Getting mandatory training onto SMS (staff and cadets)

Adult Staff
1

Howdy

If you’re like me, you might have seen many an email from wing staff complaining about the lack of mandatory training completion (climactic injury)

Having already completed mine a while ago I kind of ignored it until the sqd adj said they couldn’t see it on SMS. I assumed it was pulled across from the volunteer portal.

I have added it manually now

Next question…I assume the same applies to cadets in that the only way it can get uploaded/evidenced on SMS is for them to show a staff member their cadet portal and we then mark it off on SMS!!!

2
  1. I thought SMS was going?
  2. Don’t VP and SMS refer to the same underlying data?
1 Like
3

Same here, a how to guide would be good.

4

As a guide to completing mandatory training:

  • Do it on RAFAC Learn
  • Make sure it’s marked as complete on Learn
  • Wait for it to sync across to Volunteer Portal
5

If it was climatic injuries, when you say you “did it a while ago”, was that the module one and two of both new hot and cold courses, or the old ones?

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6

But this doesn’t then sync with SMS which means that we can get an emails from higher up saying we haven’t completed it

7

Then they’re looking in the wrong place (and wasting their own time doing it).

The training tracker on Volunteer Portal has the correct info. They can see their entire AoR in one go.

For events, there’s a link from the Staff drop down to a similar report.

8

There’s a complication in that part 2 (module 2? something 2 anyway) of the climatic injuries training is not mandatory for everyone. It’s only mandatory for “activity commanders”. So it’s excluded from the usual processes and needs to be uploaded manually to SMS.

9

Just a quick tangent on this. In SW they’re flagging it for anyone who is down as a “director” on the SMS event, not just activity ICs. Don’t know if that’s the same everywhere.

10

All staff who attend the Nijmegen marches as a member of staff have to complete module one and two.

11

Why not just do it, lasts for three years. You never know when you could be called on to be an IC and need to do :man_shrugging:t2:

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12

I think there are a good chunk of staff who rightly don’t need to complete module 2 and that we should look to reduce the mandatory training burden where possible.

For example, CIs who enjoy delivering the usual array of parade night activities, who aren’t interested or able to commit to anything else.

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13

Out of interest is there a full list of things that module 2 is needed for although I did the same approach and just did it, I appreciate it takes an extra couple of hours but its done for 3 years. The example i have, if you take cadets to AEF as an escort driver from Sqn are you an activity commander in the sense you are the only staff member in the vehicle up to the point of getting to AEF?

14

The guidance that came to us from our WExO was that you needed it if you are involved in Planning an event or are Activity IC of an event - in a Climatic Injuries setting.

Regarding Flying & Gliding - the cadets may be outside in the heat or cold for long periods (especially with Gliding) - so you could argue yes.

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15

To be fair, I do arrange and am activity commander for parades amongst a host of others things so it makes sense in my capacity but have always wondered how far the umbrella stretched so to speak