Promotions and Awards Remotely

Hello all,

I’m trying to think of a good way to ‘big up’ awards and rank promotions via virtual parade nights. I’m looking to promote one cadet on my first night as a way to show cadets that the virtual parade nights are still worth getting involved in, that they can still progress and putting in some effort is still required.

So, any ideas?

Just drop it on then on SMS/CP and see if they notice?

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You can send GIFs in the chat - send a cheery one to congratulate people on a job well done.

But in all seriousness I’d just say let the parade nights speak for themselves. If you have to incentivise them you’re going to find yourself in a pickle when you keep having to increase the incentive.

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We’ve actually chosen to do the opposite - we were due to promote the week that we got suspended the cadets had to do boards to get promoted.

For those not getting promoted I feel it is unfair to find out and not get the support they’ll need afterwards.

I have spoken to all cadets and their parents involved to explain why I won’t promote until I get back.

And on the other side - we cannot penalise for cadets not getting involved on virtual nights.

Take one of our 17 year olds who works in a care home, very close to being promoted but cannot join in the virtual activities because of shifts. I’m sure if I promoted during this time they would feel really let down and maybe few increased pressure.

I’ve got separate prizes such as Sqn hoodies, water bottles etc for competitions throughout or how many “opt in” activities they complete. It’s still a congratulations without having a long term impact

In reality you also don’t know for certain who is and isn’t going to come back in September.

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Or whenever its extended to

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I did exactly the same!

I had a couple of cadets who I had planned to promote the week before, but unfortunately I was called away before final parade.

I decided to do it on our first Virtual parade - On the day, I updated CP, stuck in on Twitter, Instagram, and FB, emailed my personal congratulations to the cadets concerned, and then made it one of the first announcements in the Teams session.

It’s not ideal, but I kinda wanted to keep a “business as usual” mentality about our virtual contact, rather than have EVERYTHING crawl to a halt.

Trying to make things seem normal is wasted effort, nothing is normal in this fubar country at the moment.
There is a bit of me that a promotion now is just a way of making them stay on, which I don’t think is right. They should allowed to chill and decide as and when we are allowed to go back, if they want to, not because they’ve been promoted and feel obliged.

Totally and wholeheartedly disagree.

Everything else has gone crazy, if we can provide a degree of normality why not?

If they were going to be promoted anyway it’s hardly coercion.

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I had more reasons behind my intentions but they were not relevant to the question I asked.

I am making promotions because I need NCOs. By September I lose ALL of my SNCOs to the RAF or university so September is too late to promote people and I need to maintain continuity.

I also had to cancel my annual dinner the week the RAFAC ceased face to face activities including the annual awards. So I still would like to come up with interesting ways to announce awards.

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I’d say go for it in that case!

It won’t be easy but I’m sure you can create some sort of sense of occasion like @Moist_Van_Lipwig did.

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Much respect to anyone running a sqn under the current restrictions.I would say keeping the sqn in being is the prime aim for any C.O.Yes it wont be the same if you promote people “virtually” BUT it will raise spirits and crucially if your facing the destruction of your current SNCO team due to them leaving in September you have little choice otherwise when things do get back to normal you ll have a huge hole to fill.
I personally would do what your doing then when everythings back have a special evening and invite parents ,grandparents the whole nine yards and have a presentation night to a -mark whats happened and b -Show the sqn is there for THEM the cadets and parents.

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