Yep so what happens is all the annoyed 
parents go to the AGM, say they want to join the CWC, in the meantime as per what I said, get some people willing to stand as execs and then vote them in and lose the others. You don’t need to see these parents after this, but I would expect from some the comments, they would only be too willing to form a new CWC.
I would invite the Wing Chaiman down to ‘chair’ the meeting.
and who determines whether the Salmon Trust has failed to meet its objectives?
i somehow doubt its by 'phone poll, rather that its the decision of - wait for it - the bloke who-certainly-did-not-steal-£80,000-from-the-Sqn-fund m’Lud. amazingly, he may well have differing veiws on the success of the Salmon Trust to everyone else in the world, and until he is forced (by a man in a red gown and white wig with a dungeon at his disposal…) to give up the money, he won’t.
disband the Sqn, new number. worry about the money later - because there’s a Sqn full of kids who are getting diddly-squat out of the ATC this summer.
Somehow they re-elect themselves and all is hushed up! It has been a closed civ comm for at least 15 years! The new sub comm are starting to pick the mess apart and it is not good.
Any new cadets are not even informed a civ comm. They are fully aware that they need to resign and can carry on their crusade in the background. They’re trying to Arrange an EGM and will be called in 6 weeks and they will only release 3 seats to the public to join the Trustees civ comm! By then a letter should have arrived to the parents of cadets, telling them how the sub comm are trying very hard to get the suspension lifted ASAP will NO HELP from civ comm, they don’t care. The civ comm just lie to parents and other local influential people, they’re telling people rubbish, blaming RAF all the way.
Thank you for the interesting view regarding the Salmon trust, I will try and pass this on to someone to look into, I am sure somebody will help me.
This should be sorted for the Cadets, why don’t people get this? These young, influential, great kids are suffering, these kids are our future, what is this teaching them? A disgrace to society. :mad:
I would be wary of identifying individuals (especially these litigious ones) on a forum and suggest things like bullying or other accusations without concrete proof, as you potentially leave yourselves open to libel/slander (cue someone legal to correct me!).
Sounds good, may need that info because civ comm say their solicitor has told them legally they can’t resign. Strangely they have never produced a letter which has been requested for 2 months now!!! Yet again civ comm letting EVERYONE down.
[quote=“fabulousdarling74” post=8814]Somehow they re-elect themselves and all is hushed up! It has been a closed civ comm for at least 15 years! The new sub comm are starting to pick the mess apart and it is not good.
Any new cadets are not even informed a civ comm. They are fully aware that they need to resign and can carry on their crusade in the background. They’re trying to Arrange an EGM and will be called in 6 weeks and they will only release 3 seats to the public to join the Trustees civ comm! By then a letter should have arrived to the parents of cadets, telling them how the sub comm are trying very hard to get the suspension lifted ASAP will NO HELP from civ comm, they don’t care. The civ comm just lie to parents and other local influential people, they’re telling people rubbish, blaming RAF all the way.
Thank you for the interesting view regarding the Salmon trust, I will try and pass this on to someone to look into, I am sure somebody will help me.
This should be sorted for the Cadets, why don’t people get this? These young, influential, great kids are suffering, these kids are our future, what is this teaching them? A disgrace to society. :mad:[/quote]
Can they limit the number of eligible people that can join?
Evidently yes
I thought the issue was that ALL the parents were on the Civ Comm, hence there is no talk of re-electing execs as the parents that elected them are all still there themselves.
I often think of how things could work in the favour of the ATC on national levels. Many RBL clubs dont have a strong membership base anymore, so simply sign up all your cadets as members, go to the AGM, have one or two staff elected to the committee and pass a resolution that from then on, room hire for events will be free for cadets. The majority of small committees would be unable to stop something like that happening.
I was very pleased today, I received a letter from the new Sub com explaining who they are, what has happened todate and the fact Civ comm declined the offer to meet Air Commodore Dawn McCafferty, Geoff Hewett and Graham Deere. Finally the real truth about Civ comm is coming out!
They have said that if anyone has any questions, you need to email admin@thurstonaircadets.org
If you would like to support the new Sub comm, email is shown above.
What do we think about openly naming individuals on here? I’ve removed it pending consideration by the moderator team.
Is it worth removing the email address too to stop them being spammed?
We do state that putting personal information is not recommended, I think we should concatentate the names at least (Geoff H* etc).
as for the email address, it’s not fair to have it as plain text as the bots will collect and spam, we’re open after all.
maybe replace with something like 'contact the admin at thurston air cadets)??
just my thoughts
DJ
Why would they need to answer anyone’s questions? This should be an issue which has a line drawn under it. If anyone has any questions, they should be emailing oc.(thurston) and not some bod behind a website… (present company excepted
i think CivCom should resign now, in a dignified way, before the press get wind of what is going on, and expose them…
Yes they can!
[quote=“MattB” post=7410][quote=“wdimagineer2b” post=7392]The only fundraising in the past 4 or 5 years has been thanks to one officer filling grant applications, and from donations from local organizations such Round Table, Rotary, &c.[/quote]Now that I have to say is the sort of thing that really grips my poo.
I wouldn’t actually mind having a civ com that were very protective of the unit funds if they were the ones who actually went out and earned the cash. But when it’s the unit staff doing all of the admin donkey work and the cadets on the ground, whilst the civ com raise nothing and just tell us that we can’t spend the unit’s funds…[/quote]
My sqn had a similar experience to this some years back but we managed to turn things around, now we have a committee that know where they stand, they help raise funds for the sqn while we the staff decide what to spend it on. We did have a hickup a while back where the committee thought that they could make decisions on the running of the sqn, but it was quickly stamped out by the CO and senior staff, we basically shoved the ACP 10 and 11 under their noses and told them to read it, suffice to say it sorted the problem out.
the issues have been resolved and 863 (Thurston) has been re-open for over a month now with a new committee 
Did they get their money back?
