Astra Clothing Programme

Ties should be banned. It’s not the 18th century anymore and they serve no purpose.

I have a similar opinion on hats that aren’t protective headwear.

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I get where you are coming from, but trying to teach fieldcraft basics such as cam and concealment would ring a little hollow when little Johnny or Jane are trying to blend in to the shrubbery dressed all in blue.

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Yeah a good point, but I think we countered blue ft reasonably 12 months ago:

(and others)

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i think it works best with the Vneck jumper as the collars can sit neatly outside the jumper

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With ref to this post I was most intrigued by the following bit:

  • Uniform – as above, do not stock your sqn stores; please just request what you need (by named cadet) – future options aligned with RAF is an app enabled amazon-style delivery service, but will be by personal allocations. Check sector/local sqns for sizes too (sqns do not own it).

(my bold)

I think it was further back in this thread where we discussed potentially moving over to an amazon-style system. This is the first I’ve heard about it from an official source though!

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Yeah but I don’t want my uniform left with a neighbour who denies having ever seen it, or chuckled in a puddle

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But it is issued to Individual Sqn Inventories…Therefore its Mine All Mine

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That is actually a valid point, if it is issued to Sqn A’s inventory, and they give it to Sqn B and the parent station recalls all stock, who is responsible? It would be Sqn A. It’s not issued to Wings. Maybe it should be.

Buts it’s not issued on Inventory, if you check the units inventory their shouldn’t be any clothing on their. It’s issued to individuals hence why you should t actually have any stock.

I see what you mean. We’ve been asked to account for our stocks on a unit basis in the past though.

Who by though? In all my time I’ve only been asked what stock I have by Wing when there is a shortage and they are trying to work out what they have that could be shared.

Which is very different to doing an Inventory return to parent station.

And they’re hardly likely to recall clothing anyway - they can’t reissue it, it will go in the bin.

I did once have 6 pairs of trousers added to my inventory, but got those removed pretty quickly and easily.

That’s the way it is in our Wing.

There is new and PWS at WHQ. If an order can be fulfilled using that, then it is, and when the order is sent from our parent station it goes back into stock. If WHQ don’t hold it, it’s issued to the cadets when delivered from the parent station.

I’m a massive fan of not having unissued uniform lying around on the unit. We have enough crap pieces of vital equipment to find a home for, let alone a random assortment of blues…

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As a former OC who could (and I quote my former WExO) kit out the Wing, with what I had I my stores, I do agree. Its a surplus of kit and takes up space. 3 racks in our case.

That space could be used for more tents, more sports kit, more fieldcraft kit, more space for range items, more space of the civ comm to store their random crud (actually, ignore the last one)

If it was a quick turn round and we could have it delivered within a week or two of the order going in, it would negate the need to have stock on the squadron.

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We cut ours right back, but tried to keep one of each size to make sizing new recruits easier “try that on, right we will order you one of those”

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We have cut ours right back too, literally just hold a few running spares basically, hopefully enough that an unexpected damage / serious growth spurt can be dealt with.

Inventory wise, a few years our WExO took over all of our inventories, and then had a major write off exercise, net result is we now have very little on inventory which makes life much easier.

This.

Needs to be central supply, direct to cadet. Amazon style. No Sqn involvement.
Parent orders via cadet portal.
Uniform arrives.
Bosch.

Would love to get my stores back for kit not blues.

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I would bin my sqn uniform stores completely, if it wasn’t for it taking 4+ months to get any uniform from the RAF. . .

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Everything to the cadet once ordered.

Prehaps they get say 100 credits when they join, that is enough for x1 of everything they are entitled to.

Each year they have say 10 credits to order what they need/replaced.

My work do a similar thing for our workwear. Basic items are replaced when ordered, or some specialist stuff like steel toecap boots for the engineering staff, and you can buy “extras” like gucci looking fleeces or waterproof jackets.

From a cadet point, I’d probably keep the brassard and associated badges issued at sqn level, as I’ve seen some shocking sowing when left to people’s interpretation of the regs…

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