Please don’t let this become a rant - as I have asked an official question in VoP about this and RC North has already engaged - but I would be interested to know how common it now is for staff on summer station camps to be ‘properly’ accommodated in their respective messes.
It might be better to PM me with information rather than post. I’m not interested in getting ACLOs into trouble or making their lives difficult - they are hard enough already! - but my recent experiences suggest that (perhaps worsened by COVID, getting used to not having us) it has been institutionally forgotten that RAFAC staff on camp are on duty and are Associate Members of messes for the duration of camp - i.e. it’s a right, not a privilege, to be afforded the facilities of the mess.
It may be a right and not a privilege but when Messes are already overflowing, operating on a one in, one out basis, having to use messes on nearby Army bases as temporary accommodation until rooms free up then RAFAC personal will just have to accept what they are given.
I do wonder if this is more a symptom of a struggling RAF with lack of serviceable accommodation? In the last few years, even since before Covid, it would seem good mess accommodation on bases has been declining from what I’ve heard from a lot of people.
Not going to mention any stations and this is not annual camps but I run courses at an RAF station and book mess accommodation on weekends, while all are very helpful and there is always “some” accommodation on camp. Access to mess accommodation can be difficult. Limited numbers and messes full is a regular thing. Also there is subjective evidence that RAFAC get the annex and never the mess accommodation and numbers are always limited to about 10.
One of the perks of CFAV is access to messes and when I do not get accommodated in the mess I am disappointed. Not the end of the world, but yes, disappointed
Access to RAF stations should be a priority for cadets and staff alike. If the RAF want the RAFAC to be a part of the RAF family, we should not be treated like the unwanted step child and only rolled out when the light blue footprint is wanted.
It is a truism that summer camps are not what they used to be. The RAF is smaller, operational tempo is higher, lean manning and civilianisation of roles means less RAF personnel to give cadets a talk on their job, contracts that forgot to include extra personnel over the summer period, no spare accommodation on stations, dare I say it but the risk appetite has changed and organising camps is now more difficult with more hoops to go through and over worked ACLOs. All have had a detrimental effect on cadet summer camps. An illustration of how camps have changed is transport. Back in the day, transport during camp was an MT bus with an MT driver slated to the camp. Now it’s CFAV driving a minibus.
Should the RAF be doing better? Yes.
Could they do better? Probably not.
But, Summer camps on operational stations were the highlight of the cadet calendar and should not be allowed to die.
Both.
I’m RAFAC and Mr Emz is serving personnel so I see this from both sides.
I’ve been on courses and camps on Station and listened to CFAVs moan about not been in their respective messes while also aware, for example, that a newly posted in SNCO has no room in the Mess on Station and is currently living on a nearby Army Barracks.
What’s disingenuous about it?
Accom is at a premium.
I had 3 months in a 4 man room when I got to my duty station as a tech, having to wait until a room was available for me.
I also had to spend two months in temporary ISO container accomodation whilst a fault was repaired in my room.
If regs can’t get adequate accom, then why should CFAVs take priority?
Not saying it’s correct, but thats the way of it.
I’m currently CFC, but was non-commissioned as a regular. So long as I have somewhere to put my head down and to get some scran, I couldn’t give 2 monkeys which mess I’m in. The JRs might not like having an officer in their mess, but that’s a different discussion.
It is absolutely this. Despite the forces shrinking hugely there is still not enough suitable (key word here) accommodation to go round.
There is plenty of unsuitable accommodation though…
Odiham has been tented for years. If we’re expecting the cadets to be out in 12x12s for the week, then it should be fine for the staff. If we’re saying it’s not ‘appropriately rested’ for the staff, then it’s not good enough for 6 nights for the cadets, IMO.
The original question was a musing, based on a different issue with a specific camp which I won’t mention but which did surprise me - going beyond the usual ‘sorry, no accommodation available in the mess’.
For what it’s worth (and I’ve probably said it on here before) I think it would be helpful if CFAVs were allowed to book accommodation directly for summer camps. If the ACLO goes to the accommodation cell and says ‘can I have 8 rooms in the Offrs’ mess for four weeks in the summer’ the answer is very likely to be no. If each individual officer books their own, there’s a chance at least some will get rooms.
I’ve done Odiham in tents - twice, in fact, in consecutive years, 2018 and 2019, and in 2019 we had a small number of rooms in the mess (2 or 3?) which I allocated to junior officers and the female staff member (as she had the worst duty rota); all officers Flt Lt and above slept in tents. As Camp Comdt I slept in my own 2 man tent out the back of the admin tent. I’m sure you would all do the same.
You want to tell that to RAF Benson, who accommodated me (Officer) in the WOs and Sgts mess one year, and made all officers eat and use the bar in the Sgts mess on another visit.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to play the cards you’re dealt with.
My God … I bet you had to use steel cutlery and eat strange foods …nuggets and I believe things they call chips!
…I expect no G&T in the bar …just Pale Ale?
…oh the suffering …
I think in this case that is irrelevant. If the sleeping conditions are bad enough that a CFAV can’t safely deliver RtL training because of it, then the conditions are also not good enough for children to be sleeping in for a week.
I had no issue with the tents at Odiham at all! I was there as a cadet, 6 (or 4?) of us per 12x12 if I remember correctly. It was fine.
We were kept awake a bit by Chinooks doing night training. But that would have been the case if we were in hard accom anyway.
Biggest issue was having to walk over to the ablutions across the sports field by the old runway! Funnily enough you can actually see the Odiham tent setup on Google maps…
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