by the looks of it, school
Thatâs what I would expect, too.
Lots of CCFs do some surprising things on their own premises - take a look at the Duke of Yorkâs Royal Military School, for example.
Itâs quite common for CCF cadets to wear sashes, carry pace sticks, etc. for things like school Remembrance Parades or Biennial Inspections. I went to one at a public school in the SE last year which made even me wince. But realistically, there isnât much that RAFAC can do - remember, even Comdt AC is not in the chain of command for a CCF officer. They could, I suppose, make representations to MOD asking them to close the unit, but I doubt that would really be feasible.
Social media means you know about it - before, you didnâtâŚ
can anyone identify the aircraft in the background???
Why not cut them loose then?
If they donât actually answer to the comdt, why should they be supported by the organisation?
Because they put more money in that the ATC units so are more cost effective?
E.g. all PTS badges have to be purchased by the unit & not supplied through air cadet logs.
They only parade 30 weeks of the year. Thereâs no rent or infrastructure costs. The amount of VA consumed is negligible compared to the ATC.
The cadets looked smart. It was RAF uniform dress & keeping in traditions of their school. Probably all Heads of sections wore a service appropriate sash.
It would be impractical to kit out all the ATC units likewise & if you permitted it you would end up with the situation we had with ATC cadets in No 1s where the tunics were all faded moth eaten ones that no longer looked smart.
It looked fine - let them crack on.
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Well you might well ask why there was such a push to fuller integration when things worked fine as they were⌠I think a lot of those pushing for the change didnât understand the C2
So because theyâre rich just let them get on with it?
Got it 
I Disagree, the CCF (Army) cadets at least looked well turned out with correct head dress, well fitted belts and more importantly they were within their regulations.
Whereas the CCF(RAF) cadets, even their CWO looked sloppy
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Maybe, and I know Iâm stretching for something a bit here, instead of coming online to slag off and publicly humiliate children and volunteers you could offer to support them to get to this mythical standard you aspire to?
Or you could just accept weâre not all perfect and that in the scheme of things it has a negligible impact on anyone else and just go and do something you enjoy? Take a breath and walk around and remember no one else cares that much?
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Worst case, if it bothers you that much, mention it to your WWO and let them decide if itâs worth doing anything about.
iâm not slagging off the cadets, hence why i removed their faces from the photographs and didnât say which CCF it was?and why are you arguing that standards shouldnât be standard?
If you want to disagree with a moderator decision please feel free to PM us, or ready our AUP.
Its not their fault, its a leadership issue.
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iâm not disagreeing with a mod decision, rather with you.
i can somewhat see why you took down the images I posted, hence why iâve not argued with you on that once
I think the point is that you havenât raised it here for a constructive purpose and that this isnât really the forum for that kind of discussion. If you truly want to maintain standards then there are for more effective ways of doing it.
Blurring faces and not mentioning the unit doesnât remove the risk of the people in it or those who may recognise the photos from seeing this thread.
Youâre bc acting as if being tongue & cheek about issues isnât half the soul of this forum
could you elaborate on this because i donât quite understand what you mean
Itâs not tongue in cheek though. Itâs just stacking other volunteers who arenât here to defend themselves.
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Which, having done both (and not liked it at all because it wasnât under RAFAC dress regs), I can confirm it is indeed quite common. I suppose on that note, how common is No.1s uniform? Iâve always been curious as to how many units have enough sets for their cadets.
Careful now, without getting too political a lot of the schools with CCFs have bursary programmes that allow students who would be unable to attend, due to financial disadvantage, to be there. This is also (incidentally) how they have their Charity Status (for now.)
Also, I suspect weâd (universally, within reason) be much better integrated to RAFAC as a whole. Doing anything on the weekend for us is a nightmare (since our staff are, you know, having a break from the 5/6 day week theyâve just worked?) and well Summer Holidays theyâre just not there. So us actually doing anything with the rest of RAFAC is a nigh impossibility.
Trust me, having come from a CCF(RAF) unit, I lament this. However, in my experience when we ask for kit from up the chain, we either donât get anything at all, or we get gash kit (which is US and has to be chucked back practically the moment it arrives), poor quality, or wrong sized stuff. I think I elaborated this before, but when we got our first female cadets (10ish years ago?) we had no female dress (no blouses, no female trousers, no skirts, etc). We still hadnât got any by the time I was made CWO (last year).
For what it is worth, the CCF(RAF) staff do try. I do genuinely feel that, regarding kit (among other things) we get stitched up. I do not feel honestly that we fit within the RAFAC structure as a whole (as in, my Unit is just not in a Wing) and we are sort of labelled the âunprofessionalsâ, or somehow are the âall the gear no ideaâ crowd, because we âdo lessâ (have to fit in CCF around our school timetable), yet somehow are perceived to have the money. We donât.
I donât want to slate the rest of RAFAC, because from my personal experience, theyâre an excellent professional group (as in, the staff Iâve met), but it genuinely feels like weâre in a tug of war, and it just should not be that way.
Iâd also add that many CCFâs are in state schools and are staffed by external volunteers, not teachers - this is the case with mine.
I would also rail against the âsloppyâ label - my Cadets are at a very high standard. This might be because I am ex-ATC as a Cadet and itâs the standard I expect, but we are by no means alone as a unit in caring about our standards.
There are sloppy RAF Sections, there are also sloppy ATC squadrons. Itâs always the worst that get picked up on isnât it? I would rather people stopped trying to pull people down though personally.
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[four Yorkshiremen voice]six day week? you were lucky![/four Yorkshiremen voice]
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