I was thinking the same. There are no badges (other than classification) available through the official channels for us other than flying badges.
I know of some courses in my region that have got to the point of charging cadets a pound or two. To cover beverages, resources including a badge as the wing/training team have had to privately purchase then
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How do you know they didnât buy them from Cadet Direct?
Maybe Iâm in the minority, but our Wing has caught up now. Thereâs still a slight delay, but itâs mostly just the time it takes to process the paperwork.
Hence the âtongue in cheekâ bitâŚ
To the public at a recruitment event, itâs very eye catching. More likely to see this and be drawn to it, rather than a poster.
Iâve done similar with an old piece of ply, wrapped in MTP and used it to display items of a ration pack or cleaning kit.
However, it does look abit like that North Korean Generals uniform, so I wouldnât have used a jumper myself, but the concept is a good one.
Well, in this case, it was to catch the eyes of a judge in a competition.
Itâs all well and good to show something like this, until the badges arenât available or you canât do the activity.
To paraphrase The Scorpions âDonât make promises your body canât keepâ.
I think itâs disgraceful that staff buy course badges and cadets are charged to pay for courses so they can get a badge. Iâve not bought any badges, much to annoyance of my WSO, although he fully agrees with my rationale.
easy solution - remove the badge from display if the course is not available!
and what is that rationale?
Iâd rather you let someone take you far away on a holiday (to paraphrase The Scorpions). Maybe to Gorky Park?
Despite discovering that you might have a good taste in music, âIâm still (not) loving youâ.
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Not even on a âSunday morningâ?
The rationale that the badges arenât supplied so why should we buy them, itâs for HQAC to supply them.
We thought they were pinned on yesterday after looking at it, not sewed, so it isnât a waste of badges anyway.
A similar thing happend to my sister where she was issued MTP but the sqdn didnât have any belts and made her buy them (obviously my parents werenât happy)
She is lucky to be issued MTP as part of joining the RAFAC is that greens arenât really issued unless you are lucky and a belt purchase is damn slight cheaper than a whole dpm/mtp kit.Your parents should of been briefed properly by the Sqn.
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Weâre no different at our unit and while we help where we can, I explain that certain things are needed that we canât usually supply. Not had any complaints yet.
Join a sports team and you buy half your own kitâŚ
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are you suggesting you would rather stop training, halt all courses and remove opportunities for Cadets for the sake of a piece of cloth which isnât supplied free?
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Following on from the discussion started in the âhappyâ thread (You know what really makes me happy?)âŚ
I have been to Sachsenhausen, I have seen the ovens, and I have felt the eeriness. I have visited many of the memorials and museums in and around Berlin.
From a different era, I have been to Langemarck and Tyne Cot alike and stood in awe at the scale of those places - also Ysselsteyn which is mostly WW2 - and was shocked at some of the ages on the graves.
âŚ
Now for the GMG bit:
Considering the Mash is satirical, it merely plays on much of the charged language in use by the MSM and politicians - look at how they all attempt to slur and demean each other and how political reporting, acclimatisation, and propaganda have skewed our understanding of âleftâ and ârightâ, pushing a narrative that policies and behaviours are far more extreme than they actually are - especially previously centrist or only marginally liberal ideas being âextreme leftistâ.
Corbyn is painted as a communist while the Conservatives and Farage have hoovered up the likes of the BNP and Britain First. The Conservatives ran a mayoral campaign attacking the opponentâs ethnicity and have a problem with islamophobia (but letâs not mention it and focus on Labourâs antisemitism issues). Then thereâs the complete and utter disdain shown towards the EU and its representatives, the âhostile environmentâ, demonising of immigrants, polarisation of classes with ideological and politically calculated attacks on the poor, attacks on the judiciary in the press and by politicians⌠these are all fairly right-wing kind of ideas. The only thing the Conservatives fell short with was where the balance fell on police numbers and they opted for austerity over control.
No, these people arenât Nazis, and I utterly despair at the state of politics and political discourse in this country (and around the world - the USA is no different). But we have been incrementally creeping further to the right and using divide and conquer type messages, untruths, and smears straight out of their playbook for so long that we are at risk of normalising right-wing ideals and not being able to restore any degree of integrity to politics. And itâs not just us - Far Right groups are in the ascendancy in Europe and the States, too. If we donât recognise and satirise such use of charged language, what can we do? You canât fight fire with a water pistol.
That people get so hung up at satire, but are less vocal about the actual media and political propaganda baffles and depresses me.
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I understand and get what you mean to me the politicians, media and the like are all playing silly games to paint opponents as badly as possible and then have the audacity to complain/discuss about the lack of respect in this country.
Even the pathetic point scoring thatâs going on sometimes it seems there is no point in even trying to have a decent discussion with people.
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No, you can do the âtraining/courseâ and not have a badge. Iâve done many courses and not even had a bit of paper to say I have. By doing what people are doing they are not forcing HQACâs hand to actually ensure they supply things from day one, not put something in place like a badge scheme as they did and make some really poor excuse as to why they canât supply the badges, but then hey presto they are available to buy through a third party. Similarly rank slides, bar initial set.
This badge scheme like so much emanating from our national HQ, smacks of something that was rushed, with the message squadrons have to fill the funding gap. There is an old adage about not doing something you canât afford, something or to do something you donât do it that HQAC might need to think about, the next time they get all pie in the sky.
Just because you donât have a badge doesnât mean you donât know the information and or ability to impart that knowledge.
Politicians having been like that since time immemorial.