CCF originally had their own TEST Areas on a par with regions & effectivly a separate admin support chain. Their clerical support was a single office at HQAC with two admin officers.
The Change was to give greater admin support to CCFs with WExOs providing that local support & oversight supported by the TEST officers & SNCOs. Notable the CCFs did not come under ATC wing commanders despite people trying to make out they did (which was mainly ATC volunteers getting ahead of themselves again).
the biggest issue that I think RAFAC (by which I mean the ATC) struggle with is that the DDH & ODH for a CCF unit does not rest with HQAC but with the headteacher of the school regardless where the activity takes place.
If it on the school site the head has precedence & if off site then the DDH role is shared.
This is why some CCFs are missing out on flying because RAFAC has been unable to evidence & demonstrate that AEF meets the schools safe system of training.
I think the “RAFAC Sunday 85” is a symptom of the arrogance that exists in the ATC .
Imagine being one of those CCF cadets at that service hearing about how the Air cadets have been going for 85 years despite your section dating back 10 years further like your own history didn’t matter & it had been suborned by the organisation envisaged as the military youth wing of Oswald Mosley’s Luncheon Club.
If there is a desire for an “one RAFAC” & that’s the direction of travel then that can be worked towards but what shouldn’t be done is rebadging ATC milestones as RAFAC which is just insulting.
Better option - ditch the 5 of Feb & ATC Sunday & move to 1st April & RAF Sunday.
Better link to our parent organisation & more inclusive.
I’d actually be really curious to know if this desire does indeed exist anywhere else than HQ levels?
Does OC 2468 Sqn want “one RAFAC”? Does a cadet NCO from 9999 Sqn want “one RAFAC”? Do CCF cadets at Tiddlywinks School for Special Little Biggleses want “one RAFAC”?
There is certainly a long standing vibe of the CCF needing to be the same as the ATC often from the same quarters that then start going on bout boats across the English Channel & why the TV license needs to be abolished.
The reason why the CCF do things differently is because they are different. And while it’s easier bureaucratically to lump everyone together this is not the right way forward.
So for example what representation is there on the uniform advisory group (can’t remember the name) from the CCF. Or on bader development team or the PTS subject developments - who is asking “how will this work with the CCFs”
The renaming of the ATC GP Fund into The Air Cadet Charity has also had an effect. This is a charity mostly funded by ATC subs. Yet now pays out for RAFAC-wide projects.
As an ex-ATC Cadet commanding a CCF(RAF) section, I want to give all the opportunities I had (within modern constraints) to my Cadets.
But parading 2 hours a week in term time only, makes it difficult to deliver much more than classification, MOI & blue/bronze leadership. It sucks for us that the offering is predicated on 2 parades a week, 50+ weeks a year.
In fact to make it more stark, in a 5 year career with full attendance, one of my Cadets could expect 390 ‘contact hours’.
As an ATC Cadet with full attendance, you could achieve 300 hours in a single year if my maths is mathing.
Thank you @Baldrick for splitting the thread, I was becoming increasingly aware that the conversation was perhaps heading in that direction.
My role isn’t to defend previous decisions and so I don’t think it is hugely valuable to anyone for me to go back and forth with each response.
Air Cadet Central is obviously one of many channels I have to engage with the organisation, and so I will follow the conversation and bring that together with views I’ve had through other routes to share with the HQ in due course.
I am enjoying seeing such enthusiasm for organisation identity though!
This is great to hear. I don’t think anyone expects you to peform miracles or make decisions on behalf of HQ. Nor do I think there should bean expectationto reply to all. But this general open communication and bi-directional comes is great.
Back on topic briefly… (but thanks to @Virgil and @Chief_Tech in particular for their comments)…
The early history of CCF units is complicated, so it’s not always obvious what we would celebrate. My own unit was founded some time in the 1930s as a JTC sixth form RAF option, and we have photos (in the old ACP on the history of the CCF), but we don’t have a date. We were an ATC unit in Feb 1941, though, and indeed we hosted an ATC75 parade to celebrate that fact in 2016. And, of course, 1948 was the formation of the CCF as currently established.
@Chief_Tech is entirely correct that the CCF(RAF) units are administered by ATC regions and wings. Not commanded. A crucial distinction.
I think this is my confusion from a badges point of view.
Administrative responsibility for a part of another, separate organisation is not grounds to rebrand unit badges for that “main” organisation (the ATC in this case)— it’s quite the departure from anything else we see where heraldic badges are concerned.
There are of course other oddities, such as the fact the volunteer gliding squadrons don’t have their parent organisation in the circlet, but that’s an absence of something, rather than the presence of something else.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the VGS are very much their own thing when it comes to the branding. Which may explain their unique badging. RAF colours Astral Crown. Perhaps to represent an RAF unit, wholly for Air Cadet benefit?
