nights a week & not getting home til 10pm.
I can’t see it reverting although if you have a waiting list you could do this to aid priority.
I don’t think they would revert but it’s worth running the numbers.
Say a squadron of 45 has 15 aged 12-13 (not unreasonable, that could be one intake).
Separate them out and it gives capacity for say 30 juniors, being conservative with ratios, and frees up 15 regular cadet places in the main Squadron. So a 66% increase in capacity with potentially no extra premises costs.
Plus it sorts out the more tailored training and avoiding the late nights mentioned above.
ETA you’d not get to 66% in day one as it’ll take time for the juniors to become seniors, unless you have older ones on the waiting list.
Funnily enough, we have a waiting list and no 12 year olds 
My thought on this is that it’s all well and good, but unless the CFAV offer is improved to address retention, the idea of growing the Cadet base is moot.
with both of these in mind…
why do we (ATC) run parade nights twice a week versus our ACF cousins who only do one?
i suspect the answer will be linked to the improved ACF weekend training offer where detachments come together much more on the weekends than in the ATC
but can we not achieve an “increased capacity” by running a once a week and streaming those evenings as different flights?
most will argue that we cannot achieve everything in just one evening a week - to which the obvious reaction is “why do we do as much as a we do?”
ie if we reduce the expectations on what we deliver, we can reduce the time required to achieve it and thus drop to one night a week
then a second flight can operate on the second night.
the building is still utilised as much and CFAV can pick an evening potentially to attend, rather than commit to both and would double capacity instantly
i am not “for” the idea enough to argue the case or push for it, but certainly not against it - everyone outside of the ATC world (friends, work colleagues etc) are always surprised it is a twice a week commitment where all other youth groups be it sports related (football club etc) or Scouts, or whatever are one evening a week.
I have long believed that we do 2 nights a week because we do; maybe during WW2, it was necessary to get through what was needed as essentially pre-basic training. I have seen it causing the programme to be fatted out with things that don’t necessarily add to the experience on too many occaisions, both weeks day and weekend.
My ACF colleagues do twice per week too.
But your point is a fair one.
And arguably, we could then actually run a “squadron” which is made up of multiple flights in a similar way to how my childhood cubs effectively had a Monday and a Wednesday troop.
We could possibly use cadet SNCOs to then help run an extra night as a squadron-wide appointment.
That said, the discussion around what we cut would be a tough one. 50% is a lot, although then we could focus certain areas of provision on a weekend per month or something like the reserves do.
Perhaps worth it’s own thread, as I think it would make for an interesting discussion and potentially identify areas of bloat.
Two evenings twice a week = easier to fit in with home / work life (& she / he who must be obeyed!). Weekend trg cuts into family time much more. However, for some activities, a whole day would be more beneficial.
So I believe it’s staffing - our local ACFs all use to do two nights a week but stopped as they couldnt get the staff to volunteer.
They do have an option of doing a second night & use it sometimes for specialist training but it’s an exception.
This is where I thing we have over complicated & the PTS is killing us.
A Sqn parading twice a week normally have bout 1hr / 1:15 of training a night so 2:30 hours a week 10 hours a month so 120 hrs a year on 48week year.
CCFs have about a quarter of that time if they are lucky.
A good rule of thumb is that 50% of our time should be HQ syllabus, 50% locally develop so the total time for complete blue & bronze syllabuses (inc classifications) should not require more than 60 hours of training for each level.
This is not the case or it certain seems like it.
Out of curiosity anyone worked out how many hours it would take for a cadet to get all their blue badges and all the bronze.
Yes if someone can split it?
