Mandatory releasing Wing / Region Activities to all eligible cadets

Adult Staff
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Discuss:

When activities at Wing or Region level are made available on SMS / Portal, should they automatically be made available to all cadets - without the Squadron OC’s authorisation?

Example - I was involved with Wing Road Marching - we would advertise training activities, invite all the squadrons on the Wing… then find that a week or two later pretty much the same units, week in, week out hadn’t released the activity to their cadets.

Discussing this with acquaintances, the typical answers / reasons / justifications I’ve had range included:

“The activity is so far away from our unit, I didn’t bother”

“It’s a boring activity anyway - who cares?”

“I don’t think my cadets will be interested”

“We’ve never really had much interest in the past”

“It’s my squadron and I’ll decide what they get to see!”

My instinct, is when an activity is being offered - and it is already staffed, meaning cadets simply have to get themselves to and from the starting point etc - has been approved by with the WRMO or RRMO, why should Sqn staff be vetoing it and preventing cadets from participating?

The only sensible justification I’ve heard is “the event clashes with a Squadron event - such as fund raising / community event or similar.

I’m genuinely interested to hear other people’s opinions…?

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I’d certainly agree that Wing courses (perhaps those created by the Wing SME account) should be automatically advertised to all cadets in the Wing.

I have similar experiences that a recent RM course was only advertised to 50% of the Sqn’s in the Wing

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I put all on Cadet Portal, except any where we may wish to “control” which cadets go on (sports, comps that sort of thing). But have just found out this week, if changes are made to the event by owner, they dont always filter through to cadets, you have to physically update cadet portal, which is okay so long as you know about the change!

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It’s a big fat No from me.

Refusing to advertise activities on Cadet Portal is a discipline issue, and needs to be treated as such. Using technology to mask the issue will still leave you with sqn staff who can and will veto your activity.

Not all of the reasons you listed are invalid. Perhaps it is too far away? Perhaps the cadets do find it boring?

Sqn commanders should be allowed to advertise the activities they feel are appropriate for their cadets. If you have any concerns about their judgement, deal with it properly.

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I advertise everything as soon as it’s through, though it does really annoy me when they’re still in draft the day before the event. We’d get crucified if that was us.

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This has been raised numerous times and there will be arguments from both sides of the house.

Those running activities that don’t get promoted at units and those who run the units and want some control over their AOR.

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This used to be my opinion, but now I’m the person who had to share it, my decision had been swayed slightly. I’m still on the ‘no fence’, but not as strongly.

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I definitely agree that if someone is running a wing activity they should be able to advertise it to all the cadets in the wing, if squadron staff aren’t advertising events for the reasons you stated then they’re just keeping opportunities away from the cadets

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I often find that events are sometimes offered to our Sqn (mainly from other Sqn’s) without much detail on them and no email to back it up. If you are going to invite another Sqn, I think that you should at least email them to let them know and explain what it is etc. I have also seen events appear (not sure how) without the unit getting notified at the top of the page - if you have a long list of events, this could very easily be missed.

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Yes, this a big problem. The details box just having one sentence that gives no information, and no AO or JIs attached. Really annoys me that.

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Thanks everyone for the replies so far, they’ve helped with a number of aspects I hadn’t thought of.

At the end of the day - my view is regardless of the Squadron Commander’s attitude towards a particular event in terms of “interest” - surely it’s down to cadets to work out for themselves.

I can appreciate that there may be some, who worry that by advertising an event to their cadets - they may feel “obliged” to arrange / provide transport from their unit to the event.

More worryingly, they may be worried that they may be asked to participate themselves, whether as an active participant or in support

I’m slightly concerned that there’s always the possibility that a refusal to advertise certain activities, just because they’re being conducted by a certain individual / team in regards to safety / conduct / behaviour etc, but I would have thought that any such concerns would have been addressed via the CoC.

I also appreciate that your replies mostly echo everything I’ve said, so apologies for preaching to the choir!

In terms of an activity Commander restricting an activity to certain units / cadets - there’s obviously the need for this, for events that follow pre-attended, or qualified individuals - but this all gets sorted when raising the App.

With regards to excessive distance / travel to and from an activity - in the great scheme of things - “that’s life”.
There will often be a situation where there’s an activity that requires support from parents - but on the other foot, only by advertising activities to all, will activity commanders learn the true level of interest… and potentially plan / change locations accordingly.

