People have been interpreting words because there’s been no internal announcement of the new ACPS, nor the new Space BTEC or anything.
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The space BTEC was mentioned in the weekly brief, but yeah, nothing on ACPS other than the interview video on Facebook!
@Cab Thank you for being open and honest. More two way discussion than we’ve had for a long time 
My concern lies with the comments made by @Priestp on fully staffed and approved Wing and squadron activities. Why are SW Region getting involved and stopping these events and similarly, what is a Region’s input into activities that ACTO 10 states can be approved at a lower level? BTW I’m not in SW Region, but worried that this approach will become the norm across the organisation.
The way I see it, which could be wrong, it that a Region approves activities where the risk to life is deemed to be higher, using their SMEs to review, and question the activity where required, any applications that hit a threshold. But has SW Region set a lower threshold to other Regions.
Wing and Region SMEs are usually CFAVs, why has SW Region gone out to stop their volunteers from doing their work. I totally understand the whole PS thing, reduced resources, CS recruitment ‘pause’ and all that.
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Sir if I may, your CFAV cadre have vast untapped high level professional skills in comms, change management, project management, volunteer management, leadership, marketing, risk etc.
Until now any request for those skills has come in the form of defined new primary roles that take CFAV’s away from delivering the Cadet Experience at the Sqn/Section level. This is a blocker for many pers as they won’t have joined the Org to volunteer those skills on a full, volunteer-time basis.
If however, HQRAFAC were to create a CFAV talent pool and ask for those skills to be given to them on a project-by-project basis they might find many of their problems solved.
A not insignificant part of the low CFAV morale is born out of professionals seeing things that fall into their professional realm being done poorly and frustration at not being able to do something about it.
We are CFAV’s, but before that we are a diverse group of professionals. Help us to help you.
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Been a lurker, now joining in.
I packed up and left last year. I was a cadet, then UAS, then RAF regular, then - after a few years away from blue - back in as a CI and then officer for 5 years. At least count I was asked 3x to be an OC, but the distances involved were prohibitive. I did everything that could have been asked of me and more.
Last year, I left.
And this past year has been utter bliss. No stress, no squabbles, no random nonsense politics, no utter drivel from those on high who have absolutely no idea what goes on twice a week in those huts.
And now I come back and see this mess…
Everybody, I know your hearts are in the right place and you want to do best by the kids. But honestly, the best you can do is leave. En masse. Don’t let it be a slow lingering death. Just cut the thing off at the head and be done with it.
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This is probably going to be quite a lengthy reply, so apologies in advance.
Firstly, thank you for coming here and being accountable and visible. It takes a lot, and is not something main paid staff involved in the organisation either choose or are allowed to do, and especially not when there is a lot of criticism and toxicity around the decisions you’ve made, so kudos to you.
Next, as others have said we are unlikely to email you directly for lots of reasons, primarily because of the repercussions to ourselves or our units if we do and this is found out by our chain of command, many of whom do not share your openness and transparency. People have had disciplinaries, been forced to sign quasi-behavioural contracts or been otherwise hampered if they have dared question someone inside the organisation and above them, let alone someone outside of it. It is also slightly ironic that you’re posting “anonymously” on an internet forum to tell us to email you directly, when you could equally have sent an all RAFAC email addressing our concerns, or even an all SW region email doing the same. That isn’t to say you’re not welcome here to speak with us, I do genuinely appreciate it and it’s great, but it does sort of highlight the very comms problem you address in a later post especially when the head of the organisation has been conspicuous by his absence and the person in charge of the region in question could only be bothered to send a small paragraph in a wider email - neither of them have opened up to us like you have, and for that I’m grateful.
None of us are taking away from the fact that you, the commandant, the regional commandants have to make decisions based on risk, or perceived risk, and take action to make it as tolerable as possible. The issues we have as far as I can tell are these:
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Staffing in SW hasn’t changed since the COS left, and activities were not stopped at that point. So, either we have been operating unsafely since that date, or we will not be unsafe in August. It can’t be both, so which is it?
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Paid staff have little input in to the running of the majority of our activities, excepting where VA, mileage, travel hire or defence estate is used. This has been effectively banned in SW region anyway, so nearly all activities are created, reviewed, approved, run and (in theory at least) audited by volunteers. How does the lack of some paid staff account for us then banning that process? If there is a link telling us how and why will help at least a little remove the vitriol and disconnect we see there.
