Nah there was an expedition which resulted in failure or early finish. Cancelled was wrong word.
Oh, interesting. So the group did something and the staff decided to end ex? Or a safety decision was made to stop the activity?
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Thatâs my question.
Letâs face it though, as staff, calling a halt or failing a group is the last result, so they wouldnât have done it lightly. Which is the issue with all of this.
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Depends on the Staff, some seem to take a perverse pleasure in failing people. (Not talking about these staff who I know nothing about, just some of the dinosaurs out there).
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Itâs tricky because despite wanting to be supportive of a fellow volunteer, we have no details and are at risk of demonising a potebtially completely correct decision.
I think we also need to bear in mind the people making the decision, however wrong it might seem to us, wonât have deliberately shafted someone. They will have done what they think is right, regardless of how wrong that looks to us on the outside.
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I think what we should have happen is that after incidents like this and the investigation is done & dusted, all those involved should have a semi-informal 360 debrief pseudo-TRIM - have it led by a paid staff member not involved in the saga.
It would give a chance to the volunteers to vent L, decompress, come to terms with the event & move on.
Currently volunteers are just expected to crack on regardless.
It just helps exercise the demons
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I agree that we need to be careful as no one here has the full facts (assuming the people involved arenât members of the forum). So Iâm making no comments on the specific matter.
I do think though that when something like this happens, or we have disciplinary outcomes, there should be some degree of reporting and cascading through the organisation to (1) make sure that lessons are learned, (2) share good practice, (3) prevent similar issues arising again, (4) keep a handle on the rumour mill.
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. Over and over again!!!
All too often weâre left to it with no feedback. Even in the H&S incidents and near misses, we fill in the accident form, send it off, but never get any feedback.
Not too bad when itâs âTimmy ran into a glass doorâ; but the opportunity to decompress in an after event format after something more significant HELPS. And God forbid it actually makes things safer!!!
Even with this event, the decision making process - and those involved - should get that same opportunity.
Instead weâre left hanging, muddling through and hoping we did the right thing.
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So where did the money come from, was it the GPF held at wing or region, so were âsubsâ collected from cadets used to pay the parents, if so would that be against CWC rules?
Youâd hope not, but like many things in the RAFAC, canât guarantee itâŚ
Sounds like we need a RAFAC version of CHIRP
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Perhaps it might be worth raising this on the valuing the volunteer portal?
The intent is not to contradict HQ but to reflect,re engage & reintegrate affected volunteers back into RAFAC. If lead by a paid staff member it will encourage the paid staff to get things right for the volunteer or at least be mindful as they go through the process.
Any confidential reporting platform that was taken seriously would be a big step forward.
Unfortunately despite openly outing incompetency in the organisation several times it is just ignored or swept away due to the nature of the civil service and perm staff protecting perm staff or their pals.
One time I was specifically excluded from the follow up discussions and in my absence had my character slandered as some form of attack on me for highlighing the incompetence, other times investigations have stopped short of highlighting the real issue as it was easier to point the finger in a certain direction. Safe to say I just smile and wave now, let it all pass me by, why bother protecting someone elses pension.
Until that mentality is truly changed people wonât report stuff.
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Thatâs the problem with the nature of this organisation.
We have volunteer âsenior leadersâ who arenât really trained to be senior leaders, they are expected to just figure it out as they go. Above them we have a permanent staff that should know better but which doesnât trust the volunteers.
This means that rather than a learning culture we have a blame culture, there is nothing more damaging to an organisation. Especially when it comes to safety and decision making because you create a fear of reporting and you miss out of critical learning.
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Or themselves have an understanding of the nuances of volunteer management as opposed to employee management.
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With my aviation hat on, I can foresee several problems - confidential reporting relies on things remaining confidential, even with dis-identified circumstances being used to issue a report. Moreover, CHIRP tends to be covering professionals who are paid full time in their sphere, being it Air Traffic, maintenance, aircrew, etc. Follow up also involves a just culture.
I suspect that within RAFAC, the egotistical / âloose lipsâ approach (of a few) would kill off any such programme in rather short time.
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In which case it would need to miss out the volunteers & jump straight to paid staff.
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Nah, such a programme has to be across the board. That approach would cut all all the CIs for example.
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Sorry I was meaning the reports miss out the volunteers straight to paid staff. Is then sanitised & then filtered to all volunteers thus preventing the egotists blabbing too much 
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What about the safety reporting email? We do have the start of a platform. Itâs just not used very well.
Iâve reported multiple things via that system. Iâve always had a response saying theyâll look into it, and once even had a phone call from HQ asking for more details. However Iâve never had any feedback as to what the response to the report was, and i always put the down to me not needing to know. Just hope the system works and the problem gets solved.
Once there was an IBN issue and a policy change/highlight very shortly after I reported something, that i assume came off the back of the report as it was directly linked, but thatâs about it.
Oh, and while weâre talking about how CFAV making mistakes is dealt with, I also reported a data breach directly to HQAC DPA reporting email too. Got thank yous from HQ, and the problem rectified. Followed by a telling off at Wing level for going above their heads and not using the CoCâŚ
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