The Beginning of the End - The Capitulation of SW Region

100% definitely get pictures. And post them on the VoV thread.

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There’s a prepared line for such things now “I can’t comment on what other cadets forces do”…

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Or worse, that you care more for the safety of Air Cadets than you do Army Cadets…

Surely the RAF should ban use of all minors for this sort of thing to ensure organisational consistency.

If an Army Cadet gets injured now, that feels like a whole new problem.

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Maybe we just need a general shared album for pictures of the other cadet forces doing stuff that is deemed too risky for Air Cadets.

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If only there was a national youth agency who could act as a watchdog to ensure consistency within all the yooth organisations, and even act as sme on all things youth related :thinking:

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This makes so much sense now; we actually are mirroring our parent service more closely under the ASTRA initiative:

RAF Regiment’s job of protecting airfields given to Paras
RAFAC’s “jobs” of supporting the RAF, flying, UAVs, fostering the spirit of adventure (i.e. going outside and doing, well, anything interesting to be honest)… given to the ACF!

Maybe the grass isn’t greener, but at least the other cadet forces actually have grass and are allowed to play on it.

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Not really the Army have their own DDH as does the Station, as long both are happy with the risk no issues.

It just appears that we have an AVM who has the same level of risk aversion as the Commandant and they have wet their pants without any form of assessment of risk.

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Greens cadets are made of tougher stuff than blues cadets :wink:

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As someone who’s been in both cadet forces and their associated Services, I can honestly say the colour of someone’s uniform bears absolutely no relation to their resilience.

Lets not let the truth, get in the way of a good story…or inter-service rivalry…

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How are the RAF going to manage when they are asked to fight? The senior officers will be crying in the corner with soiled underwear.

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I was just fine in the courage department when I operated in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, UK QRA and Baltics as the first Typhoon squadron to conduct NATO Air Policing. No soiled underwear, thank you but a commitment to my Nation which, if challenged, gets a response.

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That’s all you have to say about this shambles?

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Write to me directly and without anonymity and I will answer any questions you wish. There’s no shambles here, by the way. What you see is a very professional balance of task against resource…and it is enormously difficult for all of us involved. We do not have the human resource we would wish to have to oversee and assure all the things we would aspire to achieve. It hurts but not as much as how we might hurt as organisation if we hurt one of our children whilst conducting activities. I look forward to your direct email. I am not that hard to find.

Thankfully I am not directly impacted by this, but I’m sure others may take you up on the offer. I think it is entirely reasonable to describe it as a shambles, but I appreciate why it might’ve been seen as necessary. What upsets me is the decline of the RAFAC and the negative changes continually outweighing the positive changes.

That said, thank you for the offer and I hope you take what is said across this forum seriously and don’t quickly dismiss what is said here.

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Extraordinary.

My favourite thing on ACC yet :joy:

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I never thought this would happen, fair play for interacting with the masses though!

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What we are seeing is a shambles caused by a lack of clear management.

Why has a Region been allowed to get to the point where things are getting worse and worse instead of someone seeing what would happen and overloading the CS. Calling a stop in the Spring when it was quieter and then making sure things were sorted for summer would have been a much more obvious choice.

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I think the main issue people have with this stop is this statement - what assurance are these permanent staff supposed to be providing? Much of the technical assurance is provided by volunteers - none of the permanent staff would be able to say if an adventure training risk assessment was reasonable or comprehensive for instance, as they have neither the qualifications or competence to make that assessment.

All they can do is say that a risk assessment has been added to an activity, which in my mind is not providing much assurance at all.

Obviously WExOs have some safeguarding responsibilities but I’d say those are relatively limited given the expanded HQ Safeguarding function.

I’m sure there will be further complexities and I’m all ears, but I am yet to be convinced of the ‘assurance’ argument.

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Please don’t take snippets from what I wrote in order to advance a misplaced argument. There are a huge number of people totally committed to the best outcomes for our brilliant Air Cadets. I have very real challenges on the numbers of Civil Servants I am allowed to have and I have to balance that across a diverse Group (feel free to explore what 22 Gp does). Safety of our children has to come first and it is my personal signature which underpins all of what we do. I can assure you I am one of the most experienced risk practitioners in the RAF and I have access to ample evidence on which I make coherent decisions.

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