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How can it be fair or right that 1/6th of the organisation in terms of geography (but probably most as the distribution of squadrons, CFAV and cadets will likely be higher) be stood down for a month whilst others aren’t? Why haven’t other regions been told to assist? I am aware that North Region is sparing 1 member of staff to cover, but logically you have LaSER who operate the very same model just implemented in South West and so should be au fait with the workings, are they so busy they can’t help?
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Given that since at least March we’ve already been told to curtail activities, then a complete ban in August with no end in sight, surely you can understand our anger and frustration?
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Why has there been no mention of subscription payments being paused at the same time? Would you accept paying for an activity that can’t provide you what it advertises?
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Why has no attempt been made to communicate this directly to cadets and parents, but instead it’s been left to squadron staff to be the bearer of bad news? It doesn’t scream RISE to me, it feels like pulling the pin then running away.
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I’m not sure you realise quite how bad staff morale is across the organisation but specifically in South West Region. We have, over the past 10 years:
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Lost access to gliding - both VGS being shut, airframe types being scrapped, pilots losing currency, then things like Upavon not being cleared for use, the MOD sites being made harder to get in to.
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Lost access to provide aviation to cadets from external providers - ACTO 35. Then get fobbed off with rubbish responses when we do ask about it, as you’ve published above, by anonymous “HQ sources”. Made all the more galling by watching army and sea cadets doing what should be our USP, but we can’t.
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Lost our BTEC in aviation studies, with promises of jam tomorrow when a replacement appears at some point
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Been mandated to completed 6 hours of hot or cold injury training that has no scientific relationship to cadets, and been suspended if we don’t do it.
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Lost all access to shooting opportunities on squadron level, with losses of armoury hubs and weapons and in some cases haven’t even had the weapons delivered to us because of RAF ineptitude and mismanagement.
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Lost the commissions that tied us to the organisation
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Lost the ability to conduct car parking as a form of fundraising, with no notice and no reasoning, embarrassing us in front of the community and again watching the army cadets pick up where we have left off
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Spent years over complicating a drone policy that will make things harder and harder to do
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told we can’t use local parks to do some sports without completing lengthy TOPL forms, getting permissions from local authorities, signing waivers and having someone in a building miles away audit this to check everything is rosy.
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Lost access to using tented accommodation as accommodation with no solution offered, no recompense offered and no consideration for the work we do to pay for them.
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had a botched process for over 18s promised, under delivered, then ignored for months, then a random policy notice come out that raises more questions than it answers.
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Lost the entire ACPS process because of no due-diligence being conducted for a period so long cadets left before they could complete it.
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Nearly all fieldcraft stopped - partly because of not being able to use defence estate, partly because of qualification requirements, partly because of the need for TOPL.
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We have regular IT issues and no dedicated IT Helpdesk for an organisation of our size. We have a tiny number of paid staff working their asses off to help and supplemented by volunteers, but if you report any issue it could be months before you get it fixed
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We have had people in Holland stopped walking cause it was hot in the UK, but this applied to everyone but RIAT. Weeks earlier the commandant told us to do what is right, not what is easy, then ignored himself.
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We’ve had all activities cancelled across the whole organisation because it got a bit windy in Bristol. Even indoor ones. Even those in different countries.
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We’ve gained loads of cadets since covid, but haemorrhaged staff in that period with no national recruitment campaign because, as the commandant said “we have enough staff just not in the right places”, totally missing the volunteer aspect of what we do.
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We have policy thrust upon us without any consideration of who we are or what we do, that is often impracticable or inappropriate, poorly proof read and poorly thought out only to be rescinded or changed when it is considered
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We’ve had wings and CCFs move boundaries to align with RFCAs, only for 1 year later RFCAs to no longer be relevant to us causing upheaval, stress, extra work all for nothing and hampering CCFs inordinately.
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We’ve had an attempt as disbanding civilian committees that has been poorly thought out, poorly executed and left a bad feeling amongst staff and trustees with little thoughts to the practicalities.
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We’ve had all sporting competitions cancelled.
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We’ve had ACLC cancelled
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We’ve had people have to chase and beg to get any medal they’re entitled to.
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We have policy announced on social media with messages like “speak to your sqn staff”, but they have more information than we do - see the ACPS scheme as a recent example.
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We see HQAC level events regularly not following the same approval processes as we do, like being approved before the event.
