Work is different, we have a company budget and we pick the courses which fit the requirements and ask if we can go. The courses usually come with hotel built in to the cost, but if not you pick one and away you go. I’ve stayed in some very pleasant hotels.
As for the Air Cadets we are hamstrung by the attachment to something we have no control over and senior management institutionalised by this thing are blinkered and this is a limiting factor. They must wonder where a lot of the activity instructors come from as they won’t have all gone through the in-house centres. The vast majority of activity instructors have the activity as a personal interest/hobby normally since childhood and acquire qualifications with no interference from HQAC.
As for covering the cost, it will fall to CWCs as HQAC are financially incompetent when it comes to supporting staff and want it all done for nothing, if it’s not something MoD/RAF related. Oh and do not be so childish in the relation to money mentioned 3 years ago. It makes you sound as daft as anyone who voted to leave on the basis of those figures and remain voters who still ramble on about it. But that’s for another place.
If HQAC were serious about AT they would instigate their own activity centres for general activities and staff them. I’m sure there would be some MoD AT types out there who would like a gold plated FTRS job. But make these open to the public and make some money from them. Think PGL type places across the UK.
It’s very simple - I (will soon) have an ML qual via the ATC, which I wouldn’t have got via other sources. Given that I have a life (one of your favourite complaints) realistically I’m not going to use the qual often enough to make it something I could persuade the Civcom to stump up several thousand pounds for.
But in your “everything that happens in the ATC/RAFAC outside of squadrons” broken-record-style of complaining about absolutely everything, this would probably have slipped under your radar.
The NACATCs are a fantastic resource that ultimately provide a significant level of staff development and increase the level of professionalism.
I know several people who have gained a plethora of AT Quals through ATC/RAFAC-provided courses and events. Walking etc up to and including ML, MTB, Kayak, Sailing…
It’s almost as if things happen outside of the squadron, but I’m sure that’s all just box-ticking, matrix-filling, ego feeders just looking to make a name for themselves with needless courses and events.
I didn’t know these had permanent staff with all the kit and qualifications, so we just turn up and leave them to it. I don’t see somewhere that you need to go to and take all your own qualified staff to as an activity centre.
If you do mean RACs they don’t even register as more than somewhere to potentially base yourself for visits and activities.
I don’t what it’s like in your neck of the woods, but where we are there private and Scout activity centres, within ½ hour drive, with qualified staff. In a time when squadrons struggle for staff, let alone staff with the plethora of qualifications required, having to ask for favours to do things and not always getting what you want, means doing things without or not going at all as you rely on other staff Having two centres historically in Wales and The Lakes, has never been the best arrangement, this is why a number of PGL type centres with qualified staff employed on site and all the gear, with squadron staff as well, would make for a much better arrangement, for staff and cadets alike. As said open these to the public and hey presto you have a business that makes money, rather than takes money.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
