Sorry…humour fully endorsed (…I still don’t get it though)
Whilst you’re here @Cab I would assume you’ve had some input into the comms regarding the new CRAFAC appointment. If so, thank you for the way it was done.
Its those small little actions that keep us grumpy volunteers happier
What ever your view of FOI requests, this is worth having a read though. Gives a real understanding of what is going on in the ivory towers above us.
Conflict and poor comms seems to be rife at all levels it would appear.
It would also appear that we seemed to have found out about this incoming pause on here before CAC did. And TKs opinion on this seems to be "This is a Regional matter". Like, yes, but where’s the HQ support?!
@Cab , for what it’s worth, you should have easily been able to get a list of the events that are cancelled. As you well know, all our events are uploaded to and approved on SMS. A fairly simple database query could have generated an answer to your very valid questions regarding what events would be/were cancelled. The fact this was so harshly defended by CAC is intriguing.
All I will say is it was interesting to see the response to being asked for a report to be run on Bader.
Hmm.
An eyebrow was also raised at (paraphrasing) ‘let units come to us with the financial impact it causes them’.
That’s a little bit of an over complication.
The way I would have done it would have been to go into SMS, copy paste into excel then fire off.
Baders a national system so this should have been achievable by anyone who could see the events so perfectly possible for someone at HQ to do.
They just would have needed to know a bit round excel & would have taken 20 minutes for a quick response - maybe 60minutes prettifying the report.
Having a read through (always been intrigued in FOI since the legend that is Thurston Sqn) but one thing that stands out
“Sent with blackberry for work”
Who on earth is still using blackberry? - it’s so insecure it would have been safer to use the graffiti in the downstairs loos to communicate.
The UK MOD, of course!
Thought we had moved over to iPhones for precisely this reason - unless paid staff have been breaching Op Sec by using personal phones.
I wonder if they found out who the leaker was to ACC?
Surely too busy to be putting time into finding that out?
The thing that really leaps out - apart from only one of these people seeming to understand how to use BADER - is that none of the HQAC people are remotely interested in the thousands of cadets and CFAV whose long planned, and looked forward to, activities have been cancelled at the stroke of a keyboard are going to be massively disappointed and upset, with thousands of staff hours wasted, and Sqn and parental funds flushed down the toilet.
It’s just ‘oh woe is me - FOI’s and being slagged off on ACC - chase down the villain’.
No mea culpa, no ‘i’m really sorry you’ve all been let down by us, the PS and COC’, no ‘is there any chance we could push this off till September to allow the summer activities to take place?’ - just ‘the important thing is my workforce structure and people who might get asked difficult questions tomorrow…’.
And they genuinely wonder why we hold them in such utter contempt.
It’s the software, rather than the actual phone.
My work iphone has it installed.
I wonder if the Gold DofE mentioned in the FoI email chain went ahead?
I’d put solid money on ‘not’ - I mean it might be all ready to go with no PS involvement required, but what matters here is holding the line, not kids getting away on an amazing trip…
Letting it go ahead would also expose the lie/witless misunderstanding that the CS part of the process has any impact on the safety assurance part of the process - it’s the CFAV WATTO’s and RATTO’s who go through the plans, the RA’s, the quals/experience of staff, not the CS - but that would break the narrative, so it can’t be allowed…
As I have previously pointed out several time to the seniors at HQAC, but to no avail, the PS use MODNet to do their work, CFAVs use Bader.
PS have no idea how to used Bader to run reports, that is why we have had request in the past from HQAC for information easily found on Bader
You can’t blame Wing HQ staff, it’s a way of working at the top that causes issues.
Work smarter, not harder should be mantra!!
Things I don’t understand are why TK would say no to AOC22 group’s reasonable request for data (that is readily available) and also then later tell us that FOIs are abusive.
He must know someone will just ask for it at some point? This is the systemic problem, get the info and publish it in advance and no-one will submit an FOI. I bet someone has either already submitted one or will do now seeing that response.
I also can’t believe that no one had that information when they made the decision to pause - they’ve made a decision completely blind with no relevant info to base it on. It’s just a guess and a hope rather than “will me stopping these activities actually lead to less work?”
Lastly, it also sums up everything wrong with the organisation that TK had no intention of working to find out the actual cost of the cancelled activities, no interest in mitigating the thousands of pounds lost and no empathy for any volunteer in there, just “how can I protect myself from ACC”.
Then they need to pivot - if you have volunteers running around on a system you don’t log into or understand then you’ve lost control before you’ve even started.
I suspect as well that as these Conversations were between SMT members no one thought to ask any of the lowly E1 or E2 at HQ that dip into the system whether this was possible.
What this also indicates is that no one at HQAC can do or is doing any data analytics.
I noticed an interesting line when discussing the identity of the leaker
“Text initials”
Surely our leadership aren’t using non official Comms for official work to get around FOI legislation!