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We had a Space course promised 5 years ago, only for an announcement made on Facebook last week with no details and changing the course that existed
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We’ve had a rebrand that no one asked for
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We’ve had Cyber thrust upon us to make us relevant for the RAF, but no actual content to make us a leader in the field.
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We’ve had officers capped at Fg Off and the removal of time served for no discernible benefit.
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We were entirely forgotten as part of ASTRA, then had it applied to us and forgotten about. You can see the whole page of ideas just left festering. This is at least the 3rd iteration by a different name of a promise to modernise the organisation.
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We’ve been made to complete mandatory health and safety checks that we aren’t qualified for and whilst in most cases the RFCA literally pays someone to do, like inspecting fire doors, testing fire alarms, reporting building faults (which they aren’t fixed or if they are, they’re done to such a poor standard it breaks again)
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We’ve had shooting qualifications pulled with no reasoning, wasting time and energy and goodwill.
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We’ve been treated as 2nd class citizens, ordered around, treated as serving personnel in the main by people who are paid significant amounts of money but have no experience of either youth organisations or volunteers, and who show as much.
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We’ve had regional boards to commission moved from evenings and weekends to during the day, forcing us to take time off work to attend them in someone paid’s working hours.
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We can’t get uniform to clothe our cadets, and when we do it’s poor quality or faulty.
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We’ve had “mandatory” admin orders forced upon us which require us to consider where a helicopter might land, consider being gay a safeguarding issue, demand us to find the nearest AED or not have things approved.
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We’re forced to undertake a catastrophic bleeding first aid module for all shooting, even air rifle.
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We’ve had an attempt to stop us having/using squadron owned vehicles, at the same time as a ban/making it harder to hire MOD white fleet/Clarity vehicles because of cost. To the point that we’re refused to even be allowed to the use the MOD discount when ordering new SOVs.
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We’ve had health and safety training given to us to give to cadets, and then criticised if we don’t run it.
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We’ve had attempts to only allow specific individuals to use flight simulators because they need to be “qualified”.
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We’ve had the opportunity to meet in person stopped, and demanded that we use Teams to save money.
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We’ve had a new TRF forced upon us, which wasn’t proofed and so displays a penis on it. We also weren’t given enough of them.
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We’ve had bans on anyone drinking alcohol in front of cadets, which even includes parents and guests at dining in nights.
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We had a completely useless learning system that wasn’t fit for purpose, forcing us to make work arounds until it was finally scrapped.
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We had the commandant announce his departure on LinkedIn, before telling even his paid staff let alone the people he’s supposed to be leading.
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We’ve had extra admin created in the form of CACE forms, which are vague, unclear and not suited to any of our activities. This actually creates work for the people which are apparently overworked already.
I am exhausted writing that, so credit to anyone who can read it. I might come back and add to it later, but for now hopefully that gives you an indication of how and why we feel so disheartened at this organisation at the moment.
I roughly spend 35 hours a month supporting my squadron just on parade nights and admin during the week, not including any weekend activities (when we’re allowed to do them). I make no apologies for being passionate and I would dearly love to support the organisation to be better, but the opportunities to do that aren’t there and my patience has worn out.
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But he is known as ‘Cab’ across the RAF and on his social media, so not anonymous 
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Going to challenge this - this is not the best thing people can do.
Every volunteer is different, volunteering for different reasons & are in different circumstances.
Add into that things change - people grow up, move house or job, get married, have kids get bored - there’s no one size fits all.
Volunteers in general are can do & proactive but they get sapped by negativity. I don’t mean we shouldn’t be critical but there is no need to be mood hoovers.
People at all levels, volunteers & paid staff are trying to make things work. It’s just there’s very little cross communication & ranks/hierarchy getting in the way of succeeding.
We can get the ATC back up to speed but it’s going to be tough as volunteer world is stretched everywhere scouts, military cadets, St John’s. Low land SAR, police specials etc
There needs to be a way to drain the swamp & get the toxicity out so we can move forward together but it’s going to need change & a culture shift in the ATC.
It’s great that @Cab has come on here to challenge some of the misunderstanding & hopefully has gained an insight into the weird world that is volunteering but we are only going to succeed if we’re are honest with each other, non judgemental with each other and work together with volunteers & paid staff mutually supporting each other.
We need to stop “playing the game” & do what’s right rather than what’s easy.
So no leaving is not the best thing we could do as it won’t help the organisation unless the person is becoming a blocker & it’s time to put out to pasture.
