Cultural Shift in CAP

[AirDX]

IMHO, the only way to "squash" the "I'm only a volunteer" attidtude is with an environment that encourages professionalism.  That includes everything from a PIC flying to the highest standard to the newest SMWOG and CB wearing our uniforms correctly.  That, starts with a leadership which follows the standards to the highest level possible as an example.  A leadership which insists on following every principle we believe in.  And, a leadership not afraid to solicit and hear the input of the membership.

Fred: make it real, make it harder, encourage those with enough professionalism to forge links with state and local ES folks, find real missions.  Then uphold standards.  Make people toe the line or get out.  There are 34790 SMs in the system today.  By the time I was done there might be only 20000.  Or less.  But then we would build up again - people want to be part of an elite, or at least a professional organization, and have pride in it.  I have some pride in CAP - but it could be so much more.

[COL Land]

From the other side...

    The use of "volunteer" is pretty well taboo within the U.S. Army Cadet Corps (USAC), due to the "hey, I'm a volunteer, whatta they gonna do....fire me?" attitude that exists within some folks.

     Yes will will fire you.   In our culture, we use the term "non-paid professional."   The attitude is that we should be as professional at our unique mission as our active, guard and reserve colleagues are at their mission.  USAC is not about fighting America's wars...therefore, to be an effective USAC officer or NCO does not require current warfighter proficiency.  However, there are a host of other skills - including military skills - which are essential. 

     The wear of the uniform is a privilege which comes - in part - based on the skills, experience and drive that an officer or NCO brings to the program.  If you can't live up to that expectation, go home.  Further, rank is a symbol of proficiency and responsibility.   When senior, you ARE in charge.  There is no provision to be "just another officer" within USAC.   To wear the rank, you must fill a valid slot.  Otherwise, an individual can retire or request a change in status to a Civilian Instructor or Civilian Executive, depending on qualifications.

Respectfully,

[N Harmon]

Otherwise, an individual can retire or request a change in status to a Civilian Instructor or Civilian Executive, depending on qualifications.

Are USAC officers and NCOs not considered civilians?

[Ron1319]

I think that the shift towards higher standards at the cost of fewer members is dangerous.  One of my best seniors attends once a month to teach an excellent aerospace class to the cadets and is a chaplain and can teach CD when needed.  Based on your description, you'd run him out of the program for being inadequate or not dedicated enough.  I value him highly. 

I have another friend and employee of my business who joined a squadron with an airplane and seniors that are very into ES.  She has gotten to go flying a couple of times but is a college student and very involved in many other things.  She may decide in the next 5-10 years that she has a place as a mission pilot and is very dedicated to CAP, or she may decide that she doesn't have time for it.  Based on your description, she would not have a place in the organization now and it would not be worth the time to train her because she is not hard core enough.

Once you create too high of a sense of elitism in any group, you fail to get enough new members due to their inability to feel like they can become a part of the group.  Some seniors may join for what is at first a very limited purpose and then later discover that they have more to offer.

In other words, it's dangerous to post on a forum about how you want to grow elitism in CAP and exclude new members due to their inability to live up to your higher than necessary standards. 

[Eclipse]

^ I don't think that is what he (we) said at all.

Members who want to only be involved in AE or CP are fine and appreciated, but then don't kid yourself that you are a resource on the ES side.

And by "standards", we're talking about some pretty low-level expectations considering the potential impact of our purported missions.
Things like "showing up when you say you will", "fulfilling personal commitments", "not expecting the 'other guy'" to do all the crap jobs so you can have fun.

[Ron1319]

Really?

" Make people toe the line or get out.  There are 34790 SMs in the system today.  By the time I was done there might be only 20000.  Or less."

[AirDX]

I think that the shift towards higher standards at the cost of fewer members is dangerous.  One of my best seniors attends once a month to teach an excellent aerospace class to the cadets and is a chaplain and can teach CD when needed.  Based on your description, you'd run him out of the program for being inadequate or not dedicated enough.  I value him highly. 

I have another friend and employee of my business who joined a squadron with an airplane and seniors that are very into ES.  She has gotten to go flying a couple of times but is a college student and very involved in many other things.  She may decide in the next 5-10 years that she has a place as a mission pilot and is very dedicated to CAP, or she may decide that she doesn't have time for it.  Based on your description, she would not have a place in the organization now and it would not be worth the time to train her because she is not hard core enough.

Once you create too high of a sense of elitism in any group, you fail to get enough new members due to their inability to feel like they can become a part of the group.  Some seniors may join for what is at first a very limited purpose and then later discover that they have more to offer.

In other words, it's dangerous to post on a forum about how you want to grow elitism in CAP and exclude new members due to their inability to live up to your higher than necessary standards.

I am primarily directing my ire towards the ES side.  Your AE/chaplain guy is just fine doing what he's doing.

