But, anyone who has graduated from QAIC will argue that they pay for travel, at personal cost, whenever they help out or instruct on NAC, RIAT, or any other organised sqn/sector/wing/region aerospace events.
But…lets not thread drift from the fact that a load of cadets have been dissappointed at short notice, once again, for no logical reason!
Correct.
Parent contribution required.
The org stumps for the event.
This money could go into say… providing an equipment budget per Sqn of £1000 per year.
That would be just shy of a 400 mile round trip for one of my Cadets, and I dread to think of the cost of a rail fare for same journey.
I wouldn’t be keen on stopping travel costs for this, because what other events do you then stop it for? JL, ACLC, Gliding / Flying Scholarships etc…
Stopping travel would make it a two tier system, many Cadets would immediately be excluded on the basis of geography or finances, that isn’t right.
Granted, the use of rail warrants and the financial implications needs looking at, but I wouldn’t want the costs not covered.
It’s a balance of where best to spend the limited money.
For a few cadets on a few big ticket items… QAIC, JL etc…
Or provide basics for all cadets.
If most Sqns cant provide for a tent or compass for first class training…
What’s the point in letting 1 cadet per wing go on QAIC etc…?
I appreciate it’s public money and all that, but I am always very nervous about losing funding for things, whatever it is, partly because of the two-tier system that @alexw describes, but also because if we lose this money, it won’t go back into other Air Cadet activity and we will never see it again. The transport budget is funded through the RAF so it is not up to the RAFAC to choose how to spend it, and on a local level as long as the activity is an approved one, travel should be funded.
It’s a bit like the squadron number badge situation. It was decided that squadrons should pay for them until they sorted the process out. I asked recently about this and was told they would never be funded again, the money has gone back to the RAF to be utilised elsewhere.
TLDR: The travel budget isn’t an RAFAC one as such - we can’t spend it on something else. If we say we don’t want to fund these activities anymore, we never will be able to again.
We are really thread drifting now, but I just want to add that I fully support the current systems of costs being covered. Otherwise where do they stop? Suddenly we’d be having to pay for coaches and the like our selves. The budget is completely separate anyway, so if we save £1m on transport costs that doesn’t mean that money will go into other things.
We could always actually approach the RAF with a sensible worked out budget plan of what we do want going forward.
We dont just have to accept the old mantra of when it’s gone it’s gone.
Will it take more that three years to decide? It’s just as this is the average posting duration & the amount is not likly to be that much so the person who would either have to make the decision or put worth the business case probably won’t want to spend the political capital & time pushing this through & on implementing it before their duration is up.
Unfortunately I have found in the public sector the timeliness of getting a decision/approval is inversely proportion the amount being asked for. & this is before they start arguing which budget code it is to be paid out of.
You want £80? Hmm that might be tricky don’t think we will be able to do that.
You want £15000 for a project? Sounds fab crack on & let us know if it’s viable.
A bit of hybrid training will be okay but one good thing is because the ATC didn’t relax on masks etc indoors (despite us all moaning) we don’t have to get the cadets back into the habit & we don’t have re certify Sqns as covid safe as precautions shouldn’t be relaxed.
I know a lot of the time there are moans about HQACs reluctance or timeliness in actioning things but this time it seems it’s worked out as the right long term call & saved us a load of paperwork.
just to bring this into perspective. The new rules in England are more or less what we have had in Wales since the relaxation months ago. England is now inline with Wales
Alright ‘woh.A.ules’!
(Say it out loud as written.)
Good for you.
So given the new rules and that we must work from home if we can, does that mean Cadets is back to Microsoft Teams. As surly we can “work” from home by definition.
By definition volunteers don’t work so all good 
Seriously though it’s not a stay at home order & volunteers were excempt
I think the corps couldn’t hold onto its volunteers if it goes full shut down again - it’s been hard enough with the reboot.
These new rules are like I before E except after C, there’s more exceptions than things that follow said rule. So it isent really a rule.
No change apart from WHQs working from home
No TEAMS or similar thank you very much.
Lost the will to live with this in the first period at work and then having to do it in the evening for cadet stuff that the cadets were equally enthused about, once the novelty effect wore off.
If every online meeting was like the ones on TV adverts … unless they’re trying to flog broadband.
We’ve been told through CoC “No change”.
Our annual attendance at the town carol service has just been cancelled despite being outdoors 
I’ve just been into my Wing HQ, they’re not working from home and said they’ve had no direction to work from home so business as usual.
Apart from from the government, surely? Wing HQs should be taking some initiative to protect their staff and family