Very similar picture here.
I wonder if more people are finally going to shift to the previously sacrilegious pov that “no, the cadet is not the most important person in the Corps”?
We’ve lost upto 50% of our cadets through natural wastage and then as time has gone fewer and fewer bothering to login to Cadet Portal. I have 12 cadets regularly engaging at the moment.
More nuanced: the cadet who joins at 12 in 3 years time, with the potential for a 6/8 year and very full cadet experience is more important than the cadet who’s 16 now, and is unlikely to seriously engage before they leave.
And the risk of not providing for cadets today, on the basis of long term ‘jam tomorrow’ is that we lose the whole age range of cadets (including the potential staff of 2022-2026) and the organisation becomes irrelevant if we’re not delivering.
I would suggest returning the focus to Sqns and Wing activities. So that means re-deploying teams and resources that currently support JL, national band, national camps, IACE or advanced level shooting/AT. Rebuild from local delivery upwards and develop both cadets and staff.
Doesn’t help with the current staff being treated the way they may be.
Currently across this organisation there are threats of suspension, in the new week or 2 for not completing training, given the stresses of life that many will currently have in this pandemic, more than likely at a whole new level than ever before that attitude needs to be ridden.
The organisation is down on its knees yet admin and bureaucracy is given it a good kicking at the same time.
The Cadets is still where we get most of our future staff, if you right off the Cadet experience for a generation of Cadets you wipe out the next generation of Staff.
That Cadet of 16 is 4 years away from being your next CI/Sergeant/Pilot Officer. If you don’t cater for them a kid keep them involved you don’t get that men’s bed of staff in 2025.
We need to recognise that staff have a lot going on and may not have time for training, but we also can’t have staff who haven’t completed safeguarding training. The solution is temporary suspension until the staff do have the time to focus on the CFAV role again (including mandatory training).
That’s not to criticize staff who don’t have capacity at the moment, just recognising that they have more important things than the ATC to deal with at the moment.
Sorry, should have said welcome to ACC
Welcome to ACC
Apologies for stirring up the Hornets nest on this one…
We aren’t recruiting, so we have to help out the current batch, the ones who a percentage will become a our staff teams of the future.
They are already dispondant with life, exams canx, etc.
But, you are right that the organisation can not adequately function and deliver, without staff. Well trained and motivated staff.
Fuel on the fire time… Some of the staff courses on Ultilearn were not functioning for at least a month across December and January. I don’t know how far back that extends.
This was fixed last night.
“were”
It’s only a matter of time until it breaks again
This is a good point, and I’m not advocating doing NO cadet training at all. I’m saying concentrate on maintaining our capability otherwise it’s just a managed decline.
I do include over 18 cadets in this naturally by the way; I consider them as staff. Less so over 16s, but I do recognise the 4yrs time argument.
This is the key point - if we don’t have a focus on staff, the cadet experience won’t be enough to retain as many of those cadets that we need to and we’ll just lose them anyway.
You win
Definitely this 100%.
We dont need those top teir things for 2 years.