“So please can the volunteers stop writing the letters…”
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Perhaps, but it’s never been front and centre as it has become, because the RAF was doing lots of the traditional flying. But just by looking at the inventory compared to say 20 years ago, the RAF desperately needed something to enable it to remain an independent body.
The cadet experience of the RAF compared to many of us older ones on here, is a malnourished shadow.
In all of this where is the meaningful cadet experience? Getting into a Pythonesque mode what is the RAF actually doing for cadets and the volunteers to make it feel like “we” belong. There needs to be some frank, public honesty about what they will provide, rather than empty words.
They tried that in Canada and reverted to separate services, where there need to be joint working there is now ‘purple’ structures.
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They have it in Belgium but the Air Component looks very much like an Air Force still.
Belgian armed forces are that small they don’t need separate services.
Perhaps our identity is less RAF and more RFCA. Is it time to ditch the RAF and go for joint cadet forces?
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So interestingly they are encouraging CFAVs & cadets now to do the computer tests at OASC early as part of a recruitment drive.
The RAF is becoming desperate. Training pipelines are clogged and not just for pilots. People already in are leaving on their droves because they’re waiting, for example, 16 months to start an air traffic control course.
They also have accommodation with no heating and no showers.
We have to stop looking for what the RAF is going to do for us - they’re simply not equipped nor interested in doing anything for us. If they can’t look after themselves, they’re not going to be giving two ####s about what we do.
The recent headlines about MFTS are the tip of the iceberg and we’re - rightly - at the bottom of a priority list that they haven’t finished writing yet.
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I agree. The RAF forgets us until they want or need us to do something.
What we need is people from outside the the MoD and CS as senior management on the same salary as CAC to ask the sort of questions that filled nigh on 40 years of my working life, when a new manager or HoD started.
Why do you do that?
What is the value in doing things the way you do them?
What about doing like this?
Created some unease, but made you evaluate how, what and why you did things.
Getting senior RAF Officers in the back end of their careers, who have no real need or desire to change and or challenge what we are required to do, has created the stagnant situation we are in today. The FTRS has increased this stagnation, at least with the 2 year sunset jobs we knew what to expect. I thought that having people in post for 5 years would be a positive, that was wrong.
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From CE region’s Instagram:
Central & East Region are delighted to announce two key changes to the Region as part of the RAFAC ASTRA change programme:
From 1 Sep 22, as part of the RAFAC Combined Cadet Force - Royal Air Force Integration programme, CCF(RAF) units from within the Training, Evaluation & Support Team (TEST) East Area came under the command of Central & East Region. This integration incorporates the majority of the current Regional Central and East boundaries and supports 38 Units, which have approximately 1,800 cadets and 100 uniformed CFAV. Their units are a diverse mix of independent and state schools, with the oldest dating back to the earliest years of military cadets, and the newest unit is currently in the process of standing up. More information on the history of the CCF can be found here - Combined Cadet Force | History
From 1 Oct 22, Essex Wing with its 27 Squadrons, circa 1,000 cadets and 300 CFAV have now fully joined the Region from LaSER as part of the Reserve Forces and Cadet Association (RFCA) boundary alignment programme. Essex Wing HQ continues to be headquartered in Chelmsford and the Wing is now aligned within the East Midlands RFCA boundary along with the Region’s Norfolk & Suffolk, Herts & Bucks and Bedfordshire & Cambridgeshire Wings.
Read more here - https://www.centraleast-atc.org.uk/archives/6362
Further changes to the region will come as part of the ASTRA programme and are expected to be complete by 31st March 2023 at the latest.
so this took slightly longer than the target of 1st April that Comdt set out in his letter.
I suppose a 6 month delay in this org is only a slight delay. 
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Will be a 12 month delay before it’s finished.
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Or paused?
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April 1st 2023 is the new time table
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Is that deliberate?
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Warks and Brum wing have yet to transfer from C and E to WW region but Merseyside left almost immediately.
Leaving before they get caught? Is it still a stereotype if it’s true???
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Herts and Bucks hasn’t been disbanded yet either.
Ive been told the Sqns know the plan and timescales though