Thats a really useful comment - no one has ever explained that to me before.
I think I will just continue to ask them to take the exams at home - I know from an e-mail in my wing that the multiple logging in issue is being looked at and I know that it can be resolved - schools manage it for computer exams and i know the police National Computer had problems years ago which were quickly resolved.
Thanks for your input!
[quote=âstevenhawkingstennisracquetâ post=303]We arenât the RAF, weâre given support by them, but if we want to play, then we have to play by the rules. Any squadronâs first port of call for kit that isnât on the scales of equipment is the Civilian Committee. Thatâs the way itâs always been.
If you donât have the scratch, get fund-raising or get writing for donations of the kit you need from companies and non-profits. 25 quid a month for a phone and internet isnât going to kill anyone. Think laterally too. A lot of cadets have their own laptops. Get them to bring them in . Tablets start retailing at about 60 notes apiece. Get a few of them in. At a push, BADER and Ultilearn can even be accessed on a smartphone. Weâve been going for almost 72 years. If weâre not masters of improvisation and making do by now, then weâd better call it a day.[/quote]
CWCs do fundraise and HQAC and forebears have relied on this since day one. Itâs one thing to raise funds for items such as AT kit as has been mainstay of the traditional spend, but its another thing when youâre spendng c.ÂŁ400 on printer ink and other costs for the adminy and âeâ stuff that HQACâs ârule changesâ have imposed. We didnât have a printer until 7 years ago, when it started to get to be a bit too much to do at work. So itâs one thing to say play by the rules but the rules are fluid and I canât think of one change recently which has been loaded in our favour or to the benefice of the staff or cadets.
Sure you can buy all manner of techy kit, but after not too long it becomes landfill. One bloke I work with a tech geek has a collection of ipads, as Apple build in obsolesence/hold capability back to be introduced later in a âbrand new versionâ and I have no doubt that others do the same, as to do otherwise would kill their business dead.
PM has the right idea and while I wouldnât like to spoil the memory of Moulds, I donât think that HQAC have or has had anyone with the right nous to negotiate on things like this. The company I work for has less bums on seats in the UK than the ATC has, yet we have a centrally arranged stationery contract that gives positively ridiculous discounts and similar contracts for PCs, laptops and peripherals. Iâm pretty sure that the MoD have similar contracts, so that all they need to do is open them up to us, buy what we need and or get someone on HQAC staff who is a purely civilian business negotiator, whose role is to secure supply contracts. I donât think that ex-RAF officers are up to it.
Didnt the ACF get provided with phone lines and B Band as part of the westminster project ?
They might have done to County level - or some Countyâs may have sponsored it to their Dets - but our local Det certainly havenât! Our local DC forwards their registers and details on paper to County every couple of weeks. They rely entirely on mobiles for comms and any additional work is done on broadband at home IIRC.
Well if they did, the ACF unit that I was trying to develop a training plan for whilst we shared their building (ours was being demolished in order to build a joint cadet centre) must have been forgotten about, it didnât have a telephone and barely had heating!