So as we all know winter is coming and at my squadron we split our parade nights to 1 a week of lessons and 1 a week of projects, now as the 2nd/3rd most senior cadet and being master cadet i’ve been told i need to help teach and to come up with project ideas/ run them.
now for the past couple of years theres been photography which has always failed and media which has always failed so im coming to you guy for ideas for good projects to do from about October till December or January till March.
Yeah, speak to your Training Officer and tell them that is a terrible plan! There’s no requirements to do projects anymore, so you don’t need to do them just to “fill time”. 1 night of each from now until next year is going to turn people off (which may explain why they “fail”.
Instead do a rotation of “other” activities throughout the period:
Guest speaker (RBL/RAFA/some local warlord/Police Force/Ambulance Service/Casualty Union/RAYNET etc etc)
Sports
Fieldcraft Training practical/theory
Adventure Training practical/theory
Leadership skills
Flight Commanders evening
Padre’s hour
COs Parade
Swimming proficiencies
Mini project (1 night per month)
Public Speaking competition
Entry Level H&S qualification (lol!)
NNAS theory (2-3 nights) with a practical one weekend
BTEC Public Services workbook
Paper aeroplane type exercises
Observation skills type exercise
Aircraft Recognition
Recap on Aircraft knowledge
Interflight competition
First Class Drill test
Radio comms exercises/refresher
Working towards comms badge
If that’s not enough to keep you busy without resorting to “projects for the sake of projects” then I don’t know what will!
Thanks for the advice Batfink
However my squadron is very anti greens during the winter so i dont think we could do practical fieldcraft/adventure training and again with sport they dont like us doing it in the dark.
we’ve already done the H&S qualification
all the cadets are too young at the moment to do BTEC in public services.
we also dont have a padre and we’re losing our CO at the end of the month.
i dont think any of our staff can assess for swimming proficiencies, unsure on this one though.
What is this NNAS theory thing you mentioned?
paper areoplane and observation skills seems like a good idea i’ll defiantly put that forward
air rec we dont really have anyone keen in it.
and i dont think any of my staff are qualified to teach the comms badge but again im unsure on this/
Thanks again for the advice. and yeah i think it is the lessons and projects for the whole of winter that loses us members.
They can start accruing the BTEC tick boxes beforehand.
The unfortunate thing is you have to molly coddle the cadets to the point where thinking for themselves is not a requirement. So things like media or photography, which are admirable things, as they are brilliant for internal and local external promotion of the sqn, aren’t going to happen because it requires them to think and do. A modern day malaise amongst many teenagers is the inability to do this, as schools and parents plan their existence in minute detail.
Trying to get the balance right is nigh on impossible.
