This post, and the same one on Facebook, appear to have been removed…
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Anyone?
Do you reckon she has to give her uniform back or can she keep it & roll it out for events?
Free entry to Goodwood Revival?
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Dunno, I remember when she was appointed someone put an FOI in asking who paid for it and how much it had cost 
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Let her keep it in the dressing up box. Same with No5 HSD. I’d marry her !
I’d switch teams.
McGround more like !!
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Ok so she’s stood down/retired/resigned/been pushed…to be honest i don’t think there was much choice given the political stance she appears to have taken.
What we need now (if there’s going to be another) is someone who will understand the term ‘ambassador’ and use their staus/influence in a manner positive to the Organisation. With pauses, cuts, apathy etc., the powers that be need to choose very carefully as to how a new post holder will be viewed by the rank and file, considering everything else that’s going on (or not) at the moment. A new Ambassador is NOT what we need; we need commitment to aviation, a decision on VA, and a general acknowledgement that RAFAC can - and should be - doing much better.
I for one don’t think this is necessary at the moment; we all have other issues to deal with.
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One could argue that give what has happened to the org, and what is on the cards, an ambassador with social/political reach is exactly what we need…
Personally I like Vorderman - I think that getting her as an Ambassador was an inspired choice and and a proper feather in the cap. She worked well with the previous CAC, she was was very ‘out there’ in cadet terms, and she put lots of the cadet stuff on SM (the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Rich Knight on, has 23k followers on Twitter, she has 960k followers on Twitter…)
However, COVID comes along and there’s nothing to do or tweet about in ATC terms, and like many of us, she finds other things to do.
It’s pretty obvious that the new CAC doesn’t know how to interact with her or get the best out of her, and perhaps she feels the relationship has cooled - aor indeed that her political work - which is primarily about incompetence and corruption - is simply more important.
And it would be difficult to argue with that.
Personally I find the discomfort some feel about her, non-uniform, political activities absolutely bizarre. If you think that calling out corruption is against the values of the service, then I think you ought to tender your resignation…
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Perhaps she couldn’t reconcile working with RAFAC while calling out incompetent leadership and harmful policy direction elsewhere…
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Some TORs to identify what the rolrle of the ambassador is:
To inspire cadets?
To give top brass some celebrity to mingle with?
To promote the organisation to their “followers”?
To influence industry to get involved with the organisation?
Maybe its all of the above but i feel that everyone has a view of what the (celebrity) ambassador should be yet no where has there been any definition what the role actually is
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Realistically we don’t know what the conversation was on initial approach and during subsequent planning.
I can see that there might be reasons to not make it seem so “contractual”.
I’ve always thought it was something of a joke as well and (purely anecdotally) it seems that the vast majority of those calling her out as “breaking impartiality” were of a certain political persuasion that she opposed and I can’t help but wonder if they would have been so vocal if she swayed the other way.
I also don’t think they would be too impressed if someone called them out for something on their own personal SM accounts - turning quickly into the embodiment of “freedom of speech but not for those I don’t agree with”.
The organisation is apolitical, it’s members don’t need to be (while off duty). We are all ambassadors for the organisation, so “her position as ambassador” makes no difference to that boundary. The BBC has impartiality rules, but weren’t too interested in the Gary Linekar witch-hunt. The CS is unbiased, but not many are subject to overly burdensome restriction - typically those closest to the executive from my understanding - and only during Purdah are the greatest restrictions in place or restrictions are widened further through the service.
I see no reason why a body-confident (and allegedly sexually empowered), motivated, and impassioned individual who is willing to speak out against what they see are injustices and in support of what they believe should not be considered a role model. All this “hush hush”, stay a prude, don’t-touch-that-topic stuff is harmful.
I do think she crossed the line with some statements, but that’s just an opportunity to assess and make an independent judgement on - something we should also be encouraging.
There are also role models on the other side. I don’t agree with them, but they can say and believe what they like.
When people exist only within one side of the debate - or even are shut off from both sides of the mainstream discourse, is when they fall into other even more harmful fringes and/or become so disillusioned or non-understanding that they fall completely into apathy and stop engaging with important aspects of society and democracy.
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Most likely she didn’t compleat all the mandatory trainings, lost track of what forms to fill out, forgot to sew her Formation Patch on. Let alone her VA for attending an event pushed it over the limit. Then threw her teddy’s out as she still hasn’t got her medals.
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Agreed who knows what was said but i feel going forward HQAC should highlight its expectation from the role imo
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I’m a bit naive about SM, but is it not possible to have 2 accounts on each social media platform?
Maybe call one, ‘Carol Vorderman - (my political rants)’ and the other, ‘Carol Vorderman - (RAFAC Ambassador)’?
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Would be possible, and with a lot of other roles in the RAFAC having role accounts rather than personal accounts it makes sense.
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Except one account would have 900,000 followers and the other would have CFAV’s
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