I’ve been knocking around the organisation for a few years now but in all the units i’ve been associated with none have paraded over the festivities. However i’ve noticed more and more on social media announcing what they are up to like it’s something special that they are still parading and others’ are not. Now, this may have always been an occurance and with the increase in social media i just get to hear about it more, but that begs the question…
Do you? and why/not?
Nope the reason being we all need a break and Christmas is the only time we stand the sqn down
We always shut up shop over the Winter holidays (typically in line with the school break), but at no other time unless there are no staff left to run the squadron (which I think has happened twice in the last decade)
We have had cadet activities taking place while the squadron is stood down though (christmas eve bag-packs for instance) and that requires communication and coordination. Beforehand we would have needed to square everything away before the break but the Internet allows us to keep badgering people and feeding updated info.
I’ve never paraded over the Christmas/New Year period even as a cadet as
1 we all need a break (what my cadet COs said)
2 people aren’t around
Overall it’s just nice not having to worry about it for a couple of weeks.
More so the increasing phenomena of cadets whose parents have parted (much more than when I was younger) and they spend ‘quality time’ with the one they don’t live with. Nearly two thirds of my cadets are in this situation.
I stand down for two weeks in the summer holiday period for essentially the same reasons.
[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=14599]
I stand down for two weeks in the summer holiday period for essentially the same reasons.[/quote]
That’s interesting too. Do you expect a good attendance at other times in the summer, or a Laissez-faire approach?
Stop just before Christmas and return in line with school returns.
It gives us a break, and it’s what we’ve always done.
We generally only shut for 2 or 3 parade nights depending on how they fall, having said that we did have Sqn activities (shooting, b.tech and L98 training) on over the weekend.
[quote=“Plt Off Prune” post=14601][quote=“glass half empty 2” post=14599]
I stand down for two weeks in the summer holiday period for essentially the same reasons.[/quote]
That’s interesting too. Do you expect a good attendance at other times in the summer, or a Laissez-faire approach?[/quote]
Outside of the school holiday period I have an expectation of attendance, unless the cadets tell me they want time off for exams or on holiday.
During the holidays pretty much L-F, as historically/traditionally, and more so now that schools are so anal about term time holidays, most cadets and staff are off at some point during late July and August, it has made sense to stand down for a couple of weeks. I don’t have to take holidays in August anymore thankfully.
I tend to find that all school holiday periods produce lower attendance rates, less so for ½ terms, as parents are forced to take holiday when the schools are on holiday, such that now the training programme is geared to some extent to school holidays. When my kids were at school I used to take at least one or two days a week in most holidays so that we could do something together and when I did I didn’t go to the sqn.
We stand down for 2 weeks over Christmas (in line with school hols) and for 2 weeks in summer.
As stated we all need a break.
We’re unlucky that we all work funny shifts, our CO is offshore infequently for varying lengths of time and our other staff are on shift rotas.
I’ve actually just come off a rota that had nightshift, so I’m the only one that’s there every parade night (unless I go on holiday myself!)
As stated above clsoe down for the “two weeks” in line with th School holidays. we only “shutdown” on the Christmas fair night (official light switch on) in town as it clashes with our parade night, the road closures make it a PITA to get to the Sqn gates and we’d simply not get any Cadets down!
Shift work and awkward (wrt attending parade nights) rotas are more the rule than the exception for sqn staff.