Future of the NACATCs

However if these centre’s had a policy of 60% of spaces have to be reserved for CFAV’s, perhaps from any cadet force, then you do start to have a potentially viable business and also a potential recruitment vector for skilled adults.

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None of this changes the fact that if you want to train MLs, you need mountains. If you want to train white water paddlers, you need white water, if you want to train climbers, you need places to climb, mountain bike instructors? Big hills to roll down.

Where do you find all of those things? North Wales and The Lakes. Where do you not find those things? the South East, The South or the Midlands. Unsurprisingly, remote places for adventurous training are somewhat unpopulated.

This means any new centres would need to be in places like the Dales, A lot of Scotland or South Wales. Maybe the Pennines and Dartmoor. Still, nowhere near Kent.

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Tag along on Private Courses?

ML Training at NACATC - £30
ML Training privately - £400

I’ve had 3 staff go through ML lately, it cost less than £100. Had it been full price it would have been £1200. Net result is this year we completed 20 Gold DofE’s on our Squadron alone, plus silvers and bronzes on top of that, plus support for Wing and Sector expeditions and events.

Money well spent in my mind. Wouldn’t have happened if we needed to spent over 10x the amount to fund it.

“If people want it they can pay for it” - doesn’t work like that though does it? You need 40 Mountain Days to do an ML assessment (minimum), the cost of those days, plus the registration cost - already puts a financial burden on the staff doing the qualifications - so providing an outlet to do the actual course for cheap is essential - lest people not be able to afford to spend huge chunks of their own money.

I think the NACATC’s are great - the courses for staff, and AT weeks for Wings - fantastic.

Worth noting there are other places to utilise for accommodation provided you have your own kit - Capel Curig for example is fantastic, no equipment available, but a great mess provided free messing, a small climbing wall, a field for archery, space for camping - just book it like any other DTE (well in advance).

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I do think that we need another centre up in Scotland. I think the range of areas covered would then be perfect.

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please don’t tell me that we’ve got a 50 post thread on something because it turns out that our favourite loon is yelling at the sky about yet another thing he has completely missunderstood…

a commercial ML will cost about £1400 and involve two seperate training and assessment courses, you need 40 quality mountain days (which means 6+ hours on an actual mountain for each) to start the course, and you’ll need to do another 40 (ish) QMD’s between training and assesment.

somebody might like to work out the cost of 40 weekends in North Wales/Lakes/Scotland from Kent, or Birmingham, or Plymouth, or Milton Keynes - and the not inconsiderable hole this might place in the oft used ‘get a life’ dynamic our friend likes to spout on (and on, and on, and on, ad nausuem …) about, but i won’t, as that would be called playing with your food.

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That is the exact model The Scouts seem to use. When I’ve booked things at the local ones, there are times blocked out for “Scout” groups, which as it’s their trainset, not a problem.

If people want to do ML, climbing and white water, then they go to the suitable location. Keep a national centre for this purpose, ie primarily staff training.

But it’s the run of the mill activities we need provision for and not have to rely totally on waiting for staff to get qualified, or more appropriately someone interested enough to put the time in and in many cases buy their personal gear. My mate’s last kayak was over a grand, but he’s divorced no kids on hand and does a lot of it. He has 5 now in his garage and loads of other gear.

I can’t see why people are anti several centres around the UK which offer activities with qualified staff on-site, like the public activity centres. All of the ones we use have climbing walls, they all have lakes for a variety of water activities, plus a load of other activities several of which are team-based. Four things in a day with each activity done for 1 to 1¼ hours. To try and run something similar using CFAV would be nigh on impossible. We use a local climbing wall 3-4 times a year on parade nights.

The recent loss of the RAC at St Athan to the Bl##dy Welsh Gov has hit both 1 and 3 Welsh Wings like a kick in the proverbiales. A facility we used on average once a month for our Wing Shooting weekends co-located with our Parent Armoury and a 25m Range with a friendly Range Warden (who is also a CFAV) on site was awesome. Now gone for Industry re-development (dam you DARA Super Hanger financing plan! - 15 years ago and still screwing the RAF over). We are now fighting for the 1 or 2 transit blocks on East Camp the RAF has with every other potential user.

Hows about thinking outside the box here and put a new RAC on Penally Training Camp in West Wales or Sennybridge Training Camp nr Brecon - both locations are secure with Armouries, a Cook House, bookable extra Classrooms and Conference Rooms, Training Areas and Ranges in easy traveling distance.
A RAC on those Camps would be our own Building and our own Accomodation to book “in-house”. All the RAFAC would have to do would be to pay some coin to DIO to secure an area of the Camp, get a building put there (anything pre-fabricated going on camps to be closed down?) and then pay for the up keep. Either location would get a RAC in an area great for AT or Shooting/Fieldcraft.
Day to day managment, Sqn/Wing Staff in the Area/Wing could provide volunteer Staff to look after bookings, Hand overs and hand backs and contrator access.

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How about we sac off the MOD and build 12 centres privately.

My God, even get sponsorship to do it…

No, oh, ok then.
Let’s keep going until the MOD finishes us off.

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That would be my preference.
Got my vote.
Capture

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That’s going to be printed and hung up at home.
Many would leave but only through fear and the knowledge their total incompetence would be displayed.
But many many more would join the organisation after the great reshuffle.

I can but dream…
Now back to reality

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DRAIN THE SWAMP

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Just beware of the alligators.

Anyone want to shed some light on the new way that NACATC are allocating weeks?
It appears the weeks are offered to the regions to then select the wing???

Not quite. Weeks are allocated to the Regions by HQAC. They can then manage allocations to the Wings.

Essentially it’s a trial to try and increase the usage of the centres and ensure prime school holiday weeks are filled to the rafters and to ensure that CCF get a look in to using the centres as well.

So ultimately it’s a numbers game.
Is the week allocated specifically for the wing or is there an expectation to host other cadets from other wings (before the question of said wing not being able to fill every bed space)?
And should there be extra capacity, spaces are offered out?

Cheers

Yep, in order to make the best use of the asset. If I remember correctly weeks in prime holiday weeks should be filled with a minimum of 30 cadets plus supporting staff.

In W&W Wings could bid for weeks as the lead, as they normally would. The expectation was very much that if they can’t fill the bed spaces, either join up with other nearby Wing(s) or offer additional cadet spaces out where they have spare instructional capacity. It’s basically a common sense approach - if they know they are going to have spare beds in a centre, try and fill them. That could be with a concurrent adult course, a Gold exped, or whatever. Could be from the lead Wing or a nearby one - doesn’t really matter, just maximise the use of the asset.

Unfortunately two of our weeks are end March/early April and so probably not viable under the current restrictions. That leaves 3 weeks that have lead units allocated.

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We have gone exactly the same, Wings bid for a week but if you can’t fill it with Cadets or Staff Courses then join up with someone else.