Noticed on social media today a wing posting about their “Wing CWO” - Seems to be a bit like a Wing WO. Anywhere else do this - surely all CWOs are ‘wing’ posts?
It’s like a lead CWO but no one is really sure what the role does, it’s purpose or how effective it is.
I suspect it is so the organisation can claim that the “young people” are part of the decision making of the organisation and as such can tap into different sources of funding grants.
Or is that really cynical?
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Depends on your Wing I suppose.
In mine they sit on the CWO promotion boards with the WWO and the Wing CO. They also provide a staff link with all of the CWO’s, outside of the Squadron CoC (which I use a lot when I want to make sure courses get through to the Staff Cadets).
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Our Wing has a Wing CWO. They appear on the Wing Org Chart and any presentations that show wing staff, They even have a bader email address as WWO Dep.
Its part of my plan…with a wider cadet forum/committee etc that they are effectivley chair of and their sole job is to manage that. They act as a safe environment to capture feedback to help drive wing strategy.
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Sounds like a good idea to me.
Ours has a WSO account.
I try ha
Staffs Wing has done this for years and it works well. A figure head for the Cadets to relate to, usually one who has had a good career as a Cadet and can offer them advice.
Cadets will always be more candid with other Cadets so a great way to work.
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Can I make a suggestion?
On the application for WgCWO, the applicant needs to also have the support from two other CWOs not in their sector. It then means you have candidates that are good networking amongst the cadets and not just awesome mini staff.
We’ve had a couple of dud ones that were all ideas no execution & all the other CWOs put them in the box of “thats nice dear…you go play with crayons & charts over there while we crack on”
Then you’ll have CWO who known across the Wg rather than just to the Wg Staff cliche. 
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But what do they actually do? & did the previous ones do anything?
It sounds a great idea in concept but it needs a clear idea of how it is going to work otherwise it’s just going to be a fizzle or token position (which is unfair on the cadet).
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Good idea
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It is a great idea and works well in our wing however I do have one issue. In my opinion it should be a long appointment of 6 months plus. Our wing appoints after interview but the recently appointed wCWOs have aged out after roughly 2 months which is not time to actually do anything.
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In our Wing you have to have a year left to apply, otherwise it’s a waste of time
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Assuming you have someone promoted to CWO on their 18th birthday, that only gives them 2 years to exceed all other competing CWOs for the position, be appointed and actually do something influential.
And that’s assuming they’re promoted immediately. I imagine most FS are approaching 19 before they’re promoted to CWO.
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It’s very easy to say you plan on staying at least a year…
For some reason my Sqn has a lot you leave to go to university (out of proportion for the local demographics) & I’ve had to completely adapt my academic & promotion timelines. I now work roughly to school years so the intent is that a cadet who has the potential to get to CWO is FS when they are 17 /start of year 13.
They’ve still got to reach the standard but it does mean that we aim to prepare cadet for corporal at 18mth service 
year 10.
Yes we have to do the training to get them there & I personally believe that’CWO is available at 17, (& you only stay as cdt until 19 but that’s a whole different debate).
If the role of WgCWO is not to be a tick box then you are looking at CWOs appointed just after the age of 18 then 6-9mths assessing them as a CWO.
The alternative is that you just have the Wg CWO default to the longest serving CWO in a “father of the house” sort of way.
it all comes back to
Why do we need to have the role of a Wg CWO?
What is the role expected to achieve?
Will they have the support of the Wg Staff, th Sqn OCs & the other CWOs?
Not of your 19 and 10 months it isn’t.
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