It’s from friends in Dubai as Friday is the day of prayer but it means every Saturday and Sunday off as international business is normally done Monday to Friday.
We have our Town Hall tomorrow night…
Isn’t that a national one?
Probably, I wasn’t sure and it looks like it will happen every two weeks!
Let’s hope so. It would be a shame to set the expectation and then fail to deliver…
Like flying and gliding?
Now had 24+ hours to digest what was said or more importantly what wasn’t said and I feel we are as usual left with more questions than answers.
Clearly complete lack of responsibility taken for breakdown in SW.
No confirmation of date to return to normal ops.
No sign of ability to be able to prevent this in future.
As others have said - it was the first one. no one should expect things to be perfect on a first outing, and certainly not in this case where everything is new.
if there are still questions unanswered, or more raised i would suggest submitting them for next time…
we can all sit on the forum and have a whinge but surely it is better to engage in the platform intended to engage with the CFAV and make it work, than highlight what is wrong about it…
So if ATC now stands for ‘All Training Cancelled’ is CFAV now ‘Can’t Face Anymore Volunteering’???
Not at all, you came across very balanced even though we could all hear your frustrations 
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I would now like to see a basic action plan that shows the plan to get the activities (or some) up and running on the 01st September and what activities/events are likely still to be on the grand pause so that we have a clear understanding now rather than waiting until we want to organise something.
There wasnt much said other than the CS team are feeling overwhelmed, however I am greatful that we have had SOME comms. We complain when we get nothing, we cant complain when we get some, even if this doesnt answer all our questions.
Clarity is key for everyone so we can all manage our key stakeholders well in advance.
5 posts were merged into an existing topic: The Beginning of the End - The Capitulation of SW Region
All that is clear is that RC south West has no idea. The contingency plan that should have been in place clearly doesn’t exist. And we are now into a sustained period of instability. A rubicon has been crossed and it will continue to happen. Permanent staff show no level of responsibility. From Tuesday night looks like only 1 was on the call. So the rest don’t care, know they are in the wrong or all on holiday. There is no point having these meetings if there is no change which it doesn’t feel like there will be.
Or perhaps they had prior commitments that they couldn’t move considering how short notice it was. Or perhaps another reason. And I don’t know why a holiday would be something to criticise someone for having (during the summer holiday period especially, but any time).
You can stab in the dark and hypothesise all you like, but there is a point at which hypothesis becomes derangement if pursued to extremes. You already seem angry at people you know little to nothing about for reasons you’re inventing in your own mind…
We’ve had one. Just one. That was itself focused in a very specific direction with a particular topic of discussion. It’s too early to be drawing such discrete conclusions. It was short of what a lot people are hoping that these will become, and many are disappointed, but it’s the start of a fresh project and things won’t be perfect. This is going to be a process on both sides to work towards generating the best possible outcomes for the broadest possible range of demographics within the org.
No idea about what? Pretty sure she knows a lot more about a lot of things than you or I do, so she will have ideas.
I don’t think that’s a surprise, at least in terms of the contingency plan that we can imagine was feasible and would be successful, but that doesn’t mean that none were attempted or considered. We all wish things were better, and many have had a go at finding what we think could have been viable solutions or mitigations, but there’s a certain point at which we need to move on and assist in looking forward. We can ask questions about the past and present to create our own analyses and perhaps to guide others’, but devolving into blame culture isn’t going to have a productive outcome - especially when there are now opportunities to move forward.
There is a responsibility on CFAV to engage in good faith with this new process; where offering critique it needs to be constructive. Be curious and challenge fairly.
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I believe that we are challenging fairly (in most cases) but the responses leave a bit to be desired…
Did anyone notice that the RC mentioned that a ‘plan’ would be forthcoming at the end of Sept? If this is the case then a return to some sort of normality is still some way off…
And now AVIP’s cancelled too 
so the CS have a recruitment freeze which is indirectly imposed on us! @AlexCorbin is right in his questions about policy… how does all this sit with policy? Will the 1st September be the restart date? If not what redress do we have? @Cab RAF Odiham Families day this Friday and for the 1st time since the 90’s (bar Covid) there will be only 2 SQN’s from another region helping unlike the 150-200 from SW region with just 10 days notice #embarrassing
They may not have all spoken, but saw on the participants list CAC, RC SW, acting COS, two E1s, and two E2s.
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The whole point of contingency planning is to be ready for all eventualities. The system is not robust and at a time of strain should be able to cope. The RC and her team should have been able to see this coming and clearly did with the cancellation of shooting earlier in the year and yet communicated nothing to allow some management by the volunteer staff. Volunteers are programmed to fill gaps and take full advantage of situations. When the cadets are on holiday in the good weather of course more activities are going to be undertaken. All that is going to happen now is things will move down the line with a pressure build up probably at October Half Term. When again there is the likely hood of CD staff also wanting leave. We can not go into a cycle of doing preparation work for the rug to be pulled from under our feet. The permanent staff team should be tied to some Service level agreements with volunteers so there is a minimum expectation. Clearly we are way below that at this moment in time.
go on then, in what way?!?!
Being on call every night of the week, just in case a phone call is made! Never happen. HQAC are attempting to remove on-call allowance for WExOs, do that and they won’t work past 5pm or worse, leave their job and cause even more issues.
The problem is that the CFAV and PS do work in different areas, different timeframes and that’s a big issue between being full time and a volunteer.
There is an expectation from both sides and its now reached a point of impasse because of poor management, so be careful blaming all PS because many are working harder than you think, and in some case probably harder than some CFAVs.
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