Air Squadron Trophy - Time to include the ATC?

Following the National Air Squadron Trophy and to align with ASTRA :wink: is it time for Wing Activities Day / Wing Field Day / Wing Competition Day (WAD / WFD / WCD) and the Region equivalents switch to the Air Squadron Trophy format?

It would appear that based on some of the comments on the Comdts Facebook Post the National ATC Drill Competition is a victim of Covid and isn’t returning, primarily due to the effort levels and I suspect overall activity cost for bussing teams in etc.

I don’t know much about the Air Squadron Trophy, hope some of our CCF Colleagues can enlighten us, but the socials seem to suggest that it’s a very active day for the cadets, while my recent expectances of WAD has been an awful lot of sitting around.

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Air Squadron trophy feels more like the Regional Training Days of old - which were exactly the same as Wing Training days, just with -obviously - far fewer teams.

WTDs wouldn’t be so much standing and waiting if you only had 6 teams to deal with.

The format works, has been in existence for decades. Not reason why it couldn’t work for the ATC.

It is indeed a very busy day!

RAF Sections put forward team a team of 15 for the Regional Air Squadron Trophy events where the top 3 finishers in each RAST move forward to the National Air Squadron Trophy to compete for top honours. It is encouraged that the team compose Cadets from across the classification ranges.

Each team competes collectively in Drill & Uniform, Command Task & RAF Knowledge.

Specialists in each team compete also in Shooting, Air Recognition & First Aid. No one Cadet can compete in more than one specialism.

Prizes are awarded at both levels of the competition for top scoring Cadets, winners of each event category and the top 3 teams overall.

In regards having the ATC compete alongside the CCF(RAF), I would be all for it.

An extra competition stage would make that easily achievable:

CCF/ATC combined qualifiers at wing level, CCF(RAF) sections within the Wings geography compete here too.
Top 3 Teams at each advance to Regional Semi-Finals, Regional Air Squadron Trophy as is
Top 3 Teams Regionally advance to Finals, National Air Squadron Trophy.

The important thing would be that instead of best of best Wing Teams competing regionally, it is the Sqn Teams that advance from Wing level, in line with what happens currently with the CCF(RAF) sections. For me that is essential, what makes the events so fun for the Cadets are the bonds they make training and (hopefully) advancing together.

The trick I imagine be in finding a way to make it balanced for those competing, as the time to train for these events is greatly limited for us Sections, 2 hours a week during term time vs ATC’s 2 parade nights a week 50+ weeks a year. All the standard training still has to happen.

Regards the standing around experienced at Wing Training Days - there is some marking time in the day for those competing at RAST/NAST. But some stands are laid on to keep the Cadets occupied & the remaining time the Cadets use to practice & test each other.

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Getting the excuses in early… smart.
:joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl:

Hey man - if you think your Cadets can take the trophies from my Cadets - bring it on :rofl:

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I wouldn’t include the ATC in the Air Trophy competition as one of the CCFs few special things & it would just be something else being taken off them to make them “more ATC” when we should be making the ATC more like the CCF.

However I would replicate the format for the ATC & use it as the Lees trophy qualification rather than the current format. (Or perhaps get a new trophy - Chaimer Cup anyone?)

The ATC name needs to change from Wing Training/Field Day to the more accurate of Wing Ground Training Competition.

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Maybe I am just too optimistic, but having been an ATC Cadet I don’t see it as special, just something that the ATC don’t have access to when I know I would’ve loved to have competed like this as a Cadet. I wasn’t one of the sporty Cadets, I was a nerdy one & a drill pig - this would have given me an opportunity to shine nationally.

If ATC can have access to ACLC, why not AST? My tuppence anyway - my Cadets would love the chance to have some friendly rivalry with the local Wing in skills they all share.

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It’s not much different to WAD/RAD and there is still a fair amount of sitting around. But as others have said it’s unique to the CCF and not sure you could add in the ATC to it as its already a big event.

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Brave words but appreciated…

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