One of my pet hates - multiple times I’ve had cadets ask about opportunities they’ve seen on SM before I’ve seen them via BADER. IDK - whether it’s the organisers being thoroughly aware of the comms difficulties in the RAFAC and pushing it out via SM to ensure saturation or some other reason.
Whilst faith is to be placed in the CoC, does that logic only apply if it is robust and effective, and who’s job is it to ensure that it is? I’d assume that all RAFAC wide comms are pushed to WCO’s with RCO copy to ensure the message was getting out?
Otherwise, BADER infrastructure very able to effect RAFAC > Sqn OC comms but that doesn’t seem to happen too often #ilikecheese
On the subject of a JL type Course for Staff … would the average Staff member be fit enough? anyway …
Leadership aspect aside, I’d wager a pint that our Wing’s Fieldcraft Instructor Course is on a par with the best, as we have an excellent FC Training Team. Probaly not as physically demanding as the JL Course, but development wise and Instructional wise I’d say its good.
Now that Blanks can be used too, its gone from a tried and tested format back to the partial experimental stage but I’m confident we’ll embrace and assimulate that new change into it as well.
I wouldn’t count on having too much blank ammunition to throw around in coming years unless you have a source outside of the RAF AC supply chain such as a friendly armoury who will borrow from another AER.
TBH how many adults would be prepared to give up that many weekends? In our Wing they’ve done FMS courses over two weekends and many staff find it difficult to do this, fitting them around work patterns and that funny thing known as family life. Of course in typical Air Cadet style this means nothing, so people didn’t and haven’t bothered.
The only people that might do this are the young staff, if they want to forgo weekends on the lash.
For me; JL is an important offering, ultimately I don’t agree with just offering loads of taster sessions and no development, so courses like JL, QAIC, ACPS etc are crucial in allowing cadets to get those specialist qualifications and experiences that are going to help them with employment, careers, etc. All those saying “they will leave”, of course they will, and that’s a good thing, I left cadets at 19, but my positive experiences meant I came back later as a member of staff. This year I had 3 cadets go through JL, and one who acted as a cadet DS (or QJL as he likes to call it). A great experience for them all, but, 2 of them are heading off to Uni in Sept, 1 of them times out, and one is going straight into uniform as a CFAV. Should this mean we didn’t let them go? Of course not. We aren’t here to provide courses only for people who stay in the organisation, if that had been the case when I was a cadet I would have missed out on a number of opportunities since I didn’t immediately stay as Staff. However I’ve now been back as a member of staff for over 10 years - so good investment in the long term no?
Regards courses for staff - I think this organisation is very good in terms of staff course provision. I’ve benefitted from completing Level 5 and 6 ILM qualifications for basically peanuts which have supported me in my day job, the cost of NGB’s at Fairbourne and Windermere is peanuts, I have a number of staff who’ve benefitted from that. I saw the other day that there was offer of a post graduate course at Warwick University - I mean c’mon, what more do people want? In terms of Fieldcraft, I did an exercise assistant course is No.7 SATT a couple of years ago, which was all the fieldcraft pew pew bang bang stuff, so there are opportunities out there for that as well - why not upskill and head on M Qual or SAAI?
Fair point.
We do have a backlog of staff let alone Cadets needing the L98 IWT. It’s a bit of a blocker to doing other activities but maybe this should be a new thread?
We’re talking about the CWS that you attach your CWS to, it’s as simple as Brexit where No Deal is actually WTO Deal but that doesn’t sound very scary so we say No Deal
anyway 
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