This is one hell of a topic.
I am a CivCom member, from a Squadron in another Region and have spent the last few months trying to work out exactly what responsibilities lay upon myself and my colleagues as a standard member. During this phase of research, I’ve stumbled across the plight and events of this Squadron and in turn this epic forum trail.
I have my own private concerns in relation to our own small Squadron, and the conduct of of the leading officer. However, by comparison to what I’ve read here, they are pretty small-fry. What has become clear to me though, from everything I’ve read, is a clear divide between military (are ACO staff actually military personnel or are they civil servants?) and civilians that are involved in a squadron any capacity. From reading this thread alone, there’s a very wide margin of thought processes and information sharing / knowledge between the two camps.
The worst and most obvious thing from my perspective, is the epicly awful downstream of information from the RAF/ACO in terms of making a random new CivCom member aware of their responsibilities, liabilities and functions. I hear all too often, from the leading officer in our squadron using phrases like:
“It’s our train set, and we’ll decide who plays with it, and how it’s played with”
and
“The CivCom is merely here to raise funds for the Squadron and nothing else”
If I take the latter as an example, and I’ve also read here on this thread alone very similar views from what appear to be current or former Air Cadet staff contributors, and then make reference to ACP11 (4-2) - (The Role and Responsibilities of a Squadron Committee), it gives virtually a whole page (clauses a-m) list of “specific ways in which a squadron committee can and indeed should help its own squadron are” (I won’t bother to c&p the whole list!)
The point of which illustrates for me, as a non-former-military standard member of the public, that the ACO themselves expects CivCom’s not to just “raise cash” but to actually be quite involved in the life of the squadron to which they are linked, which includes (but not limited to) assisting to recruit the CO for the squadron when required! Therefore, within our own small squadron, there’s clearly the view from the leading officer that “we’re here to raise cash and not interfere with the running of the squadron”, which is juxtaposed against ACP11.
I should stress, that our CivCom are all very busy people, and in actual fact have no desire to “poke their nose in” to how and what the leading officer does and how he leads the squadron activities, and all our trust is placed in him to do an effective job - the point I’m making is with the dismissive attitude towards the CivCom in our own local example. This seems to closely match the attitude/s that I’ve read from a number of contributors here on this forum thread, many of whom are very anti-CivCom’s, or at least that’s how I perceive their attitudes from their posts.
We’ve become aware of a new ACP10 document having just been released, and the purpose of my enquiries is to establish what this actually means to us, as there is no professional summary, as one would expect from any major organisation, to summarise in plain language:
What this means for the Chairman
What this means for the Treasurer
What this means for the CivCom members
What’s changed from the last published doc, and why this has occured etc etc
and I’ve been berated by other members of the CivCom for even asking these question/s! For me, this is just good sense as no-one should be taking on any role, be it paid or voluntary, without being made aware of the roles/responsibilities and crucially liabilities that may result.
I’ve been so astounded with what I’ve read, I took the trouble to research, track down and contact Doug Levey from the 863 squadron. We had a long chat, and he comes across as a reasonable chap that appears to know his stuff. He presents a very believable version of events and makes some very, very serious allegations (I don’t think I can share them as I obviously don’t want to put myself in a position of making a false claim or statement as I cannot substantiate them) - however, the most crucial apparent fact/claim, is that the conduct of the ACO is being investigated by both the Economic Crimes Unit, upon referral by the Serious Fraud Office, as well as a secondary and parallel investigation by the Military Police.
Don’t shoot the messenger! I cannot evidence this, which is why I’ve stated it as “apparently”. However, if it is true, it would appear to demonstrate that the CivCom of 863 Sqdn have been operating correctly and within the law. Of course, no-one can determine this one way or another, until the civil Police and/or Military Police either decide to bring some sort of charge/s or choose to take no further action as applicable - evidently, only time will tell on this. However, if and assuming that the claim that these two Police forces are presently investigating the ACO (inc. the Air Commodore), then this in itself is somewhat telling about the situation that has occurred here.
So, why have I mentioned this?
I find myself more confused than ever as a bog-standard CivCom member. I have been informed that I am a Trustee of a charity (wihout ever being aware of it previously), where I am apparently fully, legally and personally financially liable (along with all of the other members of the CivCom) for all of the assets of and money held by the CivCom for the beneficiaries of the charity (the cadets) under Charity Law. This alone causes me considerable concern. If it is true and accurate, why have I not been informed of this by the ACO so that I can make an effective decision as to whether this is something I would want to expose myself to? The ACP’s (both old and new) do not clarify this for me either way.
The only way I can see this being put to bed once and for all, is for the lawyers to put out a national document of clarification, to explain exactly where:
1 - Squadron’s stand in law
2 - CivCom’s and their members stand in law
3 - The legal position and responsibilities of both
4 - The liabilities of either/both
I don’t suppose such a document, that would actually be really helpful, will ever appear though, so we appear to be doomed to continue to fumble about in the dark, unless we wanted to take independent legal advice (who wants to do that, just to help out an organisation on a voluntary basis?!). I, for one, would greatly welcome it to help to add clarity to a very confused situation.
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Squadron committees are no longer part of the process of choosing and appointing OCs. WRT the rest, not getting involved.
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My commissioning scroll seems to think so.
NCOs are not technically military.
CIs are not.
None of us are “civil service” apart from Wing/Region/Corps permanent staff.
Its Officer Commanding, or Squadron Commander.