so I had a request of doing an nco /staff swap night where cadets become the officers and staff and staff become cadets for a night. Anyone ever doing this before and if so what things did you do ,activities etc?
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I would go back to the person who requested it off you & ask them what they envisaged.
Dealing with the angry neighbours who is upset over parent parking or the civcom member who wants to spend funds on a Sqn museum may not be the idea of fun that was intendedâŚ.
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Personally I would thank whoever has given the request but politely advise them itâs not appropriate or possible. It might sound âkill-joyâ but if there was an accident that night or a fire emergency who is responsible, the cadets as officers or officers as cadets? The lines become blurry, I personally donât have a problem with tasking out jobs for example, if there is a gala or parade coming up giving parts for the cadets to plan while I will do the paperwork around it etc and if they get really bored if they want to shadow me, then I would be fine with that too. But the role reversal for me doesnât work.
Iâm not sure it does - we ran one recently and the cadets were well understanding of the fact (even without us needing to brief them) that they had free reign over the night in line with their ârankâ, but anything serious happening would override it all and the "real"staff would step up to manage it.
Like, while I can see the theoretical issue, I donât see any cadet with a ârankâ trying to take control in lieu of the actual staff when something that serious happens- they know itâs all a bit of fun and whoâs really in charge where appropriate.
Itâs an activity Iâve seen multiple units do successfully, when done properly it absolutely can be both.
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I think this is the key bit to me - itâs not a no but there is a bit of what exactly is the plan otherwise it can turn into a bit of farce.
I think one bit thatâs close to but not is when you have a dining in night & a cadet is selected to be Mr Vice (president) of the dinner.
Again with planning & support can work really well.
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I think having the staff serving the cadets Christmas dinner is as close as Iâd want to go to this. At least serving food would be a productive use of staff time.
Yeah, to be fair our âFlt Ltâ for the night had put together a solid written plan beforehand that had been discussed with the (actual) Flt Lt, so we were confident it wouldnât be a total mess.
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You dont have to have a full swap âŚ.might be fun to set up and office scenario with Cadets acting as Staff and having to deal with an inject âŚ.Staff playing grumpy neighbours âŚnoise complaint etc etc .
Can be set up in an office / classroom âŚ.a bit like they do in OT at Cranwell âŚ.
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Now thatâs starting to sound more like useful training. We did something similar on IMLC
As an addition to the above âŚ.might be even better to get a member of the civ com or even a Parent in (not related to the Cadets roleplaying!) âŚ.as that gives it more of a âoutsiderâ vibe rather than the Cadet seeing his CO / Adj etc sitting there pretending to be a neighbour! âŚâŚplenty of possibilities!
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Just seen that Swansea sea cadets have done a night & made it work (love the sticky label rank insignia)
We have ran these nights annually at my squadron with awesome feedback!
We get the cadets to self âappointâ their chain of command for the night and all staff members hand over their rank slides to their cadet counterpart. We go a little further with the Cadet SNCOâs also stepping down for the night in favour of often the junior cadets at the squadron.
As for the running of the parade night, this is typically the same as most âNCO Nightsâ with the âappointedâ staff pre-planning their activities.
All cadets are briefed during first parade about the ground rules of the night including expectations and safety. As the staff become âcadetsâ for the night, there is an adult supervising the activities and all are aware of the âNo Duff Ruleâ where the phrase âNo Duffâ is used by an adult staff member then this direction is coming from them within their adult rank/responsibility role.
Yes, these nights do lose a little bit of the usual military bearing and are generally fun nights, however it is a good opportunity for cadets to understand a little bit of the staffs role at the squadron, and MOST importantly is great at identifying hidden leaders. Often a shy cadet is âappointedâ Sgt for the night and they display great potential.
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I understand most years at xmas you will often find senior officers in the JRM serving junior staff their xmas lunches
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