You will be in a very small club in the grand scheme of things.
Me too
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Used to be a wo in our wing who im sure used to get a kick out of it…
I agree, I’m just pointing out that I actually had to make them myself and I’m not one that’s “just working off stories who went through it”.
I do actually still laugh at the memories of seeing them fly , for what it’s worth - it was hardly torture.
Maybe not torture, but bloody annoying that just because some arbitrary condition that isn’t going to have any relevance beyond a few days at an ATC camp hasn’t been met, someone taking a week off from their day job takes umbrage about something so inconsequential.
If we’re supposed to be adults, why not behave like one?
When people recount their forces’ experience of things like this they were getting paid and expected to be treated like that, so like all jobs you either suck it in or go somewhere else.
Fixed that for you.
20 years ago I had to re-educated a WO on the need NOT to throw cadets kit around their accommodation because it was not up to their standard.
Only to find out last week that on a national camp SNCO were throwing around the cadets kit during room inspections because it was not up to scratch. There is going to be a strongly worded e-mail to the camp comm when I find out who it is. Grrr
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The argument which I’ve never bought is that it makes sure the cadets aren’t just making 1 bed pack and then sleeping on the floor. The questions that the pace stick wielders who go in for this sort of thing can’t answer is:
- Why not just pull it apart in place? Why does it need to fly accross the room?
- Why not just let cadets bring sleeping bags?
- If you must run annual Camp like it’s National Service why not do bed packs 1 day and hospitals corners the next, that way they have to make the beds but also need to pull it apart again themselves rather than some idiot in a peak lobbing it accross the room.
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Seriously though - how many camps these days issue linen and blankets? It is surely in the minority and I don’t remember when I last expected to find a made bed at a camp rather than a neatish sleeping bag.
All the staff need to do try to prevent the cadets living in a midden for a week. I have never bought into the bootcamp bullcrap and the only purpose it serves is to generate points for an inter-flight competition.
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But then inter-flight competitions are a bit meaningless when much of it comes down to luck as to who might be good at something. I recall being on camps and it being inter sqn competitions which were much more keenly fought as rivalries came to the fore. I also experienced inter flight competitions, which were always a bot of something and nothing.
I wonder what staff perspective on the notion of “dorm inspections” was extended to them, with cadet NCOs going into their rooms and saying this isn’t good enough etc.
I can’t recall the last time cadets weren’t asked to take a sleeping bag and I’ve had to take one as staff as well.
Assuming you went Supercamp too?
You mean like almost everything we do?
There’s a balance to be found here - we’re a disciplined, uniformed organisation and that carries with it certain standards; at the same time cadets isn’t phase 1 and we actually want them to enjoy the activities. I’d expect “neatly-made” beds to be the standard, nothing more.
All I can say from experience is that no counterpanes were hurt in the process and it didn’t cause any deep-seated issues for me later in life.
Learning how to cope with that in cadets made that element of IOT a relative doddle, tbh.
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No, but some of my cadets did.
Anyone that tosses a cadets bed around the place is clearly feeling inadequate to some extent, any camp ive been on the kids are shown how to make a bed proper, or if they have sleeping bags how we would like them packed in the morning, if somethings not up to standard we just point it out and have them rectify it there and then, no point in demoralising a cadet first thing in the morning because their hospital corners arent upto exacting military standards