Tony Keeling - First day 'To-do-list'

Adult Staff
65

I do feel that we did used to do more. In my cadet career we had flying for a squadron 2-3 times a year. British airways would also offer once a year to take cadets up. A minibus full would go each time. Now it seems
2-3 cadets a year get a chance to fly. (All our slots last year were cancelled). Gliding would be done a lot more again a minibus full at least 2-3 time’s a
Year.
Shooting would be a minibus full for a whole day. Fieldcraft weekends would involve us climbing into a 4 tonner and heading to Crowborough or Bramshot common.

Annual camps would be 2 coaches I have fond memories of Coningsby and Credon Hill. They would also have a work experience element where for a day you’d go to a section and learn about it.

Just my observations. To that end I endeavour to make sure our cadets have the same great experience as I did. Just with less Activities.

I know the RAF is smaller now a days.

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66

Looking at the survey what you mention is indicated and this, along with other things, is something HQAC have been suggested to look into further to better understand it, before another survey is conducted. However this would reveal some uncomfortable truths which HQAC would have neither the will or ability to affect.
So stand by for lots of fine words and parsnips unbuttered, because HQAC are like a zero hours contract employer, they couldn’t care less if they tried. Without reams of admin the permanent staff side of the ATC would be nothing and we are their unpaid flunkies.

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I don’t buy that though. The time it takes anything to be actioned suggests they are chronically understaffed. Cutting the admin by a significant amount could be done without threatening jobs.

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If you have to say that then you were not around in 1990 2000 2010

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I was a cadet '98-'05.

If you want to try and make a declarative, objective statement about something, you have to be able to prove it. With stats, with evidence.

A couple of highly subjective anecdotes tainted by 27 layers of rose tinted glasses means absolutely nothing.

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70

Who isn’t understaffed today? Just where I work people haven’t been replaced when they leave and work gets picked up by those remaining, this applies to management as well, where you see a lot of roles merged with no extra pay.
I can’t think of one business where there are people dossing around like there used to be and you can’t sit there and say “I can’t” because not doing affects the business. I think that HQAC is part of the general malaise in the public sector, where there does seem to be an attitude that wouldn’t be tolerated in the private sector. I remember a mate of mine 8/9 years ago moaning they’d cut money and people and not replaced people at the council and he was having to do more no extra pay, I wasn’t at all sympathetic. We’d been like that for the 10 years before that. What made me smile was he seemed to have a job in EH where he bragged about how little he could get away with and then he couldn’t.

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not Stats but for “evidence” I could offer the F3822

comparing mine to that of even our CWO I am sure i could bet which has more flying hours, rounds fired, camps attended and “other activities” (I actually looked at this and it would appear on average I did something on the weekend once every other month i was a Cadet - this doesn’t include items recorded elsewhere (such as the flying log/shooting record and other items)

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72

But how does that match up to ‘achieving’ more? How can you prove you achieved more than any current cadet?

One thing to note in all the responses that have been fired my way on this… I’ve not once said that anybody is wrong. I’ve not once said that I disagree. I just asked for proof. And instead of evidence I got accused of not having been a member.

If the first thought of people is to jump on me for daring to ask for some proof, rather than actually provide said proof, doesn’t that say something else…?

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73

it doesn’t unless you wish to look at the “awards” pages.

it is not hard or water tight evidence but as evidence of the “cadet experience” it is a good measure and the best we have

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When I was a cadet I wanted above to be doing things, “achieving” things wasn’t even on the radar.
In today’s ATC we offer so little that I can’t understand why cadets stay as it’s pretty obvious the opportunities aren’t there. But then I feel the social side of the ATC is more important than the actual doing things.
Like some others I look at my 3822, just under 9 years as a cadet 7 UK annual camps, Overseas camps in Germany, additional pages selotaped in for shooting (.22, .303 & 7.62), AEF and sport, page and half of gliding, couple of pages of AT, cadet exchanges and too many other things to mention. I look at cadets now two annual camps if they are lucky, a couple of .22 or AR details normally coupled with WHTs, no flying or gliding and that’s the ones who’ve been in 3 or 4 years. We’re lucky that we are able to use an indoor climbing wall and tag into kayaking so we can offer some different things.

Achievements are a personal thing, I achieved things but weren’t something I was looking to do, but I think we now use achievements too much to fill gaps.

