It should be ran by someone and you need to complete an RA at the end to send in as an ‘assessment’.
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Ma have been mistaken with the actual modality it might have been something else that required turning
I kind of agree with you about the bleep test being useful…
Although I have views on fitness tests that have been designed in the military… For example do you still have to do sit-ups for #reasons?
The general cancellation culture that you mentioned usually (not always) is they would rather not do the RA so easier to cancel the activity than actually think outside the box. As a tip after you have done your RA course, its amazing how many “modern” (there are a few versions of the RA form) are on Sharepoint. You can download these and cherry pick the bits that are appropriate, add some additions and localise it for your activity. I got a great one regarding Poppy Selling inside a supermarket, by simply searching for Poppy Selling RA in Sharepoint. Think smarter than harder!
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Luckily we’ve been told in no uncertain terms that it would be AOC22 group!
I think the organisaton is hugely risk averse compared to ACF or SCC to its detriment and more could be done by those at the top to standardise so so many RA’s making the volunteers life easier!
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I dont disagree but i always think its worth keeping in mind ultimatley its the perm staffs head on the chopping block and if things go wrong potential careers ruined and in a worst case scenario jail time.
That being said, i do think somehow this all needs to be simplified and a unified approach/standards across all 3 organisations
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and so you would have thought with:
then a
RA should be readily available for the most common events.
these will only ever be at 95% completeness as there will always be local differences that cannot be “generic” but if we’re all working off the same ACPs/ACTOs, and expected to work with the same qualifications, why is there such a wild variation in RAs that are produced?
if the risk of a rock climbing at climbing wall centre exists, then you’d expect it to be 95% similar if that is being done in Kendal or Brighton.
yet we see two wildly different RAs from two Squadrons attending the same event because Wing won’t take ownership of the event and produce the RA for it!
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The Wing probably don’t have the time to provide a RA for every individual task however it is more than likely that your Wing SME’s or even other staff on Sqn/nearby Sqn’s probably have done one before, they will have generic bank of RA’s. Such as Wing Sports Officer will have a generic athletics or football one, First Aid will have one too. You have a few options, if you don’t ask the question you wont get. The other way is to search on Sharepoint, (not under the RA/H&S section) just generic search. The other way is to look at local events, for example you might be doing a 1st Aid course on Squadron however the Wing is running a different one, they might have already loaded their RA, so you can just nip in to their event, save the file and edit it for your location and purpose. We keep a localised bank of RA’s that we use year on year especially when its just a case of double checking everything is the same, changing the dates and review date and saving, makes things so quick.
i am not asking for every task, i am asking for Wing to produce a RA for a wing run event, yet they have in the past expected Squadrons to create the SMS event for it…
this results in half a dozen Squadrons attending the same Wing led event with 6 different versions of a RA
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So why is this bank not sitting with HQAC and made available to all via sharepoint?!
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I think there certainly is an attitude of “over assessing” risks in an attempt to meet the perceived risk appetite of those above. We then add in extra controls etc above and beyond what’s really needed to reduce the risk to a reasonable level, because we get stuck in the mindset that those above us think “reasonable” is much lower than what we think it is.
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And then you ask staff at a large event if they’ve even seen the RAs, and often the answer is no.
‘We’ seem to be very good at being over the top with RA production, but actual implementation seems to get missed a lot.
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Yeah, personally I feel like an RA should be accompanied by a briefing sheet that condenses all the controls down into a single page of A4. If you want to understand why that control measure is present, read the RA, but otherwise just implement the controls.
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Anyone tried using AI to write any yet? We’ve played with it at work work. It can even do tables n stuff, but I think for RAFAC use it might be asking AI to think or hazards and mitigations and copy and pasting it over
Have tried & it’s okayish as a guide. Probably best when going from scratch
Key will be trying to get it into a 5010c format
Just tried on desktop, and fed it the blank 5010c, so now it’s formatted the same way as our RAs:
Certainly a good start, albeit some things would need changing!
Just asked it “Great. Now can you do it for a different activity. This time do the risk assessment for cadets doing a days bag packing at a local shop to raise money” and it produced this:
I think I’ll be using this to start all my RAs in the future!
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Can you ask it how it would assess cadets flying in BGA aircraft? Or car parking?
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Very valid point, the irony of it is that the vast majority of the “1st editions” of the RA have been taken from sharepoint already, we have adapted them for our use. For example the Band RA we do not have a brass section so that has been removed and the Supermarket chain for where we do our poppy selling vs the one that is saved on Sharepoint has been adjusted to match our requirements.
I agree the HQRAFAC Heath and Safety RA section could have more suitable standard templates as there isn’t one for parade marching or the examples given above but rugby and swimming are still in there.
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Sorry I misunderstood the original point, in that circumstance that is crazy !