I don’t think you can correlate work based salaries with what we do in the Air Cadets, as we aren’t salaried and contracted. We all effectively do the same thing. OK if you enter the murky world of uniform you might be expected to chase people to do things, but you can equally be doing that as a CI if you have a role on the squadron that demands it. The ‘pay’ we get is totally unrelated to the day to day side of things.
I beg to differ especially regarding contracted…
12 hrs a month for a Start sounds like a contract agreement
As for relating it to work, sorry it’s worse than work in most respects.
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Also as a:
RCO
Lowland Leader
1st aid instructor
Radio instructor
FCI
I need specialist kit to provide the best training for the cadets.
No VA, no kit, certainly no way I could afford all the stuff needed otherwise.
No appreciable amount of my VA gets spent on non cadet stuff anyway.
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That comes back to the old argument if you have a contract are you employed and therefore entitled to all the rights and responsibilities of an employed person.
As someone who’s recently come into the blue suit, in the whole process of paperwork through to OIC I’ve not had this mentioned to me once.
I know it’s a thing - it gets talked about here often enough - but it’s never been formally spoken out loud.
So what actually is it?
12 hours minimum per month.
PI 202 and PI 302 of ACP 20.
They asked me the question at OASC about what minimum hours per month I need to do. I’m sure they ask it at SNCO boards too. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it.
I’m not sure if it’s enforced though.
I’ve seen it enforced. Without going into too much detail, a hardline approach and a whole raft of mis-steps regarding hours and another non-problem led to the total loss of a brilliant member of staff going through a temporary work-related drop in attendance, but had made steps, efforts, and plans to overcome the situation.
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I’ve seen it enforced as well - and in similar circumstances. The good bloke left, the throbber remained, and the cadet experience changed in the way you’d imagine.
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Yes seen it enforced and unlike the previous posts it was used to get shot of staff who had no intention of turning up.
Not saying there aren’t those cases, but when people use it as a stick to bash with instead of a tool to remove genuine deadwood…
Especially when part of the message is “I don’t care if you sit in the office and drink tea, you have to turn up”.
Whereas we’ve got a guy who’s shown up twice in a year and is still on the system.
I get the approach will vary wing to wing, but it shouldn’t, and is largely pointless anyway. I’ll give what hours I can. Sometimes that will be more, sometimes that will be less.
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I’ve seen an OC be literally AWOL for months, nothing was done until he went NEP. He resigned months later for something separate to this. The AWOL period was a frustrating time for the rest of the staff.
How can you be AWOL? All that happens is they’ve not turned up.
The idea of being Absent Without Leave is that someone says you can have the time off. At work you put it in for holiday and if it’s OK you get it, just not turn up for work and you could find yourself with more free time than you need. But when you volunteer the idea that you have to ask to not turn up is a bit of a strange concept. You may say I’m not going to be there. No CFAV are contracted in any sense that is legally binding in an employed manner, with the commensurate burden of employee benefits such as pay, pension, sickness benefits, death in service payments, holiday etc on the party requiring me to sign.
It’s like on the attendance register the AWOL column, who am I as the sqn cdr to tell a cadet or member of staff they can’t be off, to create an “AWOL” situation. If they do take the time off, what can I or the organisation do to them, that is going to make the slightest detrimental difference to them.
The fact it may be frustrating when people don’t turn up is another matter entirely.
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I’m under the impression that the 12 hours a month is being scrapped in favour for a “you must of done x amount of hours over the year” if your like me and struggle to do more than 1 night a week but can do a Saturday once a month that really benefits us
Who actually clocks on or off to have the hours recorded anyway?
Why we have to do a set amount of time be that monthly or annually beats me and is I feel a hang up from the past. It’s like the not been for two months rule, initiating a process.
If we got a bounty (not the bar … fun size or full size 
) each year, then a minimum commitment would be understandable and I bet more would be doing the minimum, which would help enormously and in fact this system could replace the VA system as it would be much fairer … as long as it was tax-free!!
We have an annual hours contract at work and most people run a spreadsheet to ensure they don’t go massively over.
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As I have said previously what about all those who volunteer for other things and have to have kit and don’t have the cushion of VA?
I know a number who play and or coach sport and maybe get some kit sponsored, but have to buy a lot of things which are out of pocket. For those who coach youngsters many have to attend affiliated body courses and pass them, again they have to pay the costs. Then there are the parents of who fork out for kit, they aren’t getting any additional bunce to pay for it.
The bottom line is no one has to do anything extra and have these costs and still contribute to the experience of the youngsters who join.
I walk and camp of my own volition and have done for years so tent, doss bag, ruck sack cooker, wet gear and boots all there regardless. I’ve never bought any specialist clothing and don’t have things sitting in cupboards waiting for the few times I might do something with cadets. I imagine there are many who climb and paddle who have kit costing thousands and pursue the activity privately.
I mean AWOL in the sense that we literally had no idea why he was off, he would show up once every three months at best.
In my opinion, it’s basic organisation to let your staff team know if you will be down or not, especially as a CO. It’s also good manners.
That goes for all staff, in my opinion. Even as a CI, I always ensured the CO knew if I wasn’t going to be down and even more so now as a junior officer.
No one is saying no one can take leave etc, I just meant AWOL as in the literal sense of he was absent without reason.
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Wouldn’t that be AWOR?
But no one’s AWOL which as I understand it is a contractual term to describe people who ‘go missing’ from work, in the Air Cadets it’s just not turning up.
I doubt many are absent without reason, even if it’s can’t be bothered. You might like to think that people will let you know they aren’t coming, but this is real life. I wonder if anyone visited him to see what was wrong?
There is a lot that goes on in people’s real lives that they don’t tell people about and the majority of people in the Air Cadets aren’t high up on my must tell them list.
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