Seriously impressive to be honest. An obvious, and expected drop from 2020 to 2022 from Covid, which is not surprising. But an amazing recovery from 22 to 24.
I know loads of units have been putting in a lot of work to get cadets through the door since covid, so this really shows that has worked, in spite of HQ actions and the reduction in number of CFAV.
Even more interesting:
I know I few units that have put very little work into getting cadets through the door, and theyâre still getting loads of recruits.
I think the maintenance of cadet numbers is simply down to a societal behaviour that HQAC canât manage out and has nothing to do with how appealing the RAFAC offer is.
Parents want their children supervised for them as cheaply as possible.
Spot on
One of my friends sat their squadron commanders course during covid and one of the cohort asked the CoS, instead of putting in all these new courses online and in classrooms, have you thought about asking the cadets what they want to do, to which he got the response:
âIf we asked the cadets what activities they want to do more of, theyâd just say the activities they enjoyâ
Ah thatâs what that spike on the Richter scale in Lincolnshire was - the sound of the course chins collectively hitting the floor.
Cognitive dissonance, willful ignorance, or naivety?
They arenât forced to be cadets, they pay to be cadets, if they donât enjoy being a cadet then they will stop.
Hmm, sounds a bit like the staff situation - not paid, poorly reimbursed, here by choice.
Another example of the military way and mindset being completely antagonistic and inappropriate in a voluntary organisation.
Give me strengthâŚ
Thatâs a perfect illustration of the completely different mindsets of some senior HQAC leaders and most volunteers. Delivering for the RAF (or what they think the RAF and industry need) vs delivering for the cadets (and developing well rounded, confident young people)
After 30+ years in the organisation, Iâve seen a huge move over the last few years away from delivering for cadets. I always thought Iâd be involved with the ATC for life, like so many friends and people that I admire. Itâs not such an appealing option any more, sadly.
This 
These are people who think their kids actually want to do after school Maths club.
Theyâre on Crack.
CFAVs too. We broadly enjoy the same activities as the cadets. We want to get out there, hands on with flying/VGS, fieldcraft, shooting, AT, etc. Letâs have more of what the troops want instead of what HQAC want. None of us want to teach boring classroom lessons to disinterested cadets.
What you want doesnât fit in with STEM direction. STEM and sitting in a classroom is very low risk and âsafeâ, that does not inspire people outside the wire and cadets have enough of classroom based lessons every day of the week at school. Cadets come to the RAFAC for something different and to be away from staring at a screen.
And yet we turn more and more towards it.
Strongly disagree.
Flying = STEM, particularly if you fold in a bit of practical principles of flight.
Many leadership tasks are tech/engineering based
AT - navigation techniques such as resection are applied mathematics.
Bit of a stretch, but even shooting has mechanical/maths elements at long range/automatic levels.
We can do practical STEM. In some places weâre already good at it (try convincing me First Aid isnât science). We need to emphasize the practical bit more.
Fact of life. Practical cyber is boring as hell.
Depends âŚ
Lecture people about Windows Updates yes.
But thereâs plenty of age appropriate free resources out there. Even our own course doesnât have to be dull. Just have to deliver it well.
âIf one click adjusts 13mm at 25m, how many mm will it move the fall of shot at 100 metresâŚ?â
^ exactly this.