The (very) small staff team on my squadron have had some tough discussions recently… I would be interested to hear about people who have had a similar experience.
The problem, in a nutshell, is a chronic shortage of staff. The squadron has been single-manned four times in the last 6 months. If we knew when it would happen, we would stand the squadron down, but the situations aren’t predictable (demanding jobs and care responsibilities).
The good: We have a training programme that we are proud of, run lots of off-squadron activities, and we think that cadet numbers are healthy (20-25) considering our situation. Our facilities are good and we have recently been successful with a large lottery grant which has funded new projects and lots of IT and AT gear.
The bad: We desperately need new staff and have asked for help from our sector commander, but nothing has materialised. We haven’t been successful with staff recruitment but honestly we haven’t tried much. Putting time and energy into recruitment and subsequent training of new staff is risky, compared with the relative certainty of putting time and effort into running training and organising activities for the cadets. (What happened to the recruitment project at HQAC? We desperately need some guidance, support, best practice, etc. in this area.)
The ugly: We expect to lose our Adj within a year (a change in employment means his journey to/from squadron is now extremely undesirable) and our CWO (to the RAF) within a few months. I can already feel myself burning out and I can’t see how the squadron could remain viable (see below) with only an OC and a Cdt Sgt as the highest NCO.
The context: We operate in a particularly deprived area of a large city with 4-6 squadrons, depending on where you draw the line. None of the squadrons seem to be doing particularly well. Another city in the same region has 2-3 squadrons, all relatively strong compared with our city. The next squadron is only 5-10 minutes down the road, in a more salubrious part of town with better transport connections. We collaborate on many activities but their staff are busy as well, and we operate on different parade nights which don’t fit well into their routines.
My thought: I’ve been in the Corps for 6 years and I know that squadrons go through cycles. I said above that I don’t see how the squadron can remain viable with only 2 staff - but it depends how you define ‘viable’. I know the Corps is very good at keeping squadrons running, even if they are scraping along the bottom. I would hate to see that happen to my unit as we are proud of our training programme - I know we offer a much better cadet experience than some other units who are lucky enough to have far larger staff teams. On the one hand, there’s no benefit to the cadets or the Corps in a squadron that’s running on empty. On the other hand, once a unit is closed or merged, it’s very unlikely to re-open, and the local area will lose a community asset that it desperately needs.
I don’t expect anything to happen in the short term, and we’re not going to rush into anything, but we can’t put ourselves into a worse situation by thinking about and planning for the future. I think a business would call it continuity planning.
I would be very interested to hear about other squadrons that reached a “crisis point” and how (or whether) they were able to deal with it. I hope I’ve not come across as a “when I leave the squadron will fold” type - because I know that’s almost always not true and that the Corps will find a way to continue doing what it does. I’m just struggling to see the benefits to the Corps of two nearby units continuing to struggle along, when I can imagine them thriving “better together”.