That’s the thing and the people are sensibly being fairly quiet about it.
There is - particularly during this time of lockdown - a very definite need for a system of supporting communication between cadets and staff. Business cannot be conducted solely within a virtual parade night meeting and until the RAFAC can provide for that need internally it will be filled from elsewhere.
Options? They could follow the MOD with our own version of Defence Connect which runs on Jive Hosted - but there’s a cost implication before anything else.
They could host a free forum system but there is still the requirement to maintain and moderate it.
There are so many priorities ahead of that.
I always find the fascination about instant messenger and voice channels to be an interesting one.
What’s the difference between an audio call through Facebook for example, or the cadets just giving you a call on the phone?
I’ve put my mobile number on JI’s for parents in the past, and have had little Jimmy call me in the week asking what uniform it is next parade night… And you can find my mobile number splashed on various work websites etc - nothing to stop any cadet calling me at any time… (They were asked very politely that next time they should consult the training program or ask another cadet or NCO, and shouldn’t be calling me directly).
I appreciate we are thinking more from a naughty staff member getting in touch with cadets in inappropriate ways, although through cadet portal we have access to cadets private email address’s and various numbers so potentially could get in touch with them anyway - using a personal email address so all off of Bader…
I think sometimes we make life tricky for members of staff with good and proper intentions etc in the name of safe guarding. There are so many holes and work arounds for a member of staff that wants to do harm and we should all of course be on the lookout for worrying signs/behaviours.
We get all excited about messenger functions to cadets, and I’ve often wondered why.
With discord it can also be a quicker way for cadets to communicate or to run multiple sessions of the same thing. for example, if you’re running a leadership exercise you can brief in on Voice Channel (VC), and the move them into the group VC, have it a VC for different things
General (for general squadron use)
Classifications
First Class
Leading
Senior/Master
NCO voice chat
Group A
Group B
this is a fair way to organise but it isn’t policy… I have had cadets on my squadron ask why we have to use teams where cadets can’t use it for communicating but only for VPN’s
but correct me if I’m wrong but squadron bader account holders can have a squadron team group?
That’s correct. Non-role account staff can also access teams using the generic account just as they would access sharepoint or mail.
You’re quite right. Personally I’ve got no great concern about my number being available. I know that some staff are massively against parents and cadets having the ability to intrude on their private lives, but I’ve had the same phone number for the entire time I’ve owned a mobile; it’s been on every set of JIs and admin order I’ve ever written and I’ve never had any problems.
From our perspective we decided that given the ‘kind of against the ACTO’ situation we’d just demonstrate a bit of extra care. We considered that the cadets don’t really need voice channels so not having them was one less thing under our control which could be abused. If a need did emerge we could review. It hasn’t yet.
By keeping things text based there was a nice audit trail should anyone ever question our approach.
We run a website and each cadet, member of staff, parent and committee have a login. As features appear on Badar we remove on the secure part of our website. Announcements get posted for all to see. When (if) parents gets access to the Cadet Portal we would do all announcements on Badar. Can’t use Facebook for those under 13 (and most cadets don’t use it anyway). Sqn activities get shared on Facebook and that drives new recruits to register on the public side of our site. Use Joomla but there are lots of alternatives and hosting is cheap.
Hmm Discord is interesting. I’m in a couple of groups for other volunteering and some work related stuff. They tend to get cluttered quickly. But then I’m not in the cool kids age bracket.
Teams works brilliantly for us but it’s our school system, so cadets can use it to call each other, too.
In the RAFAC system, can a CFAV start a meeting (eg in a Channel), get everyone into it, then leave it running and go and do other things? If so then you don’t need to use Discord or other unapproved platforms. The CFAV doesn’t have to leave the meeting - they can put it on hold.
Interesting proposition. Personally I never gave that a thought as we have a good presence on social media and by word of mouth and a website just doesn’t seem necessary, at squadron level anyway. However I do think a wing website would work.
Then again, that’s me speaking as a member of a relatively small sqn, maybe larger sqns would feel the benefit of it more.
I think that websites for SQNs would still be a good idea for those who are not on social media or cannot access social media. Also, it is easier to navigate a website that has a navigation bar than scrolling through every post that the SQN has posted.
Does anyone use the .sqn.ac web domain? Is it simple to use and is it worth it?
I understand everyone’s views on website or not from this thread but I feel a website is key for external recruitment such as for parents but I need something that is super easy to use as I am certainly no expert.
I’ve seen websites that are all outdated or poorly maintained, but I have seen various pages using Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark) which you can plop all your information on which is easy to scroll through. A quick google of spark adobe air cadets (which is now Adobe Express) showed these pages.
I used http://sqn.ac/ for my old sqn’s website.
At £10 per year all in it’s basically unbeatable in terms of cost. It does take some time to setup as @DJRice hasn’t got any “air cadet” themes that can be applied straight out of the box.
