200 in the years it ran with all courses, most wouldn’t get on.
Also, your chances of getting on JL were more in your own hands than pure admin luck. If you met the standard, you could get on the course.
And the pass rate was much higher than 50% in all the years I staffed it.
this i suspect is for many reasons, but mainly because of the frequency of attendance.
Squadrons would lose their “best” Cadet SNCO on “key”* weekends as they were at JLs, whereas ACLC was/is a week long camp held during camp season.
Squadrons would notice their missing piece of the Cadet NCO team missing once a month, whereas ACLC was no different to anyone else going away on Summer Camp.
Then there was the JLs who came back - there was always a story to tell from each weekend, and often the candidates in the Wing were known so when our Cadet returned we knew who they were referring to.
ACLC came back from their course during the summer, which is one of the quietest/most poorly attended months of the year and so whatever they wanted to shout about was as a one off occasion to a much smaller audience.
there is also the selection process as @Baldrick has indicated. there would be alot of excitement in the Wing as the half dozen or more potentials all went on the selection weekend to prove fitness etc. Some would make it, others not - and there was gossip around that - how close someone came to getting binned/scraping through.
ACLC wasn’t like that and less visible in the selection process and tougher eligibility (age/rank)
*by best I mean a notable SNCO of the team, likely one who would turn up to all the weekend stuff, be it the dull car parking and bag packing or the more exciting badge worthy elements too
by “key” weekends, this was potluck, but often there would be a push by the Sqn OC for “maximum attendance” for some event or another and that would happen to fall on the next JL weekend at least once in the course.
What was the third?
This all makes sense. When I did ACLC it included a 1.5-mile timed run on the first day, with the threat of being sent home if we didn’t make the time. No one really knew about this because by the time you completed the course it was a distant memory and not the best anecdote.
It also included a couple of nights living in bashas and on 24-hour ration packs: but it wasn’t a fieldcraft course.
There was a full day of road marching, but no badges for that in those days (except for Nijmegen). There wasn’t a badge for ACLC for that matter: I got a t-shirt.
In the town hall they talked about a third one, but I’d never heard of it. Possibly this?
There was a badge for CLC, where you could also get a t-shirt when the Frimley course was open to air cadets.
Is that not what the current golf course is that’s being piloted? That’s longer though: one weekend and one whole week.
Was CLC the third route to a gold leadership badge?
Technically you could do a 4th, I can’t remember which brigade but one of them ran a Leadership course for the ACF, and as such the ATC, SCC, and CCF were invited. HQAC classified it as gold leadership course for any Air Cadets that went
Nescliff
There was either a leadership badge or no leadership badge, and certainly no blue to gold rating. I was DS on CLC long before badges for everything for everyone became a thing.
I remember the ACLC leadership badge being around in 1996.
It’s the current leadership badge with a gold eagle & blue background and was the only leadership badge.
Was exactly the same when I did it in 2000, this was before the rank based restrictions. We did get a badge though as well as a T-Shirt.
If I remember correctly Frimley had a different badge that you couldn’t wear, but it entitled you to wear the Air Cadet Leadership badge the same as ACLC.
I remember some people wearing the Frimley CLC badge on their combat jackets, but in the area covered by the flap of the button on the arm, or something.
Anyway, the only badges on my brassard when I left were the mudguard, sqn number, and RAF marksman. As was the case for many cadets at the time: everything else was either sewn onto the jumper (DofE, gliding, etc.) or represented only by a lanyard (staff cadet, part 2), or the t-shirts and badges that couldn’t be worn that we’ve already discussed.
Cadet direct seem to insinuate that this was the badge for Nesscliffe and Frimley. Take with a pinch of salt!
That’s the one I remember from when I was a cadet ~15 years ago.
That’s the one I knew. Same badge for ACLC or CLC Frimley. Don’t recall if Frimley gave me a different one not in our regs. We did blank fire the A1 though…
When I was involved at Frimley, the air cadets were issued the red Frimley CLC badge (not to be worn on brassard) and the air cadet (blue oval with gold eagle) badge for wear on brassard.
That’s the one!
