This in and of its self could be an interesting STEM project too 
1 Like
but only from Facebook users, who are not 100% of the population
1 Like
We maintain a basic sqn website, alongside a fb and Instagram profile.
We work it on the premise that…
Website - reaches external people
Fb - reaches parents
Insta - reaches kids
The ultimate question you must ask yourself is “what do we want to achieve?”.
I know far too many who’ve opted for a Squadron website as a project for the cadets just ‘because’.
My personal opinion is that there’s not so much point any more.
For PR I just direct people to the Corps website i.e. I use that URL on our flyers, adverts, letterhead, etc.
Let HQAC worry about keeping it up to date. It’s one less job for us to worry about.
We maintained a basic facebook page to alert interested parties to upcoming open nights. Post in the local village groups on FB.
A google search for “Anytown air cadets” will lead people to the squadron finder and we’ve never struggled with recruiting numbers. A visit to the local school every few years, word of mouth, and the squadron finder have kept us well stocked with cadets.
I see no reason to make work for ourselves.
Other common uses for websites in the past was to host training materials - no need any more with Cadet portal and ultilearn; and for internal comms. We used to have a closed facebook group for that but we chinned it off last year in favour of a discord server. A much better fit for our needs.
Again, why make work for oneself when there is already a simple off-the-shelf solution.
1 Like
the cool kids (of whom some are considerably older than me) at work use one of these. I have no idea what it’s for… 
1 Like
My sqn setup a discord server in the first few days of the original lockdown, then moved to Teams when that became available.
You have your cadets on teams?
I’d far rather have everything in one place.
well, the teams VPN’s.
that implies you have good attendance… we’ve had <10%
Ah. I’m with you… I got all excited there for a moment.
We have certainly found the discord server to be a great benefit in supporting the virtual parade nights.
In addition to channels for specific topics (such as DofE where the DofE officer can focus his attention) I set it up with separate channels for each flight, and also for each section within the flights. Staff of course have overview of everything along with the Cdt FSs. Otherwise, those channels are restricted to the members of each section and flight. It’s proved very useful as a place for them to confer in teams during quizzes &c.
There is also an NCO and staff only section which they’ve used to discuss in the background whilst presenting NCO-lead evenings. There is a staff only voice channel which we’ve used occasionally to talk privately during the parade nights, but I did not create any voice channels for the cadets.
Everything written therefore is visible to all staff.
I use Discord for my gaming, but does it conform to the requirement in the ACTO?
probably not, but how it different to setting up different facebook groups?
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.
Just remember it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission 
2 Likes
given that there are no voice channels etc available to cadets, it’s no different to Book of Face.
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.
Am I missing something really obvious?
1 Like
HQAC issued us with the NSPCC cards to go into every Cadets 3822 which they expected OC’s to put our phone numbers on.
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.
1 Like
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.