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75

Speak for yourself.

I think we’ve all long since got the not-at-all-subtle hint that your unit is a hellscape.

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76

Isn’t some of what we suffer partly the old hq staff Vs everyone else mindset? Seen some good things breaking this down e.g. from bader team lately…
As a dep wing padre I’m supposed to serve both of course, and think that a servant leadership mindset is great anywhere…
Personally, I think no form should exceed a page, numbered with two digits so we can’t have more than 100, a prize to anyone who eliminates a form or delegates approval authority, and no form introduced unless another bites the dust… But then I’m a naive idealist of course!

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77

This is a phrase I will use more often.

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78

I can’t understand why you stay.

Last year we got cadets to AEF 3 times, despite a summer closure of our local and no summer camp flying. We would have had more this summer, had gliding slots before lockdown and again, would have had more by the end of the year.

We’re running DofE, our wing holds several expeditions a year for DofE and other, we usually hold FT weekends 2-3x a year plus hijack others, social trips, shooting has had problems but regular air rifle and soon to be a hub, Easter Camps, Half Term AT Camp, Summer Camps + the nationals, RIAT/Yeovilton/others, October Wing Greens Camp, Wing Training Weekends, fairly regular wing shoots, we have cadets at monthly-as-a-minimum band practices plus competitions and a Band Camp {insert American Pie joke here}, road marching (training, Cosford, WARMA, Nijmegan, death march), sailing opportunities, mountain biking, kayaking, sports comps, wing field/competition day or whatever you call yours, Germany, Cyprus, Belgium, IACE, LLC, Mayor’s Cadet, Parachute course, JL, QAIC, ACLC, CLC. We’ve never been but I would lump that fancy flight sim set up in there as an opportunity as well.

Not forgetting all the standard stuff that hasn’t changed and what’s usual now that wasn’t then - first aid, leadership, broader classification content, modelling, air recce, presentation skills, flight sim, debating, sports, museum and activity centre trips, volunteering, fund raising, parades, cas sim, cyber, radio, public engagement, STEM.

When you were a cadet things were different, but let’s not draw divisions where there aren’t any - for the most part, where we’re concerned, doing IS achieving and always has been. We just have more mechanisms that actually recognise that now. You could “do” radio as much as you liked and you were achieving. The difference now is that we recognise different stages of that achievement.

As for opportunities… there are plenty and I’ve nowhere near listed everything having focused mainly on what I know our cadets have done in the last couple of years. We seek out and take advantage of as much as possible where I’m from.

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79

I think the truth is somewhere between your outlook and @Teflon

Take annual camps, for instance. Yes, we still offer annual camps to cadets, But comparing my experience on my first camp in the early 90’s (15 cadet places on it for my squadron alone), to what I can offer my cadets (by the end of 2021 we will have received 5 places for a squadron of 30ish cadets), shows that the average cadet will be lucky to get 1 annual camp place. Some national camps are now only offered every other year.

Or Expeditions. Expeditions wise, we used to allow staff to apply for “Competence Through Experience”, which meant that as a Cadet, there was plenty of staff authorised to train and run DofE Expeds and camping trips. That meant there was plenty of opportunity to complete up to Gold level DofE, which in turn meant when the cadets became staff, they could be assessed as CTE fairly easily, and could then run practice and assessed expeditions. Moving to NGB qualifications has reduced the staff willing or able to get qualified, which reduces the amount of opportunities we can offer to our cadets.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think that by and large, we still offer a good cadet experience. And I’m not saying that it’s anybody’s fault in particular. I just don’t think we can, as an organisation, achieve half of the stuff we used to.

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80

The lack of qualified staff is a result of poor understanding, the whole Mountain Training Setup is really about coaching and assessing people who would in the old days have CTE. If a Cadet has done Bronze & Silver DofE they should have the required 10 days experience to go and be trained as an LLA anyway, they just need to be made aware of the process and hopefully guided through it by a friendly WATTO.

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I’m not saying it’s all rosy or we necessarily do as much of certain things as we used to - but the options are there and for a breadth of experience.

