And this is the issue in a nutshell!
All the fun, practical, outdoors, character building activities are being removed with NO decent alternatives suggested.
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Yes I did, but donât believe that local organisations like the Rotarians will be petty and vindictive against the Sqn, especially so when the decision was made way above their sphere of influence.
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Sorry, I thought we were talking about fund raising?
I think the issue here is actually the other way around. We fundraise because of the lack of support provided by the RAFAC and RAF directly to squadrons. There should be one technology contract providing laptops, printers, projectors etc to squadrons, rather than each unit fundraising for differing levels of IT solutions. Same with flight sims, minibuses etc. Or let subs remain 100% with the squadron and HQAC can fundraise nationally to cover the levies. Want us to provide synthetic ATP? Give us the flight sim to do it then.
We shouldnât NEED to fundraise to support our core activities.
The ACF donât fundraise locally at all. The SCC do because they are a charity. Weâre sitting in the middle not really benefitting from either process.
eta. I believe local fundraising should cover the nice-to-haves and not the necessities.
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Isnât this the difference between public & non-public funds?
Ideally, I agree, but the reality is there isnât the cash to do this and never will be. So raising our own funds is a great way to fill the gaps and get what we want. Yes itâs hard work and decisions like this make it all the more difficult, but I believe itâs definitely worth the effort.
Iâm talking about grants and trusts, and I said often not always.
Ok, but you said âfundraisingâ and I didnât want anyone to read that and misinterpret that they canât fund raise if they are not a charity.
If one were to grip the vitals - what public money?
What is the resource that my cadets get from the RAF?
Uniform? Not really. Half of them have things like trousers, shirts, jumpers or berets missing. Fundraising - car parking and the grants that flow from it - pay for both blue and green uniforms.
Annual camp? I have four cadets out off 30+ whoâve been on an annual camp.
VA for uniformed staff to do all the other stuff - DofE, local camps and weekends? ErrâŠ
Provision of minibuses. Oh, ah, umâŠ
Flying? Bruh⊠I didnât do a flying scholarship or anything like that - I have more flights/hours in my 3822 of 30 years ago than my entire Sqn of 30+ cadets put together. I have not one single cadet on my Squadron who has flown in each of the years they have been a cadet.
Weâre back to the Schrödingerâs Footprint model - in which we were cast as the RAFâs local blue footprint, but because they didnât trust us to look as good as they did after a week of foot drill and ironing, we werenât allowed to, err⊠be their blue footprint - but this time its Schrödingerâs Money: we give you the money, so we make the rules.
Except, no moneyâŠ
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I think this is a wider problem across RAFAC. We are dreadful at data management. Things can be reported up the chain but never recorded. That needs fixing
The number of data breaches that occur which are never recorded is obscene. I remember when I went through commissioning, my application forms were lost by TEST/HQ staff at least three times, I reported this to HQ as a data breach each time. Later on I saw someone had FOId for the same period asking for number of data breaches and the response was that there were zero beaches across RAFAC in that time frame. That suggests either a lie or dreadful data management. (Personally I suspect both as anyone answering that request should have known that breaches occur)
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Wow. Iâm seeing alot of Iâll state my opionion to disprove your opinion without reading the previous posts properly⊠Several spirallng circular argument going on!
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No one said fundraising is not important. It just that i think car parking is not core.
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ok, on reflection, it is a âhigh riskâ activity, but with a âlow risk ratingâ score due to the numerous control measures in place
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Lets use the terms from the RA. It is a high impact activity if something should go wrong⊠i.e death; However, it is a low likelihood due to the control measures in place.
A bit like shooting, or flying or AT or units that do drill on a car park next to their unit.
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But in each of these cases there are people in charge who have authorised qualifications that have been assessed to be competent to operate 
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And there are ample rules / regs / policies which govern the conduct of these activities.
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So rather than a straight ban on car parking, why didnât we look into what rules/regs/policies we could bring in to help guide CFAVs to do car parking safely?
Itâs been done safely all over the UK for a long time. Clearly there were some people doing it unsafely that you have seen. But a few doing it wrong shouldnât mean a stop for all.
Could we have got an SME to produce a âgeneric RAâ along with a short video or similar that helps reinforce the required control measures?
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More than a few posters (myself included) have previously asked what can be done to mitigate the risk / add relevant trg considerations / make the activity risk acceptable.
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Have you not noticed yet he doesnât answer the hard questions?
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@MikeJenvey I canât see that happening if it looks like in the future, we have to be on some sort of approved list for blister care in road marchingâŠ
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