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That’s why I put it in inverted commas. I am aware of that, but as we’re not in the RAF not many will. And the point wasn’t the username, it was that rather than choosing to email everyone internally they’ve chosen to come to a forum. Like I said, I’m happy with some engagement but you can’t do one thing and then ask people to do the opposite.
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If anyone hasn’t read all of this they should. This is the best response I’ve seen on here in a long time and sums up what is a mass of problems that CFAV are seeing at the coal face.
Well said.
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I didn’t know that, so it looked pretty anonymous to me
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This is one of the most depressing things I’ve read in a long time. Seeing it all there, being forced to relive all of those individual straws falling on the back of the camel, it’s actually quite traumatic.
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All of that is correct, but I had and still have absolutely zero trust - in fact, massively negative trust - that it will ever happen.
Successive leadership teams have proven themselves inadequate, ineffective, and horribly out of touch. Voting with your feet is the only way they will ever learn.
I am very sorry for everyone still in having to put up with this mess.
Earlier we were told it wasn’t a shambles. And I have to say that’s correct.
It’s far far worse.
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Like everything in volunteer world - the majority of time we are dealing with perception not reality.
It is almost irrelevant whether things are a shambles or not - it’s the fact that they are perceived as such that will be the issue.
Volunteers freely & willing give their time. In doing so they are trusting that the organisation will respect them & guide them in making a difference. Volunteers don’t just need to be trusted, they need to feel trusted.
You have had trust broken & let down by leadership - sadly this happens all the time & all of us has been there at some point.
Many of us have also seen good volunteers broken by the organisation- often by fellow volunteers who tend to push their own feudalistic view rather that what is sensible or best for the organisation.
Too often the paid staff are unaware of these shenanigans particularly if volunteers try to play them off against each other leading to greater disconnect.
Parts of the organisation are running very well, some are struggling about to fall & others are completely chaotic & need gripping.
The fact that it reached a point that SW region are having to take this drastic action is a shambles & it shouldn’t have reached this point.
The fact that it’s being done to sort out the Issues isn’t a shambles & far better than letting the chaos continue.
As long as this doesn’t become routine & is truly a one off event (I.e no more than once every 25 years) then it should be fine but it should not be a business as normal reaction.
Edit to add - Sorry @POAG, forgot to say on my first post - welcome to the forum & thanks for posting 
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One thing I forgot to ask was:
What is going to change on the 1st September that means that this will end?
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I’d forgotten some of those - but certainly not the shooting / aviation issues.
I had a very positive engagement with @Cab last year, joint Teams call with him, Cmdt RAFAC & OC 2FTS.
He did say that he would not be averse to seeing a replacement policy for ACTO35 being looked at to consider possible options.
I emailed OC 2FTS about this on 13 Jun - he had stated in the Teams meeting that once the ACPS replacement had been introduced, his commercial team would have spare resources to look at due diligence matters, etc, to look at any “maybe” ACTO35 replacement. His reply was very unhelpful; he has not yet responded to my counter reply of 21 Jun (c.c.'d, as was the original email) to @Cab’s PSO.
I concur with the comments - it is a VERY brave CFAV who sticks their head up above the parapet - even for my discourse last year, it was informally suggested to me that I was well outside the CoC remit. I wasn’t, but also I have very thick skin.
Again, I concur with the “thank you” posts for @Cab coming into the lion’s den! 
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You didn’t happen to casually drop the shooting ones into conversation during the Vizianagram at all did you 
Now all this has been exposed publicly, maybe @cab’s task is to kick over a lot of stones in HQAC and see what turns up, in particular I refer to the FOI request where he had instructed that car park marshalling should stop, and his instructions had not been carried out, one asks what other instructions have not been actioned at a lower level, and what has not been fed back to AO 22 Group.
The RAFAC will now, in the words of the old Chinese curse, ‘will live in interesting times’.
The appointment of the new CRAFAC is crucial to the viability of the organisation, maybe it should be seen as a tick in the box for advancement rather than a retirement post, (ETA) those who AOCs want out of their commands or who are unsuitable for advancement.
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Sadly, didn’t have the time - more talk on politics at times rather than shooting!
Nice to see that Mark Garnier survived the General Election cull - he is of course very pro-shooting & did well today for the Commons team.
