I’ve come to the view that changing our rank structure, whilst attractive at one level, would cause more problems than it solves.
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“Supreme lord commander of all forces within the nine known realms” for me.
Ta
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Limiting yourself there; I thought with this whole Astra thing we should be aiming for a minimum of:
Senior president commander of intergalactic dominance, overlord of air and space power and chief executive director of nonsense titles.
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Thought you’d be against the expansion of regions up from six…
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True true.
But you missed “time lord”.
Otherwise spot on
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This infers there is a “junior president commander…”
One for an NCO? 
Back on topic.
I do hope this recruitment thingy gets some traction.
Might make a difference.
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There’s a free site you can put a fire and forget ad on called do-it.org as another option.
Suspect that some have had better luck than others, but as a free and passive method it’s another one you can add to the list.
100% of our “still with us” new CFAV over the last 3 years have made direct contact with us. 2 are of the recently retired with relevant experience type.
Paid SM ads got responses that just never worked out.
We may just begin to see our senior cadet pipeline start to bear CFAV fruit over the next couple of years.
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Why not base rank structure on experience and quals? For example, an active CI who holds current FCI, SA(LR)07, SAAI, FAW, BEL, CPL or PPL, FMT600 & D1 quals outranks a newly appointed Sgt or Plt Off who has limited abilities. All this obsession with rank kind of mirrors the civvy world, where young Johnny is promoted way beyond his abilities just because his dad is CEO. We’ve all seen similar nepotism and cronyism in the ACO, too.
Just doing it because it’s what the RAF does is what is preventing us from becoming ,more attractive and I would suggest the ACF have the same problem mimicking the Army. Is this model fit for purpose in the 21st Century community volunteering? The fact we struggle to recruit externally would suggest it isn’t. Even internal recruitment doesn’t mean in it for very long.
I don’t think we are flexible enough hence the suggestion of flipping or zig-zag, this would replace the NEP (which I’ve never understood the rationale for) so rather than effectively leave NEP system, allow people to become CIs when life dictates and come back into uniform when they feel ready with no ‘penalty’. They are still within the system so do all the admin courses to keep current.
The problem we have to change, but our senior management, who are ex-RAF (or semi-retired) and the idea of anything radical would be too alien for them to see it might just be what we need.
@Expired It’s not just rank it’s uniform as well. We need to get over the I wear a blue suit so I am instantaneously better than someone who doesn’t. Something you see all too frequently in newly adult uniformed cadets towards CIs who have the cereal, t-shirt, video etc.
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I can’t help but feel that you’re both overstating the prevalence of these detrimental attitudes this far into the 21st century.
Rank vs role vs SQEP already runs through the org, and anyone who has a newly uniformed staff member that doesn’t understand this has failed to train and educate.
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Oh and…
Because as you describe it, it would make no sense to anyone inside the org, let alone someone looking in.
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It is.
Experience on Sqn.
Quals from RAFAC Academy.
Next question.
This.
I have very very very rarely seen this attitude.
If it appeared on my Sqn, it would be, dealt with.
If you are both seeing it regularly, I suggest you speak up then and there, advocate your positions to the offender and correct their behaviour.
Dont come on here raging about behaviour of others if you haven’t broached the subject with the offender first.
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If you think I wouldn’t mention it, no holds barred. is obvious you don’t know me.
Anyone using the line “only a CI” gets put in their place.
The new OC of a local sqn got my appraisal of the way he spoke to the 2 CIs from his sqn attending a parade. It was done in private and no expletives were deleted, he didn’t like it, but I was fuming. He must have mentioned it to our WSO who came down and spoke to me and he was left with no doubt as to my view and an apology would not be forthcoming. He’d been in charge for a few months and undone the work of his predecessor of getting people in as staff, in this time, which the WSO acknowledged had been noted at Wing, but no action was taken. He must know the right people as he went onto Region, out of harms way. This OC was an ex-cadet who was feted by his sqn and Wing and was always going to be commissioned, which made him think he was untouchable. However anyone who met him when he was a cadet couldn’t understand why he was looked upon as he was. You only need one bad apple like this to spoil the barrel.
Simplify and speed up the joining the process.
Do not put pressure on new (and existing Staff) to do more and more.
Put a bigger focus at all levels on treating Staff fairly and with dignity.
Have more Staff activity days - if Staff get into an activity through their own enjoyment, more chance of them taking it further for benefit of Cadets.
Do the above, and I reckon all the arguments about rank, pay, outside knowledge / experience etc will largely become irrelevant.
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^ this.
We need to focus on getting people through the door.
Then we can focus on them staying.
Then we can focus on upskilling and load spreading.
Then cadets start to benefit.
There’s possibly (expensive) shortcuts, but we need to invest in staff.
This. It really helps.
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Recruiting staff has been a problem for as long as I can remember and we have relied on cadets ticking over. As such many of us who did this are unable to look at this objectively as we haven’t had to make the initial contact and then slog their way through the modern day festering quagmire of the joining process.
Then ally that to our biggest problem … HQAC/ACMB. Any changes to make things easier and make the volunteering experience less onerous have to be signed off by people who have absolutely no idea about being a CFAV, let alone them coming in from scratch.
While I like the notion of staff activity days how would they work? Would they be free just come along at an activity centre or would they be “organised” by Wings and be along the lines of a field day, with people encouraging them to take the things further. Having been in the Corps for many years and knowing the types who would run these things, there would be black marks against those saying no thanks.
The same way you would run a. Taster day for Cadets, you plan it, put a Bader Application in and then only open it upto Staff.
We do it year round for things like introduction to Paddlesports, you just do the same thing but for an older audience.