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in organisational terms the breadth of experience might be there - though i’d argue against that, both for stuff that was RAF provided and ACO gererated - but the idea that because the ACO still does international camps the situation is the same as in the late 80’s -early 90’s when pretty much every Sqn in the ATC sent a cadet to Germany once a year is just silly.

i did more flying and gliding as a cadet than all of the cadets in my entire Sqn. thats not hyperbole, thats counted hours/flights.

as a cadet, 80% of the Sqn would go on annual camp, and any stragglers would go on other sqn’s camps - for similar sized sqn’s were now lucky to get 10% camp attendance.

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83

There’s little point pining for the past.

We’re not going back to a Cold War sized RAF that has the additional capacity to do nice things for cadets.

What the new Commandant needs to do is look at new ways of doing things; be that co-operation with the other cadet forces, dispersing expertise to the local level, or encouraging wing/squadron level innovation. Seriously reviewing the RAFAC sacred cows would probably be a good start - cough 2FTS cough.

Moaning that camp places are fewer now isn’t going to change the fact that the RAF is only going to get smaller.

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84

We as a wing have had the Wing Camps for over 20 years but they were originally in the late 90s/early 00s for cadets who couldn’t go on annual camp, now demand far outstrips places. These were fairly successful, but they were “green” and became very cliquey staff wise and fell off as people from outside got fed up with being ignored or given crap jobs. They’ve had problems over the last few years as getting enough staff qualified or not attend has been an issue and then there has been the increasing need for multiple approvals for the activities, I know that before all of what’s happened this year’s was not looking good.
Bands are all well and good if you have a bandmaster who knows what they are doing and can actually teach cadets. I was in a band for about 5 years as a cadet, our bandmaster was an oboeist and clarinetist but could play all the instruments in the band, the piano, guitar and do arranging. One of my cadets is learning the oboe and went to a local squadron band. But the bandmaster only has very basic music skills and the cadets seem to learn from each other, but there was no room for an oboeist like my cadet as he wasn’t able to do an arrangement, to include an oboe. She was looking to go on the band camp this year.
A lot of the other camps and activities have a limited appeal and or very limited places. We’ve got one sqn that does road marching, they throw it open, but when cadets (or more their parents) see what’s expected in terms of the training and where it is, it doesn’t happen.

Flying is it seems a postcode lottery nationally. We have had one AEF detail that happened in 7 years and two camps where they did AEF, one of which they also did flights in a Merlin. So in 7 years a total of IIRC 9 cadets have flown and there is only one of these on the books now. I now just ‘top line’ AEF when we have new cadets start, don’t want to raise hopes or actually just lie to them.

DofE has almost become a Wing activity, whereas at one time all squadrons did their own. We still do it among 5/6 sqns, but every time more sqns are asking to join and its in danger of becoming too big. Again the admin has become onerous. We now have 3 locations as opposed to being a bit more open to places, just so the mighty tome that is the admin orders now can be just date changed. Which limits opportunities.

Shooting has gone the way of DofE in that now it’s at the least 3 or 4 sqns, invariably over a weekend so that enough qualified staff can be called on, plus cadets AND staff can do WHTs.

A lot of the courses etc are fine but do they have the impact to make young minds think this is a good thing to join. You can dress a course up all you like, but when asked to explain what it is and what you do, they are incredibly dull. Even with our most recent meagre AEF, parents have said “x hasn’t stopped talking about it”, and this can be 2 or 3 weeks after it. Never get that comment after they’ve done a course and maybe got a badge.

So when I say we don’t do a lot, we don’t have the excitement inducing, impact activities. We can do courses and regardless of how “progressive” they are and give our certificates and badges, they are just like going to school. I can remember my first AEF in a Chipmunk, AEG in a Sedbergh, flying over Snowdonia ramp down in a Herc and a Puma flight at Gutersloh which took us close to the E German border. Probably because for me personally flying was the major reason I joined the ATC, the other things I did because they were there. Lord knows what memories the vast majority of cadets leave with today, because all we offer now, really are “because they were there”. I know we will never go back to those times and opportunities for those sort of experiences, but we do some oomph activities and bloody quick. The Air Cadets cannot be allowed to perpetuate as a overly course laden organisation, just because they are easy, “safe” and be recorded Big Brother style, teenagers do that 5 days a week.

What you cannot avoid is the history of the ATC in terms of its members experiences, it happened and cannot be erased or rewritten because it doesn’t suit the modern situation. If some of the things from history that made the ATC a better place for experiences can be re-envoked, then you need to look at that and think what can we do faced with today’s situation to make the ATC the organisation it was.

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