Hi, (I am new to the forum so this is my first post). As with the new ‘progressive training syllabus’ we have seen the release of these new badges. So far my Wing have not received any of these badges and I wondered if anyone else is waiting for some.
Thanks in anticipation
Basically the initial badge orders are still being received by HQAC for onward submission.
Some wings have order over 1000 of each badge which has delayed the process.
WHQs should order badges on a TG 71
Thanks for your Reply. I will ask if a order form has been submitted. Do you have any ideas on how long the process may take?
What about the ones cadet direct claim to have? Why weren’t they sent to wings, for issue, rather than a shop to be purchased?
What normally happens is that Cadet Direct will have created their own to sell at an inflated cost to people frustrated by HQAC’s inability to provide them in a timely manner, free through the supply chain.
And until we get our hands on the official ones we will have no idea if the Cadet Direct ones are even correct!
They appear to have been sanctioned by HQAQ, or at least by CACWO on their behalf.
Source: Cadet Direct facebook page, comment section of their announcement of the new badges & rank slides.
Perhaps they are, granting permission to use what is essentially crown-copyright material.
I hope there are other sanctioned sites though as I am loathe to recommend Cadet Direct unless there really is no other option. I’d also like to see it from an official source other than from the vendor (CACWO is insufficient) before I trusted their accuracy and legitimacy.
Bear in mind that the new rank slides are not yet authorised for use, sanctioned or not.
My Sqn has had Heartstart Badges for all qualified cadets, as well as the foundation Leadership badges for 90% of them.
I understand that there are Pre-DofE badges sat at WHQ waiting for Sqn Commanders to request them.
We’ve also had an initial issue of blue badge log books, but not enough for everyone, so we just printed our own.
Has any one gone through the process of requesting musicians badges yet ?
This is another problem of HQAC’s making.
They should have issued ALL badges at 60% Wing strength when the scheme was released. But that requires planning, forethought and whole host of things that you wouldn’t naturally associate with the ivory towers.
If we are supposed to be giving cadets badges, what is worse than saying at the start of the session, when this has been completed you will get a nice little badge to sew on brassard and then not get the badge, because HQAC haven’t got them made up yet.
We’ve been doing some of this and ticking as we go and then when the badges arrive we can dish them out. I feel loathed to present them as they haven’t really done/achieved anything worthy of being presented.
We did a heartstart a while ago and the chap who came in to do it told the cadets they’d get a badge (still waiting 6 weeks on), a couple of cadets who have done it already were amazed that cadets now get badges for essentially watching a few videos and doing a bit of first aid in a couple of hours and seemed unfussed that they won’t get one.
I’ve been waiting almost 3 months for a Musicians Badge!
I agree on there being far too many of these badges- especially shooting. The other main problem is having the mixture of both old and new badges of various shapes and sizes on the brassard. all of this progressive training stuff really hasn’t been thought through.
Is this actually happening? We were told that it was either all one or all the other, no mix and match.
I’ve seen it on a few people. The thing is they don’t seem to want to give out the old badges, so its either wear old badges minus the ones you have recently earned or wear the couple of new badges you have got. (If you have got the new ones count yourself lucky)
We have this problem where cadets are awarded a Bronze comms badge, but already have a red first aid badge. They aren’t allowed to wear the bronze comms badge because it’s from the new syllabus. When they get issued a new bronze first aid badge, they can switch to the new layout.
You can mix and match, but you cannot put new badges in old positions - once you get a new badge you need to shift entirely to the new layout.
There seems to be nothing technically preventing you from moving old badges to the new positions in anticipation of getting a new badge. Time to get everybody moved to the new layout with new badges: T-9 months (± a couple of days) and counting.
The new style Comms Badges predate the uniform change (they were a half way house) so no need to not wear them with the red YFA.
I am informed that only the blue badge predates the new syllabus… is there a source for this? I would like to be able to back this up.
I’ve heard the same. I do believe the blue comms ( and cyber awareness) badge is exactly the same in both the old and new syllabus
Yes, it’s a combination of there not being enough badges available and the unwillingness of some wings to pro-actively replace badges.
But there is time for new badges to arrive! HQAC have said there is a cut-off date for the wearing of old badges, which is 1 April 2018.