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Sir, if you’re willing to be receptive to some advice, this has the appearance of being slightly antagonistic, but in good faith I suspect this was intended as tongue-in-cheek. It does open up opportunity though for a remark or two on the quality of comms. Where semantic discussions crop up tends to be when a policy or statement is ambiguous or incomplete. We are left with little choice but to attempt to interpret or fill in the gaps that are left, because what we are provided with is insufficient to adequately discuss or advertise on our squadrons. Sometimes the responses are themselves offered with a tongue firmly placed to the side.
I of course echo the sentiments of gratitude and respect for making an appearance on here. There’s not much that I can add in terms of specifics that hasn’t been said since you offered yourself to us or that you may not have already read further up this thread or in others that are related. But I can add that I have a Wing Commander that seems to only turn up when they perceive or there is a problem, and that if I were to use official channels to communicate directly with higher up the CoC I don’t have enough faith that I wouldn’t be earning myself a visit.
I can also concede that there going to be things about the machinations and structures within the CS and FTRS structure and the onward links into the RAF and MOD that we may not understand, but that is a result of deliberate obfuscation and not for a lack of desire or effort to understand.
Conversely, CFAV feel that the realities faced on squadrons, their experiences and feelings, and the consequences of decisions and policies are purposefully ignored through wilful ignorance or a lack of desire to understand. We are very vocal, through the CoC, on Social Media, and indeed forum posts about what life is like at the bottom, yet we rarely even get platitudes let alone any sense that a decision has been made with a bottom-up perspective in mind. It all just feels like air conditioned diktat from people either unable or unwilling to break out of the militaristic styles of leadership and communication to which they have become accustomed, in recognition of the different environment that they now operate within.
I am led to believe that Air Cdre McCafferty has had her eyes opened to a lot since joining a squadron as a CI, despite how public and travelled she was in her time.
We are not paid for our efforts, we are not reliant on the organisation for our existence. If you take Maslow’s hierarchy, what we do here is truly at the top: it’s optional, because we want to, because we believe what we do gives value and we do in turn get value on an intrinsic and benevolent level.
That means that the currency is time and that we are paying RAFAC, and our time beyond all else is our most valuable asset as volunteers and we want to spend as much of it as possible having the effects that we joined to have - delivering knowledge, activities, and experiences to cadets so that they grow, develop, and learn valuable skills. Anything which causes us to spend more time not doing that (a finite resource in a zero-sum system) needs to be justified - we will ask “why”. Anything that renders time already spent on something wasted (such as last minute blanket bans, cancellations, or delays) needs to be justified - we will want to know why. If a resource can’t be brought back online after removal (Vigilants) we will want to know why…
…And when that reason is “not economically viable”, but a few years later government funding is granted to a charity to attempt to do what we didn’t, it’s going to be pretty annoying.
The other thing about CFAV, is we spend a lot of time planning and problem-solving to make things happen. We like to make as much happen as we possibly can and are incredibly proactive in pursuing this goal. So when something stops we will begin to consider what mitigations could have been made, when should contingencies have been considered, why was a better plan to mitigate this scenario not found?
“SW had staffing issues, move to the pillar system”. Ok, not a fan of that idea for a few reasons, but if needs must…
“While we transition we ask for patience”. Sure.
“We need additional time so temporarily ask that you don’t put in anything that requires our self-inflicted CACE system, but here’s the date that you’re good to go by”. Ok, this is an annoying restriction, but at least it’s temporary and we can plan to get things moving again after that date.
“Oh, you wanted to do stuff? Sorry the ban on CACE is now indefinite.”
“Oh, you wanted to do stuff that doesn’t involve CACE? No, now you can’t do that either, because despite knowing we are short-staffed, despite already pushing our initial deadline further out, despite changing our entire working model to be more efficient, we are (completely unpredictably, definitely didn’t see this coming) short-staffed and over worked and don’t have a better plan to stop this becoming your problem and we’re not going to explain why this is now your problem”…
This is how it looks to us and at this point, we declare a shambles. Your view may not be that your final decision is a shambolic one, you may not even think that the contingency planning was chaotic or indeed absent. But the result is that the entire region now has (at least) the appearance of being a shambles.
1/6 of the organisation is practically dead in the water and has seemingly been left by the rest of the organisation to sink. It’s going to take a lot to rebuild our faith that this is going to be turned around positively having already lived through 6 months of a progressive decline, including missed deadlines, on top of the issues we’ve seen over the past 10 years.
To be honest, it’s a relatively light jab to receive by this being described as a “shambles”. It’s fortunate that “South West Region” doesn’t rhyme with “muster”.
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