interesting you don’t indicate by how much…2 weeks? 2 months? 2 years reduction?
11.2 months over the last 12 years.
7.8 months over the last 4 years.
What’s your standard deviation?
Does it also look at attendance whilst in?
For our cadets we’ve gone from an average attendance of 70% (with some as low as 25%) pre-Covid. Yet now all of our cadets have over 90% attendance.
I agree our cadets aren’t staying the full 8 years - most are leaving at 17/18 but I’m definitely more than happy with attendance rate at a much higher level than not.
For me I don’t think the Cadets are missing the cadet experience - albeit a different experience from 5 years ago. We don’t have to lie to get people through the door - show off what your doing at your squadron
We do have a serious issue with staff retention, (and as odd as it sounds staff leaving - we have some individuals who desperately need to leave and are causing others to leave) - staff recruitment is possible, but the getting in can be a slog if you hit it at the wrong point.
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Your average attendance is less than a year?
Crikey you’ve certainly got retention issues!
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So, CFAV at Sqn level will jack it in because it’s less of a hobby, more like a second job (talking as a Sqn Cdr). WSO (or whatever they want us to call them nowadays) will have to babysit, and will leave because it’s become less enjoyable for them and so on…
Maybe at this point the people PAID to do stuff in RAFAC will take note?
This a volunteer cascade failure - very hard to stop once it starts gaining momentum.
I think the paid staff are acutely aware - unfortunately they are ham strung as paid staff are not being replaced as they leave leading to further volunteer failure.
The people we need to take note are MoD civil servants.
Or politicians.
Politicians need to be made acutely aware of the irreversible damage being inflicted upon cadet organisations. The paltry wages they’re saving are nothing compared to the scale of voluntary work that will crumble to dust.
My bold - I think that’s the issue.
They aren’t being made aware & are being fobbed off by MoD civil servants in white hall behind the smoke screen of military specialism when the politicians have greater knowledge of the key skill that is needed for us namely management of volunteers.
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My local MP raised my concerns with my old ATC unit being moved and the aim was a shotgun marriage with another unit., she got B/S’d from HQRAFAC and the MoD
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Yet HQAC wonders why we can’t get volunteer staff !!
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I do think the process is time consuming and full of red tape etc. And i do feel that i have jumped through so many hoops, and I’m tired! BUT I would still do it again, and again if necessary because I Want To Volunteer and make sure that the cadets have access to every activity available to them. Anyone who signs up but then backs out cos the process is too hard, (aw bless em) surely won’t be missed. I attend 2 nights a week and have also been on every event, camp, etc that my squadron has been involved in - because that’s what the cadets need me there for. Seems to be there’s 2 types of CI - those that are there to do whatever is required for the cadets to get the experience they deserve; and those who probably volunteered cos their child has enrolled. If you are there for the wrong reason then the constant obstacles and poltics etc etc are going to make you quit. IMO of course!
It isn’t just the people who’re in it for the ‘wrong reason’ that get ground down by the constant obstacles and politics and consider leaving. Stay in long enough, and it gets us all down; I’ve seen people with 40+ years in leave for that very reason.
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Agreed I’ve seen the most keen, devoted and superb instructors leave due to red tape and made up BS.
The corps as a general needs to go back to basics and remove personal opinion and made up ‘local’ orders/fads that seem to be the root of most annoyance.
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Wow. We’ve found the HQAC bod.
With that attitude there’s no way I would be volunteering on your unit. People offer what they can.
And the red tape does cause problems, many people who leave go on to volunteer elsewhere because more of their time can be spent on productive volunteering rather than pointless bs admin
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Bit strong. Theirs is a view from fresh eyes with a single perspective.
The part it raises is the lack of modularity in our mandatory training. For someone only looking to do a lesson or two on occasion at the unit, help keep the place spruced, etc, there’s a lot of guff that isn’t really relevant.
Seems like @Shark46 doesn’t fit into that category though.
And that’s after the inefficient and convoluted joining process.
What Shark won’t have seen yet, is how some people have been chipped away at over 10, 15, 20 years, to the point of “the juice not being worth the squeeze” as it has become harder and harder to just do the same activities as we always have.
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What the cadets need is a stable set of squadron staff who all work together to get things done. What cadets don’t need is reliance on single members of staff who, once they burn out and resign, leave a massive hole.
It’s great being really keen and doing loads. That was me 6/7 years ago. I did two parade night as adj, normally ran another AT evening or two, and was away almost every weekend.
All that led to was burn out. Now I do a couple of parade nights a month and the odd weekend over the year.
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This.
The org is an abuser in the relationship i have with it.
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Having recently made a jump in career, but within the same company, i can now see where things started the decline in how i felt with my previous work…
…but i had to leave to notice.
It’s the understanding of, if you throw a frog into boiling water, he’ll jump straight back out…
…if you put them in cold water, and slowly boil the water…they’ll know no difference.
(Don’t try this at home kids!)
Now, I’m understanding that more with the RAFAC, slowly the fun things chipped away, more policy and protocol in brought in, more local orders involved, lack of the right comms, and endless restrictions, reduction in resources…
I’ve been that frog this whole time…
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