I don’t see it being a problem as some intimate about losing a “generation”, they will be still be able to become staff, unless they mean not being able to ‘butter them up’. At least if this was done those becoming staff will be doing so of their own volition.
I think HQAC are going to have to swallow that staff won’t be ‘current’ and make concessions, rather than be anal about things. Get too anal and it could the final straw for many, which is more of a problem. Lose qualified people because of some over zealous system is a nonsense, but one you could quite easily see them going for.
I think the biggest problem for HQAC will be low numbers when we restart. But this gives an opportunity to drop the random number attached to the term “viable” and recognise that viable is being there and getting young people through the door. Ever since I’ve been a member of the Air Cadets, there have only been 5 years where I’ve been on a sqn where we have continually paraded more than 30, over 2 occasions. On both occasions we had no idea why the numbers went up and stayed there. In between times the cadets we have had have done things and probably more than those on bigger squadrons.
If you pull the plug on those top level activities for 2 years you spend 10 years rebuilding the capability.
Things like large scale camps take 12 months to plan and deliver at the best of times. (More than that the first time you do it). If you stop delivering them then people move on and you have to build from scratch when you decide that you want to do it again. You have to remake all of the old mistakes, you have to remake all of the relationships that you had both within the delivery team and with the supporting teams. (Permanent Staff at the Camp etc).
You also stop the progression from Cadets to Junior Staff to Directing Staff that is a natural consequence of running something every year.
You don’t just turn these things off and back on again.
There’s no guarantee that the organisation would be willing to return those resources either so the capability may never return, never mind in ten years.
Sadly a moot point as the camps won’t have been run for 2 years. By 2022, after COVID, camps will be building from the ground up. It could be a good opportunity to deliver them as more widely available courses, e.g. Region not national.
turning up at RAFC Cranwell for a weeks camp and having half of our Wing and half the neighbouring Wing…and of course all the camp relationship forms were cross border!
There is a big difference between people not being able to run an activity for 2 years and having nothing else to do in that timeframe and telling people they can’t run an activity for 2 years because you want them to do other things.
It won’t be as easy as it would’ve been and you won’t have the progression that you get year on year but people are sitting at home waiting to run the thing they had planned for 2020, you tell them that they can’t and that you want them to go and run something else you a) run the risk of them walking and b) you take them out of that zone.
Can I be a bit spicy again regarding the suspension/loss of the national level stuff?
And?
All of those activities are astonishingly resource (cash and staff time/effort) intensive for a very small return in terms of the percentage of cadets who will ever get to take advantage of them - and yes, I did a couple of them as a cadet - personally I would prefer it if they quietly died a death and those resources were poured back down to Wing/Sqn level .
I reckon you’d lose a load of DS from the RAFAC altogether as there will be those who are only in it still for JL/QAIC and those for whom it is the preferred thing that makes up for the other volunteering
A lot of staff falling into these “top tier” categories already volunteer on Sqns and I have no doubts some would be willing to help deliver training locally if asked. I think, where possible, we need to keep activities at all levels, not just the Sqn level. The top tier things are really the highlight of the cadet experience for some people and give the more senior lot something to look forward to and work towards.
If they’re only in it for one thing, then what value are they providing?
Those ‘top tier’ things don’t - imo - give back to cadets. They give those senior cadets an extra little thing to add to their CVs and that’s it. Losing them is no real loss.
QAIC wasn’t an option for me, didn’t stop me getting into the UAS and then successfully joining the RAF. I didn’t do JL either.
When I was a FSC at a VGS I was actively rediculed for attending a Sqn during the week and the occasional weekend… But I’m confident if I discussed about that any further a pile of poop will be slung my way
@Cadet04 They aren’t really a highlight as there are conditions attached to attendance, that for any number of reasons not all cadets can’t meet.
A highlight is something everyone has the opportunity to attend, not just the ‘big smile badge collectors’.
QAIC was a highlight for me, as was the paragliding course I did - not everyone has the opportunity to attend, but that doesn’t stop it having been a personal highlight.
A lot of the National Camps have been created because the opportunities don’t exist at Wing or Region Level.
I’ve said it before but it is important that Cadets have those big ticket activities to aspire towards. If you cut everything that’s expensive or that takes time to arrange and run what are you going to do, spend all of your time doing day walks on the local footpaths and Fieldcraft over the local Scout Camp?
Yeah let’s just tell all the staff who spend weeks and months planning activities to just jog on because they don’t want to teach Piston Engine Propulsion on a Thursday Evening instead.
In a lot of these areas it’s the staff who deliver these top end courses that are training the staff who run the local activities.
You need to be an ML before you can even think about being a Course Director for Lowland Leader for example. You pull the plus on activities at Windermere in exchange for the staff running few DofE Expeditions for example and in a decades time you suddenly have a major gap in what you can deliver.
Why can’t they plan activities for a ‘lower’ level? Why are they only doing so for a Corps activity? Why can’t their expertise be used elsewhere?
If they can deliver, for example, Gold leadership at Corps level, why can’t they help train people to deliver Bronze and Silver better, and run Gold at a more regional level?
Time? Running big activities isn’t something that you just rock up and do and it doesn’t scale in quite the same way that you would hope.
Even at Wing Level once you are looking at hundreds of personnel for a week that activity takes over all of the available time (plus time that isn’t available).
Now you could cancel their big activity and tell them they have to run small local activities instead. But at that point you are a) Wasting rare Qualifications and Skills b) limiting their currency when you decide that you want them to start running the big activity again and c) seriously going to affect their personal motivation.
I know plenty of Long Range RCO’s who still deliver the odd air rifle range, but you can’t tell me they wouldn’t take it as a kick in the teeth if you cancelled all full bore shooting for 2 years just because.
I’m sorry if I’m offending your sensibilities, but I’m thinking about the cadets and what benefits the majority the most, and to me, that’s not these big ticket items.
Is it better to have less cadets shoot, but when they do they can progress… or better to concentrate solely on air rifle delivery where lots of cadets would then get an opportunity to shoot.
I see it both ways, but even on the lower scale there is room for cadets to improve and track progress, even if they don’t move on to the stuff that make really big bangs.
Does that make it less exciting, yes… but if every cadet gets some shooting is that better than a few cadets getting very exciting shooting?
