Its not their fault, its a leadership issue.
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.
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.
[four Yorkshiremen voice]six day week? you were lucky![/four Yorkshiremen voice]
Name badges
on topic!
Good idea. Our RN section did that for recruits one year. It was awesome but expensive as they ordered custom ones. But reusable ones would be good.
Surely, just do it and apologise afterwards, though? Or is that another entitled CCF attitude? (Like flight rank tabs.)
I would do sew on names for staff, or professional RAFAC name badges like the RAF have. For cadets, get a few blank name badges and a DYMO label maker and make them up for them. Maybe when they get NCO they get a made name badge (without rank obviously).
Made for the battle dress uniform back in the day. Also used on No1 to replace the RAF buttons for my old Sqn had a band and you were allowed to wear No1s.
we have a huge box of these, constantly being moved around the sqn as we donât know what to do with them
I assume there was a decision at some point to start using RAF buttons instead? I was a cadet in the 1990s and we were using black RAF buttons for the lanyards and RAF buttons on No. 1s by then.
Probably when the contract for the ATC service dress ended? The ATC used to use a service dress that had a standing collar, like Guardsmen use.