NEW KAYAK DAY!!! 
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Watcha get?
MMH: A day SUPing the Ty Mawr - Erbistock section of the Dee. Only made better by the fact we survived the death-pontoon at the start and the death-tree-strainer about halfway. Win.
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Not for me. 
For the offspring. 
Theyāve outgrown the Dynamo. And the LL Remix, whilst well fitting, is a little slow for touring and journeying - great for WW intro and skills - but they are struggling to keep up with our solo canoes!
Then, last night, a Carolina 12XS popped up on Facebay. Should set them up nicely for a bit of touring and distance work. And at a price I couldnāt refuseā¦ actually, i wouldnāt have refused it anyway, they are so rare!!!
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Sent out the confirmation of interest and availability to our 58 strong waiting list for next months intake last night.
17 positive responses in less than 12 hours!
Iāve only got 10 places 
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Just go big or go homeā¦
Only 10 spaces?
You wonāt get your scraper ring with that attitudeā¦ 
Need to maintain a manageable number, both in terms of space and classroom management. But the waiting list size does give us keen cadets who are older, so we may make a slight increase.
Thatās a really healthy waiting list. Did you advertise, school talks etc? We only had about 15-20 enquiries since our last intake and probably 10-12 are starting in a few weeksā time.
Iāve none absolutely nothing for recruitment since taking over in March 2020, this is all 100% organic
What is thisā¦
I use the classic tried and tested method of ālord of the fliesā the strong survive and the weak perish.
Whereas we are doing everything in the play book and have virtually zero interest at the moment, and the average age is high.
@anon9987823 have you tried:
Facebook ads.
Twitter account.
Instagram account.
Go into schools and speak at year 8 and 9 assembly.
Advert in local paper.
Banners at Sqn.
Sqn website with a decent SEO ranking.
Flyers handed out at a local community event.
Adverts placed on community notice boards.
If you have done all that and still have had zero interestā¦
Same. Itās all been through enquiries direct to the sqn.
āmy son is interested in joining. His best friend joined, and loves itā¦ā
Facebook - Setting up ads very soon, but regularly post in the local community groups/school groups.
Twitter - Actually no.
Instagram - Yes, and very active.
Go into School - Our main āfeederā school evicted us and the new head has an anti-military stance, so wonāt allow any recruitment via the school. Historically this is what got us an intake of 10 to 15 every year.
Advert in local paper - We have a 300 word article and 3 images every month in local paper, and the surrounding village fliers.
Banners at Sqn - Canāt do this, as we hire from the primary school (since we were evicted from the secondary)
Sqn Website - Gucci website, looks attractive, regularly updated blog so and social feeds so you can see we are doing stuff.
Flyers handed out at events - At the local farmers market a CivCom member attends for their business and puts out leaflets for us, but we are a sleepy village and events are just starting to come back to life.
Adverts placed on notice boards - Yes, we have one or two clip frames in various public spaces around the local area that we keep up to date.
Not wishing to be too blunt butā¦do you have a good training programme?
A good training programme with lots of practical, interesting activities and opportunities generates organic growth through word of mouth in my experience.
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We have a fantastic program full of drone flying, full PTT portable sim, we have an active sector training program and cadets work their way through all aspects of the PTS and Classification in good time.
We have good staff levels with a mix of experience, and offer lots of off squadron additional activities, we are also able to do DofE in-house as we have the staff, bronze through to silverā¦ as well as other ATā¦ We have qualled staff for most the bronze PTS syllabus too. We arrange several other interest visits a year including airshows, museum visits and other items which are generally well attended.
The only thing we donāt have qualified staff for is Fieldcraft and shooting. But shooting we arrange additional training on top of what wing offer by pulling strings with a few friendly CCF units.
Honestly, it is a mystery to me why we canāt get more signing up. Usually we have people travelling in from other areas where there is another squadron to join ours.
We had good retention over Covid and as good a virtual parade offering the entire way through, but the cadets are now slowly ageing out. We are used to having between 35 to 45 on squadron, but at the moment are running at half that.
The drop in numbers has coincided with not being based at the secondary school.
Stand outside the school at kicking out time and hand out leaflets.
Get a couple of current cadets to help and have a 2nd staff member for assurance.
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This x1000
Itās the staff that we need to actively recruit.
Word or mouth in schools will always get young people through the door. This works both ways also. Donāt do any o the above and word of mouth will ensure that nobody will walk through the doors. Young people will be brutally honest sometimes. In a place where you only recruit from one or two schools it can kill a Sqn.
I wonder if this is the root cause or at least a contributing factor.
I have seen this with other groups where moving to a primary (or in one case a church) has put people off as they see it as childish or not for them.
Appreciate it is outside of your hands and it might be hard to compensate for.
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