I think there’s certainly many arguments in favour of the opportunity to veto activities that conflict with Sqn own activity - but, when activity is being provided that leads to qualifications - surely it’s wrong to restrict opportunities?

In previous seasons, we’ve had RM activity routinely supported / ignored by the same squadrons.

We have an active Social Media account, that is used to support the activity - with photos etc post event - but also to notify members to “keep an eye out on CP for the next event…”

This would frequently prompt conversations about “why hasn’t my sqn advertised it?” - “go back and speak to your staff… any problems, come back…” - “they still won’t” - cue call to the WExO…

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There’s no point calling a WExO about it. They aren’t part of the volunteer management system.

I hate road marching and I make that very clear. I think people who take part need a life and a better hobby. I still advertise it to cadets though and if a staff member wanted to go they could use our SOV to transport people if relevant.

Forcing units to share things on an opt out basis isn’t helpful to the majority of squadrons who do the right thing and further punishes us. It is a nightmare trying to coordinate diaries as it is, suddenly if I find that I have cadets on 3 separate wing activities when I’m running an important sqn event that causes me grief that I don’t need.

Leave it as opt in, but maybe give some WSOs the ability to override a decision if the sqn are being clowns.

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This is the main reason & why local Sqn Cdrs should decided. So say for example your Sqn is looking to deliver a Christmas camp and you are finalising the details, got the bookings confirmed & then just before you can advertise on portal another Christmas camp is put out to your cadets at wing & sector level.

Your event that you’ve worked hard on is then sunk because another person has effectively poached cadets and/or staff.

Sqn Cdrs need to manage & coordinate things at their level as they are the ones with the best information about local events. Yes your event is important to you but not everyone else has that emotional attachment.

Volunteer organisations are bottom up so you need to grow the interest rather than impose it. If you automatically advertise the events for cadets. If you impose you take the agency away from the squadron staff & then wing becomes a spoon feeder & not an enabler (& too much pressure is on wing)

You also have to manage cadet & welfare - it’s not healthy to do cadet events every weekend & I have personally chosen to not advertise events on cadet portal to give everyone a break & remove that peer pressure for cadets to “take advantage of the opportunity”. The fear of missing out is a strong one & sometimes the eligible cadets need that support that it’s okay not to do things.

The other thing is that there may not be Sqn staff capacity to manage any admin that the top-down event requires particularly if the event is short notice.

Finally there are have been a few wing events from the same SME where it’s been advertised & pushed at wing & then cancelled last minute which is just demoralising. I also took our Sqn off one event as I didn’t believe the safe system was in place, it went ahead & no incidents so they must have rectified the issues on the day.

As someone said above it’s a trust & discipline issue but OC Sqns + Adjs must be the gate keepers. If Sqns arent advertising then you need to speak directly to those squadrons OCs & see what the issue is. This will get you more buy in than trying to impose the change on Sqn or the hostility you would build if you rang the WExO.

It could also be simply that the Sqn has been invited to so many events that they’ve just missed it from their dashboard.

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Can I suggest that Wing SMEs create announcements on SMS to display in Cadet Portal, this allows notification of the event and should provide a contact email for queries if they can’t see it.

Also have you approached the units directly to ask?

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This is exactly what i do…not sure if it works though, but yeah try and tell the cadets to ask their staff.

But for the record - im the bucket of if a wing event is made i think it should br auto shared to all and then OCs need to unshare it…then they can be asked why.

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From an SME perspective, asking 15 or so units why they’ve not shared it is a big administrative burden I don’t have the time for.

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I do accept arguments from both sides, however I do agree WHQ/RHQ should be able to override it.

I think an ideal middle ground would be a delay on it being automatically made available on Cadet Portal, say 1/2 weeks from it being created the Sqn has the option to go in as they do now and share it or to “reject” it and choose not to share it. However if they do neither it’s automatically made available. This should also be backed up by an email alert to the Sqn accounts so they know the new event exists and then when it’s been shared because they ignored it.

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This pushes yet more admin down on me, and again punishes people doing the right thing rather than taking to task people doing the wrong thing.

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I dont think sqn ocs should get to decide what opportunities are offered to their cdts outside sqns. If the event exists and they want to go and can get their themselves then why are you stopping them

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For the reasons listed above. It clashes with something. It isn’t safe. It is down to us to decide why, not the wing or even worse the region.

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