The Cluster at the Muster

As much as it could be a great day out, the only way to send a message is for us all to just not attend.

1 Like

To be fair, my Region STEM officer actually emailed all.rgn on 27th July asking for expressions of interest for this event - although since I didn’t put any forward I don’t know what subsequent comms has been like. It does seem like for those of you who’ve only heard much more recently, it does seem to be a local issue, not a HQAC one, about the initial warning order not being distributed.

In fairness some squadrons don’t help themselves. We were invited to the SMS activity and less than half the wings squadrons pushed it to cadet portal.

That turned out to be a blessing as the wings places were slashed last week.

Still way oversubscribed, and left up a creek named after a popular tv show with no paddle on the transport side

Fortunately SOV and eager volunteers resolved the issue. But with less and less squadrons with minibus’s not having arranged transport will make things like this tricky.

So let’s immediately bin off all SOV’s!

1 Like

When were you added to the SMS and were there any useful details on it or attached?

Can easily imagine a few days at least passing before getting noticed, then if devoid of detail being ignored, or snubbed if especially short notice.

It was a little while back now - although you are right, there was little detail…

I can see why you might be sceptical of that, and maybe now I will be moving forwards, but the optimist in me won on this occasion. (And I admittedly regret it!).

Even local events, I’ve invited the Wing to, and had less then 50% share to portal…

3 Likes

I’ve put a Staff/Staff Cadet course out and had it shared by 3 Squadrons.

1 Like

I don’t want to ‘like’ the situation but I am liking your post for flagging.

In my AOR it is not even 1:3

Having seen poor uptake in the past, I’m not saying there isn’t apathy at play as well, but for something supposedly this good, I suspect feelings of “why take the risk to credibility on half an event we have no information on that sounds a little pie-in-the-sky under the circumstances?” could also play a part.

But… Direct comms, wso/wsc buy-in and support, proper local advertising, complete applications and AIs/JIs delivered in a timely manner, etc can help with getting things pushed. Not always, but it can.

Of course, my squadron didn’t even get the invite, so…

1 Like

Just realizing now what is most sad about this is the 1000 cadets who have potentially missed out on an awesome day due to things being too last minute.

Someone on the Facebook post asked how many cadets can go, to which they were answered 2000. Currently there is less than 1000 cadets on the SMS application, and a large number of those are still marked as ‘bidding’ anyway. (Unsure how to see how many are actually marked as ‘going’)

1 Like

yep, the irony that we’ve all recieved places last minute due to other wings either being unable to find CFAV’s/Cadets to go, or decided it was too last minute for them to organise the transport.

Saving grace with fewer cadets going; the majority of them should get a flight.

But obviously, the application is still in draft… Why is it that we in the squadrons would get absolutely reamed for that, but at corps level it’s completely fine?

3 Likes

705 currently marked as “selected”.

1 Like

Thanks; so 1300 cadets have missed out if the numbers stay as they currently are.

If you lazy CFAVs had arranged last minute time off work, transport, and liaised with schools you wouldn’t have those cadets missing out

10 Likes

Or your Wing has had its allocation cut :roll_eyes:
Just doesn’t make sense :man_shrugging:t2:

lol well yeah. I get the impression that perhaps the Wg Cdr “organising it” has cut the numbers in half due to dropouts of aircraft etc and not told HQAC media. lol

My wing lost places because be could not get a bus through the Phoenix system No coach companies bid for the work. As a result cadets we had staff and cadets willing to go but no coach to transport them.

I hear that…

The daily mail
The sun
The telegraph
The bbc
The independant
The times
Channel 4 news
ITN news
Reuters
lbc
ITV news
Sky news

Have all picked up the story…

And if they havent, they might now as search will bring this thread up.
:joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::joy::smiling_imp:

1 Like

My question.

As a WAvnO… do you realise the position im put in when advised to “disseminate far and wide” a muster.

Push hard for squadrons to open it up.

To have all spaces pulled from under me to the point there is no point in wing transport…

To then have to fill out spreadsheets as sms isn’t being used correctly.

To then have multiple emails asking for details on spreadsheets.

To then be given a 12 hour notice to create a sms sub app and add cadets. Because we’re now using sms properly.

To then have to send transport details… on a spreadsheet.

To then have to tell the squadrons at late notice there are limited spaces and arrange SOV transport.

To then field several calls from wing and regional staff to make sure it’s all happening…

I’m at the end of my tether with this muster. I don’t like to publicly post like this. But it infuriates me when we are told to jump through hoops and then the volunteers are made to look bad.

It’s frankly been an embarrassment for my ARC and WExO to have to be in as much contact over a single activity as this.

I’ve spent longer today organising a muster for a handful of cadets than on my paid job. Thankfully my employer is understanding and keen on developing young people in aviation.

If they weren’t then there wouldn’t be our tiny handful of cadets attending this weekend.

Never mind the disappointed cadets that didn’t get a space.

7 Likes