I have had a little search and have not found anything similar.
Buuuutttt…at a recent gathering of other Sqn’s I was seeing new faces of people I have never seen, and quite a few I’ve seen before but have no idea of their name or role, etc.
Clocked up a fair few years as a CI and I wanted to know, am I the only one looking round blankly at faces not having a clue who these other people are? I could rock up and say hi, I’m CI DontCallMeSir…who are you and what do you do? But that’s not me.
Isn’t there something staff could do to get to know each other a bit better so that we could maybe plan more as a wing between Sqn’s? Seems so much easier for cadets who mingle with anyone they are paired or grouped with and friendships are born.
I was thinking about something related earlier. I can’t recall any occasion where we’ve had a Wing SME visit either unit I’ve worked on in the last 4.5 years, with exception of the Wing Commander, Deputy Wing Commander and Sector Commander.
Whilst fully appreciating Wing SMEs are also time-poor volunteers, perhaps this is part of the reason that squadron volunteers feel so unsupported?
Pop along to a Wing Shoot, offer to do ammo orderly (only requirement is the ability to count)
Does your wing do any regular camps? My old wing has a couple of camps a year where new staff are encouraged to come along even if they are not running an activity. Usually they join a flight of cadets and go round the activities, see what it’s all about but also lots of opportunity to meet other staff within the wing.
Doubtful. In my experience, when an offer to visit is met with the question ‘What do you want to achieve from the visit?’, rarely did I ever get a good (any) answer. People seem to believe that a visit will address all of their delivery problems, provide extra staffing or some other silver bullet - which is almost never the case.
As good as a camp would be, I’m not in a position to do anything more than a weekend one and the ones advertised that I have seen are week long and you have to either drive or have a contributing qualification which would warrant a staff spot.
I do know the wing shooting bods as I have done those in the past and know a couple of staff from those. I can’t recall the last time we had anyone visit other than the local sqn to us who help get our first aid up to date.
it think this is the crux of the incentive.
on an “average” 25 Sqn wing, a SME could visit a Squadron every other week and get round them all in a year - making it a once a year pop along visit.
if that SME wanted to take up one half of the evening to explain (present) their subjects PTS system to the Cadets and the Wing opportunities to get the blue/bronze/silver badges then great - perhaps a once a year visit would work. During Canteen that same SME could speak to staff and explain the CFAV opportunities too.
if it was combined with another SME (ie radio first half, first aid second half) all the better - those SME could do a tour of the Wing.
but is there any appetite for this from the Squadrons? When I was considering an SME role the above is certainly something i considered doing, (fortunately i was located fairly centrally in the Wing to make it viable to reach the furthest away) but only if the effort was worth it and there was Squadron interest.
nowadays anyone visiting from Wing is met with “what do they want” as they tend to get in the way or tie up the OC or someone else for a whole evening with little coming from it.