I was being slightly rhetorical.
The reasons are obvious to anyone who has been around long enough.
We have been let down massively and the problem with the last and current is their admin background and then coming into an organisation effectively run by people (us) who are just used to getting on with things in their real lives as they are outside the MOD bubble.
The one before the current one especially seemed to have a belief that you can ‘admin’ your way through things and stop people doing things by increasing the admin to do even the simplest of things. I’m not entirely convinced the current one has a clue and is far too absorbed in SM and living the dolce vita, until her time ends. She probably couldn’t believe her luck, retire as a Groupie and then a few years later come back as a Air Cdre and get a salary like that without having to take any real responsibility and rubbing shoulders with royalty and celebs into the bargain? Which is not what you would have expected given what she did immediately before. You have to wonder where the drive and tenacity to get something like the RAF Families up and running disappeared to almost immediately on taking the Air Cadet role. Now we’re lumbered until 2020 and it makes you wonder what sort of organisation we’ll be left with as it’s not looking good. You’d have more luck turning an ocean going oil tanker on a sixpence than getting the ATC back.
well said Teflon
photo opportunities with royals and gaining gongs seem to be top priority. meanwhile it has become apparent that governance is in breach of charity law and bullying and intimidation of squadron trustees (committee members) is common place and lip service is paid child safeguarding when it comes to the imperative of cover up.
take as it you will and to the defence of @bob i read the point being we’ve moved from a pilot with a flying interest to a “bluntie” (and with regards our CAC 2x adminers) with reduced flying interest/passion.
i didn’t read the use of “bluntie” as a reason for incompetence, more a different interest or passion to follow.
consider the units in a Wing there will be one known as “the drill” Squadron, or the “shooting/Radio/AT/DofE/model making/Banner drill/Music/band*” Squadron which will be down to the interest, passions and skills of those leading the unit, namely the Staff and OC.
the organisation OC (ie CAC) is not a pilot, has little/no experience or interest or experience in flying so why would they find said passion within the organisation when it offers a platform already for what they do already have an interest in?
During the Moulds era it was explained to me his passion behind the RACs was because (possibly a family member/son? if not friend’s son) a Cadet went flying it was a whole day out only for no flying to occur. It was suggested why are there not other activities which could have been conducted at the Flying venue should weather/pilots/aircraft not be suitable for a flying experience to make the day worthwhile?
Moulds like the idea, saw the merit in it and justified the plan - And so the RAC plan was born. - he had the interest and passion to get it going.
talk to some and they say Aunty Dawn has an interest in being a Social Media Queen and it shows…as identified by @Teflon
I a apologise for my generalisation of ‘blunties’ but the last two incumbents of the AOCs post have epitomised those who are unsuitable for a mangerial role in particular when they are not held to account properly by the COC.
But then why put someone with no interest in charge of an organisation that has always had flying opportunities for youngster at it’s very heart?
Would you put a vegetarian in charge of Walls (the meat and sausage company)?
Or a passionate meat eater in charge of a company whose out put is vegetarian?
A lot of people I know who have met CAC say she’s a nice lady, but not really suited to this role. As I say where’s the drive and tenacity gone? I got the impression that she pushed, prodded and banged on desks to get the RAF Families up and running. How we should all wish for that sort of person.
Or, we could look at it from the point of view that the previous succession of pilot bods were more than happy for thousands of children to go flying in aircraft that couldn’t be proven airworthy and were, by definition, unsafe…
But if said aircraft passed safety checks, where is the problem, especially if you consider it like an MOT, once you’ve moved the car, the MOT is immediately invalid.
I know gliders and powered a/c that have been grounded because they were u/s, so a bit rash to say they were lax. If they were there would have been a lot more incidents and stopped long before the RAF got their hands on it.
Also CAC didn’t have anything to do with the ‘pause’ or losses of powered flying. Which is why you have to wonder what exactly the CAC role is? Well other than racking up selfies. When the gliding and AEF went up the spout, if she was half the person she came across as, she’d have been insisting other routes were found to deliver the flying experience. Not just the photo shoot days.
because she was the best person for the job? or perhaps because she was the best of a bad bunch?
because she pleased the right people in the past to give her the job?
it is a question only the RAF can answer - and i guess comes down to
1 - how they see the Air Cadets (as a youth organisation) > what do they want it to achieve
2 - the importance they put on flying Air Cadets
3 - the importance they put on finding the right person
4 - what the selection criteria actually is for CAC - have reached X rank, Y years service, have held a a Z grade Officer position, been generally a good egg throughout service…
That goes back to the institutional arrogance where the ACO command thought they were above the need to comply with new European regulations on gliding and had no recorded to prove the gliders safety.
