while the problem is one of their own making, as you say - and i’d bet that the reason it occurs is that HQAC staff are waiting on the RAF providing a service they’ve not had the capability for since the mid-90’s - it feeds into a bigger issue of fairness and priorities.
when i was a cadet - late-80’s/early-90’s, a sqn would get 25+ spaces on annual camp, one space on a Germany camp and two or three cadets from the wing would go to Cyprus (iirc…). if you didn’t get Cyprus you got Germany, and if you didn’t get Germany you got a UK camp.
now we have a situation where a couple of cadets from each sqn get a UK camp, a couple from each wing get a Cyprus camp, and everyone else gets nothing.
that is the financial and opportunity cost of this tiny number of cadets going to Cyprus? how many CivComs dip their hand into their pockets to get a cadet to Cyprus? what else could that money produce for the rest of the Sqn?
while someone at HQAC is trying to sort out flights, accommodation and all the rest for a small Cyprus camp, what are they not doing for the 30,000 other cadets in the ACO, the overwhelming majority of whom won’t get an annual camp?
time to chin it off. it used to work, but times and the situation changes, and now it doesn’t.
And the best bit is, that HQAC needn’t take the blame for this. It’s not their fault that RAF stations have reduced so much. It’s not their fault that the spare capacity in the system doesn’t exist.
They can quite easily take the “circumstances beyond our control” line on this and even the most angry keyboard warriors here couldn’t really have an issue.
I see the baton of the lack of initiative and innovation has been well and truly passed to volunteer staff.
Rather than going down the “doomed to repeat” path that HQAC seem consigned to and are apparently surprised every single time by, why not change the model completely and have paid for international visits, akin to IACE? With the RAF unable to commit to camps etc any more than a few months in advance if at all, maybe overseas camps move to a more civvie style trip planned 1½ to two years upfront, so that flights can be confirmed and the longer period opens it up as costs can be spread over a longer period. There could several each year on a Region or even better Wing basis, imagine 30 odd Wings taking say 50-60 cadets, OK not that many, but giving them a proper overseas experience. Taking place in July so that it would appeal to 16 and 18 year olds who have completed their exams and being cheaper as they are out of the school holiday price hike period. Planned 1½ to 2 years in advance, so that flights and hotels etc can be booked and itinerary arranged. By being aimed at the older cadets it starts to bring back some of the older cadet experiences, that have gone by the by, like nearly everything else.
I was involved in a trans-Atlantic cadet trip and the seats were booked and deposits paid IIRC 12 months in advance. We had already been paying for 6 months, so it was just over 18 months to pay the full cost. When our son went to the US on an educational school trip it was similar, we started to pay in Yr8 for a Yr10 trip. Our son and the vast majority couldn’t have gone if it wasn’t done like it was. In fact all school trips costing more than £100 were done with plenty of time to pay.
These overseas camps could have visits to military establishments and cadet units to preserve the military/cadet element, for those who think it’s important but make it more “cultural” than uniform. Although if you bin uniform altogether and do smart dress you may get around the military presence in foreign land difficulties.
As these don’t require anything from the RAF other than maybe a phone call to a compatriot in a foreign land, they are sustainable in the long term. Well unless the RAF loses all its people.
The only problem is for HQAC get away from thinking the RAF will …, which is can’t or doesn’t, to show some initiative and innovative thinking to benefit the cadets, God above knows they have failed in this in recent years.
With the cheese paring since the 90s of the RAFthose remaining units in an ever decreasing number of stations are constantly cycling through prepartions for, are on or are coming back from operations back into a training cycle.
When you look at the state of some stations in regard to accomodation and facilities for the RAF the ATC comes very far down the list of priorities, just HQAC and their acolytes still live behind a fence in their mentality.
This is why the thinking has to change, but as you say while HQAC personnel live within the bubble, little chance. But we can live in hope that a lightbulb moment happens.
However if it was overseas the selfie seekers probably wouldn’t get in on the act. Shame.
Except that most cadets are in and out in around 2.5 years now, once they realise that the courses they go on to get badges are all pretty much done within 18 months of joining, and higher level courses are like rocking horse poo.
Getting people to sign up for courses massively far in advance is a great idea for payment, but a lousy idea for children, who have no idea what they’re doing in 5 minutes time, let alone 5 months.
Additionally, the ‘going outside of school holidays so things would be cheaper’ bit is well and truly lost these days. Kids pretty much immediately start their next year’s topics after the exams that current year.
Weve also started finding that despite the department of education giving schools guidance that our activitys are educational. Schools are still refusing to let them have time off for camps etc
Kids officially leave school in the June of their 11th year (when they are 16) and don’t start either 6th Form or FE College until the following September. This was the case when I was at school (unless you started working in those days) and the same when our kids left secondary. They also leave 6th Form in the June of their 13th Year and unless they start working and don’t do Uni, they will start at uni in late September.
Therefore there is no worry about taking time off school, as they aren’t there. So a long term planned “camp” planned for this gap is viable. It might just keep them in the ATC over the hump of exams.
As I said I was involved in an overseas camp which the cadets signed up for nearly 2 years prior to going.
If something isn’t tried things will die on their backside and we’ll continue with the tales of when I was a cadet. I have CIs who were cadets in the last 23 years and they talk to the cadets about things that the new cadets listen on in awe, but less than if I get started.
This is because we have total dipsticks who still arrange camps in term time and expect schools to roll over, on the basis of a rubbish letter from HQAC, without thinking to target the right age groups at the right time. With a bit of intelligence applied, they could do things for older cadets and make it a bit more grown up.
We’ve had several AT camps in May and early June and moans that they get little uptake … hmmm I wonder why.
I recall going to Gatow which you had to be a SNCO and over 18 IIRC to go. So putting an age restriction on such camps wouldn’t be a problem.
We don’t have all the same dates due to the combination of schools and academy trusts who seem to set their own dates or follow the LA. When I were a lad, everyone took the same holiday dates and although they whinged, if you were off in term time, it wasn’t like it is now. We had a parent a couple of years ago who had children in secondary and primary, who had different holiday dates.
Just in our borough we have schools that take 1 week or 2 weeks in October, break up a week earlier or later in the summer and go back earlier or later in September. This year one borough is breaking up a week later for Easter which has scuppered a DofE.
Our catchment schools are in two different trusts, which causes its own problems as they do their own thing.
However anything in term time gets a firm no. We have started to see with the reintroduction of 3 year GCSE and 2 year A Levels (no AS) with only final exams, cadets seem to be in a constant cycle of tests and mock exams as the loss of coursework means they need to understand the content and answer exam questions. Across the schools we have cadets from those in Year 10 to 13 have had mock exams in different subjects since it seems from November. A parent has told us their daughter in Yr10 has got two weeks mock exams in July once the Yr11s have left at the end of June. Apparently how they do will be used to help determine which level GCSE they take, especially in Science and Maths.
We should lose the conceited view that a letter written by some officer makes one iota of difference.
You’re lucky, we have to book an appointment for the WExO to go through the paperwork, crossing the ‘T’ and dotting in ‘I’. Of course during the week, so it costs us a day off work as well.
WExOs should actually go to the Squadrons on Squadrn nights, they are paid for their duties, volunteer’s are not and should not have to take time off work to do this.