Curious to know what peoples feelings are around the use of e-mail. Yesterday and Today is a good example of where I believe we fail to help ourselves.
Yesterday we had an organisational wide message about the use of hexamine go out via Teams. Later that day we had an organisational wide e-mail saying the same thing and today, I got an e-mail from our Region TSA stating the same thing. Thankfully, so far, no reply to all’s have hit my inbox.
Logging in the Volunteer Portal I’m flashed a note to say there was a priority message that needed reading. When you open the relevant page it is a note about Exercise Fleeting Archer 2024. In my mind the organisation has gone mad and is not using the chain of command properly. How is a message about a camp a priority… what makes individuals feel empowered to blast out messages to the organisation that then get replicated multiple times.
Love to hear peoples experiences with this. The two examples above are just a few but there seems to be a competition going on who can hit the most inboxes and generate the most e-mails for messages that should be following the chain of command. One e-mail that went out a few months back generated 8 (from memory) all for the same thing.
I’d rather have comms twice than miss it. I can always file or delete.
An example is a chaser I’ve just had for an upcoming event: I’ve looked and the event wasn’t communicated in advance of the email at all (that I can see) and there is so much stuff on SMS it is hard to spot the relevant ones.
Also as an SME I find that squadrons don’t always advertise courses to their cadets - maybe due to the above - and a (brief and timely) reminder often results in more sign ups.
But I do get the frustration with the ‘cascade’ emails where each layer, from HQ to sector officers, feel they need to forward the same material.
The chain of command isn’t there for pass the parcel on comms.
In an ideal world HQ would be the sole source of comms & info direct to units. This isn’t practical hence the need to sub-divide.
Biggest frustrations I have on the emails is when something is just auto forwarded.
The other frustration is when each layer put their own spin.
I much prefer direct comms from the paid staff rather than follow some arbitrary communication chain.
On a side note I have had only a single email re hexi so it’s working somewhere.
Fundamentally our internal comms are pretty broken. This has been discussed at length before. The main issue for me is that there are too many different ways to communicate, and no standard to follow. This leads to seeing things 5 times, or not seeing things at all.
I fully agree with @WestlandScout above that I’d rather see things 3 times than miss it entirely. At the end of the day, a repeat email takes 10 seconds to process and delete, it’s not a drama.
This matter has been mentioned on VoP a few times. Most recent one I can find is here.
There is talk in that thread regarding a new-look share point landing page which might help significantly with bringing together all the different streams of communication that we currently have. Hopefully to end up with a single focus point where all main communications/announcements can be done.
In the interim, I recommend registering for Sharepoint alerts in certain areas to help catch things that might otherwise get missed.
Or maybe an app/portal that has all unread notices in category form. Red (safety), Amber (important), Green (For info).
I find the RAFAC Sharepoint all but useless in its functionality, everything is clunky. With some thought and planning we could do so much better without much effort.
I agree in some ways but there is also an (incorrect) understanding from the PS that the CFAVs look at emails, VP, Sharepoint, etc all the time, which is totally not right.
When there are WSOs only reading their specific emails a couple of times a week and CIs not even bothering to look at VP, where do we go from here.
I have had safety critical information delayed through the chain of command. Stop orders, days after most units have stopped… because we are reliant on the chain of command.
A region level camp,being advertised through VP is a good thing. I’ve spoken to people before about activities and asked. “Have you signed up for X? It was sent last month to all OCs”
I agree with the need for a more cohesive communications plan.
I can’t speak for others but I’m the individual who published the priority notice about a camp. To answer your question as to what makes me feel empowered to do so and why I think it’s a priority notice: policy. Here’s a link to the original announcement and policy on CP and VP announcements: Sign in to your account
Typically, people duplicate comms ‘to be sure’ because they do not feel they can rely on any single one. In my case, I did not feel I could rely on email, Teams, etc, to sufficiently inform cadets about the camp; that was largely due to concerns that Sqns are often less-active during the summer holidays but also because I know some Sqns choose to withhold activities, such as this, from cadets.
Comms seems like a big tool box with different spanners, each one suits a certain task at a certain time and sone thougt how to use it, however it seems quicker and easier to get the monkey wrench out , then throw it hoping it will hit the right spot to get the machine working.
Typically, Bronze level courses run at Wing level that lead to qualifications.
Only a minority of Squadrons advertise them (if they are not on cadet portal the cadets can’t apply) but looking at it from a squadron staff angle it can also be hard to keep up!
We don’t know why they don’t advertise, it might be transport or local events that clash. At wing level we woudn’t know about them.
Lots of aquadrons gatekeep access to things from Cadets, it’s amazing when you talk to the cadets and they hadn’t heard of lots of stuff that’s going on as the unit hadn’t published it to them in any way.
There can be a few reasons for this and it’s usually the unit can’t provide staffing or transport to the cadets to get to the event.
Quite often unit just forget to publish stuff. It’s nice that the control lays in the hands of the unit staff, but at the same time, it is adding an extra level of admin to sqn staff. Add to that the fact that if the event director edits the cadet portal bit, it doesn’t auto update for sqns if already published until the sqn staff go in and update it.
I know this was discussed extensively when it came out WRT WSOs having the power to publish directly or not, and we went with the latter. Now that it has been around for a while, I think the former may be better. Or maybe allow WSOs to publish direct but with a grace period of some sort.
I understand the argument, but that will result in the opposite problem, where a unit might not realise something has been advertised when they hadn’t advertised it themselves for a legitimate reason.
Another example not mentioned is when the squadron staff want to control who bids for an activity, like an NCO course or MOI course. Also, activities that have eligibility requirements that can’t be checked on SMS/Units (currently), like completing certain fieldcraft lessons, you can end up with cadets being selected who aren’t eligible.
There needs to be a split on the cadet portal bit IMO. A bit the event director adds, and a bit Sqn staff adds. The former being updated across the board when the director changes it, and the latter only updateable via sqn staff.