Just watching 633 Squadron which I have seen many times before. I like the part at the end where the Station Commander says to Harry Andrews playing the AOC, ‘633 squadron probably all dead’ and his reply ‘you can’t kill a Squadron’.
Looks as if the ACO management is having a damn good try though.
LASER decided to close the Squadron despite it apparently having healthy cadet numbers. A letter writing campaign and the intervention of their MP has gotten the decision reversed.
I would think Stoke Newington as an area ticks all the diversity boxes and poorer end of the socio economic scale and the thought having Diane Abbott talk at you for any length of time (well more than 2 seconds) would affect the decision.
if it had been in a less ethnically diverse area, it might not have been the same.
Mind you does HQAC collect diversity info on SMS? It never did.
Our school has quite a diverse cohort (over 50%) and seems to attract money and goodies and no one is naïve enough to think it’s for any other reason. But no one says it out loud, outside the staffroom and private conversations. Even the coloured teachers say we benefit financially because of it.
Deprived areas tend to have a greater proportion of minorities than affluent ones. There are grants available for deprived areas that aren’t open to those in affluent ones (for obvious reasons). I’ve run a Squadron in a financially deprived area and it’s not easy!
What I find surprising is that anyone in a HQ either at Region or Corps could look at one of the financially worst well off areas of London, where youth crime and violence is rampant and think “what that area needs is less productive things for young people to do”.
Those at Wing, Regional and Corps level live in ‘nice’ areas and rarely venture into the inner cities unless they have too. They have lived during their reglar service in nice secure areas or as the RAF is not to any extent ‘city’ based but in the countryside where the problems of social deprivation are different, but if they don’t come out from behind the the fence they see nothing.
This is like when ‘care in the community’ has started and the government closed all the big psychiatric hospitals the former patients did not know what was happening to them, very like leaving the armed forces where a lot is provided for and to an extent you don’t have to think. Maybe that is why they invented FTRS.
Where I live the ACO has retreated from the inner city, the CCF are in couple of schools but that does not take young people from the local area unless they go to the school. Those in the school who are disenchanted, bullied or just dislike the idea of people from the school being in command are effectively excluded.
The ACO in effect likes the CCF in schools as funding is from the Department of Education for a guaranteed five years not via the MoD, more money to spend on ivory towers. What if, the school head changes or the school governers change and the enironment to the cadet forces turns hostile and at the end of the five years the unit has to be closed down, what then?
To pick up the point about the numbers game I am not entirely convinced that this plays a part. Contrary to parents wishes they closed the DF at Honington (?) citing shortage of staff and not wanting to poach from other units. The point being that there was a supply of experienced personnel at hand, who evidently did not want to be involved with the RAFAC. Same experience oiund at another location.
My last unit (and the one before that) had healthy cadets numbers, but staff dropped through the interference of Wing, and because we had dropped all the activities which maintained cadet enthusiasm, it seemed pointless for me continuing. Cadets had already started leaving, even those from service families, and at the beginning of 2017 it was down to one member of staff (the OC) with the NCOs (none technically adult) being left to organise the evening, whilst the OC stayed in the Office. So when it comes to statistics, with one member of staff, how do you ensure the correct staff/cadet supervision ratio. But no closure!
It seems to me that the commitment made by CFAVs is only really recognised if you fall to the ground in awe of a senior rank, whereas the proper RAF types I have met and worked with have respect even if you are of the lowest ilk.
I had an uncle who was on Lancs with 35 Sqn, and was for a time Sqn Ldr Station Commander, and then up to 1960 gave his time for his local ATC - the point is it was hands on and the giving of experience and not out for medals and selfies (besides the RAFAC could out do the DFM and a Pathfinder Badge which he had obviously earned the hard way )
Might one also ask what our flying ambassador has achieved?