James, how will the change to cadets’ usernames be communicated to them?
I asked my staff cadets and they said there wasn’t an announcement on cadet portal - is there plans for that?
I can obviously share on our closed Facebook, but that won’t catch all cadets!
I know it won’t impact them until 24th but I want to be prepared!
We aren’t starting comms for the cadet change until the 17th after the CFAV accounts are done. We will be doing:
Awesome… I never doubted you 
can you define who “they” are???
with a RBL hat on i engage with youth groups - the RAFAC is easy, not just because I am in the organisation, but emails are predictable.
I have a dozen email addresses for detachments and have the following
Armymail.mod.uk – x5
Gmail – x2
Outlook – x1
Hotmail – x2
Talktalk.net – x1
Live.co.uk – x1
RFCA.org.uk – x1
Now I appreciate that the top of that list is armymail, however more than 50% of the contact I have don’t use it. in addition they are for individuals not for detachment specific. For the events I invite the Cadet Forces too, at least two of the ACF contacts have changed since the last contact, such is the rapid succession the ACF go through detachment commanders (often one moves elsewhere).
Thank goodness we have OC.123 etc to contact a unit’s commander
Is there an easy/predictable way to contact the RBL, I really want to reach out ahead of November as the new OC, and understand from speaking to my current team that normally the RBL person would just turn up at the Squadron.
A quick look at the ACF website suggests most of the permanent staff use RFCA email addresses 
by email yes and no…
like the RAFAC the RBL uses a standard email format - namely @rbl.community
what goes before matches the RAFAC approach, in that it is unit and position.
ie -
branch.chairman
branch.secretary
branch.treasuer
(and other “executive” officers)
and rather than a general account those Branch committee members who would like/feel they would use an email address get
branch.committeX where X is a number 1, 2, 3, in the same was WSO is used.
so that is the “yes” to my “yes and no”
the no…
not many Branches use this and if you have worked with the RBL there are lots of reasons for this…
1 - the RBL community hate change, if you saw any comments about moving membership fee collection to a purely online/digital format you’d understand
as such, to them, if @yahoo.co.uk has been working for them, why change it to a more “professional” york.secretary@rbl.community?
2- age. many of the RBL members in the committee are no “spring chickens” and technology is something their grandkids do.
our President is in his 90s, our Chairman in his 80s, our secretary in his 70s
not many of these older members have a PC, let alone email accounts or the desire to use an RBL account.
(for the record our secretary does)
3 - it is optional.
it is made available to Branches, but they can choose which accounts they make active, and a significant number don’t use them at all.
the generalised exception is the secretary account but this is not guaranteed.
i used to be part of the County Committee, and was shocked that the email distribution (before the days of GDPR and bcc’ing) i was one of two, in a distribution of a dozen or so who were not using personal email addresses
if those “at the top” aren’t why should anyone else?
I feel for you - we did a Poppy Appeal fundraiser which totalled £600. it took three months to get the money to our local Branch. with my connections I thought it would be easy, send the secretary an email via branch.secretary@rbl.community
no reply, was chased…then again. ended up going to the MSO (like our WExO in that they are salaried staff, not a volunteer, looking after the County ) and asking what the contact details were…then got through.
an alternative is to look for a website or on Facebook - but see point 2 about the likelihood of those being 1 in place, 2 accurate
the best chance is to search the RBL website , find the “contact us” section and either call up or email requesting details for your local Branch.
chances are they’ll give you the details for the MSO who will hold the contact details you require.
of course the other alternative is to visit them…although appreciate during these times Branches are not holding meetings.
feel free to PM me and I can see what i can do…
my point being is the use of “@armymail…” is not universally used in every detachment or by each ACF CFAV.
and even if it is, only helps if you know the individual and their numbers (example: 3046smith@armymail.mod.uk) but those numbers can be 3 or 4 digits long…
if i want to contact the four local detachements i use the CO’s contact details from last year only to find one has changed and I should now talk to Capt Green not SSI Martins!
All ACF (and CCF(Army)) CFAVs should have a personal Armymail account.
Annoyingly when they brought this in (and insisted they would only be communicating in future on these accounts) they told Contingent Commanders who were RAF(CCF) CFAVs that we couldn’t have one, and made us have Cadetmail accounts instead.
They never made good on the threat only to communicate using those accounts, which is no doubt why many CFAVs and units are still using unofficial emails.
Just a quick reminder that the domain name change to @rafac.mod.gov.uk is tomorrow for CFAVs - should be happening at 0730.
Bader landing site support:
https://www.bader.mod.uk/posts/2020/20200802-domain-change/
SPOL: https://rafac.sharepoint.com/sites/BADERHub/SitePages/Move-to-@rafac.mod.gov.uk-Domain.aspx
@james_elliott Seems to have gone smoothly. Log in worked fine for me.
Couple of points.
On email log in page the is a spelling mistake… ‘noe’ instead of ‘now’.
I have the outlook app on my android phone.
It still shows as set up as OC.123@aircadets.org ditto for one drive.
How do we move this across to @rafac.mod.gov.uk? Thanks!
i had to delete the account from the outlook app and then re-add with the new address.
Do you lose any files if you do that?
i never used onedrive…so not sure
Sorry, I meant with the outlook app.
Are all files including all sent from phone synced to the cloud?
So if I delete the app, I’m not losing any of my email trails?
Yes, the copy on your phone is just a copy, all of the emails are stored on MS servers and can be accessed by Online Web Access / Outlook or the Mobile App
Ok, this is as thought.
But didnt want to delete and suffer catastrophic data loss.
(Use my phone… a lot)
Thanks.
I had that as well - only thing I actually had to change 
Using outlook on laptop doesnt seem to pick up the @radar.mod.gov.uk when you start to type peoples addresses in address bar. Its defaulting to @aircadets.org still.
And yes I deleted them from the address history first!
Just doesnt seem to be finding anyone with that domain in the directory.