Following on from comments in another thread i thought it would be interesting to see the scope of people who use ACC based on age
For “other” this includes Service Instructors, Padres etc
edit: for some reason the order i wrote (Cdt>CI>SNCO>Officer) seems to have got lost in submitting…sorry, maybe an glitch which an admin can sort out?
having been a little over a week since i started this poll, and the way it has fallen off the top of the “recent topics” page i thought i would offer some evaluation of the numbers
70% of respondents wear a uniform (VRT/SNCOs)
57% of respondents are in the 20 - <35 age bracket
49% of respondents are VRTs
21% are SNCOs
19% are CIs
21% are 35 - <50
and only 11% are 50+
(Percentages quote to nearest whole number, and do not take into account the “other” option given there is no breakdown of uniform or age)
i am not surprised that the majority are under 35 when including Cadet votes, and even when looking solely at Staff votes it is still the larger age group
Although interesting to read that the majority of participants are “young” 20-35 yrs (/junior?) officers. I
the numbers as a whole are interesting if only because they do not match what can be seen in the ATC. Certainly in my experience and particularly in our wing there is a shortage of Officers so surprised to find 49% of respondents are VRTs, I certainly don’t know any Squadron that has every other Staff member as an Officer
I have no numbers to directly quote but I am sure I recall seeing CIs make up closer to 40-45% of the ACO Staff team than the 19% which is represented through these votes.
With the adoption of the Sgt (ATC) and FS (ATC) ranks, in our Wing at least, the numbers of SNCOs has vastly increased and would expect more than 1 in every 5 votes to have come from the SNCOs
With all this in mind I suspect the tone of the boards, and topics being discussed, it can be said comes from an Officers point of view, and potentially a CO’s point of view which is arguably a good and bad thing.
Of course being a member and being an active poster are two very different aspects! (see http://aircadetcentral.net/acc/forum/statistics for the top ten posters…which opens up further interesting comparison could be made between those posting and those received “thank yous”)
Disclaimer: of course there is no firm precision based on these figures, votes are anonymous and cannot be checked for accuracy. With such a small sample it is difficult to make any real comparisons with the ACO, although as the “first port of call” on the internet* for many it is interesting to see the breakdown of members.
*ignoring the “you know when you have been an Air Cadet too long when….” route via Facebook
It does make sense that a larger proportion of young officers inhabit the boards though, if you take into account the slice of the ATC population that:
a) Are of the internet & forum generation (and I’d argue that 20-30 year olds are actually more in this bracket than 15-20 year-olds, who are more used to the newer social media platforms)
b) Have a significant interest in the ATC above and beyond what they get up to on duty
c) Value the networks, etc that come with such a site
I’d have guessed pre-survey that most respondents would be 20-25, mostly VR(T) followed by SNCO/WO, followed by CIs (potential uniform candidates in particular).
The only real surprise to me is the VR(T)/SNCO balance, which I thought would be a bit closer than it is (fewer than half the number of SNCO/WO to VR(T)).
The number of ‘Other’ is a little depressing - it would be nice to see a bit more involvement amongst those who, by the nature of their duties, are especially motivated to be involved and interested.
Doesn’t seem too disappointing to me - it’s about 1 in 12, by my estimation.
Quite, I just happen to fall into that category and come with the associated bias!
even 1 in 12 seems a generous number
in our Wing although there is a generous number of SIs on the books, our Sqn alone has 3* i know of only one in the whole Wing who could be considered “active” (he is in fact more active than a fair portion of CFAVs)
In terms of Padre’s i would estimate on average there is one per Squadron so would expect to have ~950+ in the Corps just on a Sqn level, but none of the Parade’s i know and have worked with have any great passion in this organisation enough to sign up to a forum such as ACC.
passion in the Cadets, in helping out, getting stuck in and involved but not to discussion topics of the organisation, debate the rights and wrongs of HQAC (religion perhaps) or maintain a level of currency on the latest changes in policy
unfortunately my involvement with the ACF or SCC is limited to civic (Remembrance) Parades and so cant say i know anyone who is a CFAV but not ATC who has enough interest to get involved in ACC.
as such in my experience am surprised those who are classed as “others” is as high as it is given none of those i know and work with who i consider “others” have given me reason to believe they would be interested enough in ACC’s workings
*two have recently joined and so seen regularly although yet to become useful, the other who has been with us for a 18months or more we havent seen for the past 4 months…
is the number of ‘others’ not likely to contain people who were staff in the ACO but who have left?
thats were i fit in - i’m interested in the ACO, and a great supporter of it given that i believe its the best youth organisation in the country by several country miles - however, the reason i’m no longer a member of staff is the cretinous nature of a significant proportion of the hirachy.
what sealed it for me was listening to a man who sells office supplies for a living and who hadn’t served on a Sqn for 20 years lecture a blade winner on the nature of leadership and then harangue a Police Officer on the specifics of fraud. at this point i decided that however great it was for the cadets, any organisation that promoted such a complete ■■■■ to D-WCo was not one i wanted to spend my limited free time in.
i’d certainly hope that my children will join, but i won’t be recomending it to my friends…