However, the ES side cannot afford "maybe-maybe not" people.  CAP as a whole cannot afford people who pick and choose what regulation to follow. 

I disagree with your analysis of not getting sufficient new blood if the bar is set high for participation.  The Marines never have a problem meeting recruiting goals... people want to part of a program that's tough, and rewarding.

I'm not proposing turning CAP into the Marines.  I am saying we have enough unenforced standards that, if we started requiring everyone to toe the line, would result in a better, stronger, more capable organization.   

[Eclipse]

Really?

" Make people toe the line or get out.  There are 34790 SMs in the system today.  By the time I was done there might be only 20000.  Or less."

Fair enough, and he can defend his own messages, but I, frankly, agree, with the asterisk of what and where the line is.

Are you in favor of "no line" and people can float in and out as they please?  That's not really a good way to run a hair salon, let alone a military auxiliary.

As to the numbers, I'd say those are about right.  We'd drop 5k+ tomorrow if we just changed the member status of the empty shirts.

20K committed, invested, active members is better than twice that number if half never show (other than the obvious revenue issues).  And I guarantee that those 20k happy(er) members who feel appreciated and as if they are contributing will start bringing in their friends and pretty soon you won't even remember you lost anyone.

Either way everyone is happy.

[AirDX]

Really?

" Make people toe the line or get out.  There are 34790 SMs in the system today.  By the time I was done there might be only 20000.  Or less."

Yep.  Look at your own wing: 1,665 senior members, 727 of them are not current with their safety briefs - an extremely minimal requirement, but one that tells me those folks are not participating.  276 of your SMs have not even completed the Intro to Safety module.  If people aren't bothering to complete even these minimal requirements, they aren't participating in the program.  Why are they here?

Note I am not accounting for the vanishingly small number of Patron members, cadet sponsors or legislative members (BTW, there's only one legislative member in CA?  Really?).

My own much smaller wing has 302 SMs, of which only 119 are safety current.  I was going to guess that we had about 100 members that were the backbone of membership that you saw all the time - I was pretty close.  Safety currency is a big thing to me, because here the theory that you can get a brief when (or if) you show up for mission doesn't hold water.  Our prime mission is the tsunami mission, and it depends on immediate response - there is no call out, when we go to tsunami warning members are expected to report directly to the hangars, preflight and be ready to fly - other folks report directly to the state and county EOCs for duty.  Does lack of a safety brief in the last month really destroy your ability to perform your job? No, that's not what I'm saying.  I am saying that we need to be ready ALL THE TIME, meeting ALL THE REGS - not just the ones we choose.  safety is just an easy one to look at as a barometer.

[AirDX]

20K committed, invested, active members is better than twice that number if half never show (other than the obvious revenue issues). 

And the revenue issue is not what you may think.  In 2010, CAP took in $59M in operating revenue.  Of that, $3M were in membership dues.  Cut that by a third, or $1M, and it's only 1.5% of revenue.  Nothing to sneeze at, but not the apocalypse, either.

[Ron1319]

I'm sorry, but at the point of implementation, you are still telling me that some of the members of my unit are not good enough to be in "your" Civil Air Patrol.   The only way to implement what you're talking about is to require commanders to terminate members who are supporters of CAP and contributing in some way. 

Let's take the hair salon analogy, shall we?  Let's say I run a hair salon and I have 6 seats available for hair dressers.  If I have 4 dedicated full time employees who have four of those seats full 90% of the time, then they are producing a large amount of revenue.  Let's say I have 6 who share the other two seats and keep them occupied about 80% of the time.  Then I have two people who split the duties of cleaning.  I have one person who does a great job of going out and flyering for my specials.  I have another person who has great contacts at the local paper and gets me one free advertisement per month in that paper and bring in considerable business.  I only pay people when they are cutting hair and I give the person with the local paper contacts $20/month for that service and I pay a fixed rate for cleaning.  My business runs just fine.  By your definition I should cut the people who are keeping two seats mostly full, cleaning the floor and getting me free advertising and only hire full time people who are there all of the time.  It takes the whole team for the business to be successful.

However, we have ego in the game.  Those who are there all of the time keeping the four chairs full are going to get their feelings hurt somehow because I as the owner appreciate those who are only able to contribute a few hours a month instead of 40 hours/week?  Or do you think that they should be mature enough to accept that the contributions of the others are keeping them from having to do those other tasks, or keeping costs down enough that we can continue to run the business?

If you have problems with individual seniors in your wing, then be sure that your mission critical activities are staffed with people who have the level of dedication that you desire.  Then use the rest of the members who are available sometimes to support that effort with backups and ways to allow their contribution to be significant without endangering the mission.

[arajca]

Back at the hair salon...

one of the four employees commits to 90% full, but only manages 20% full seating while the other three maintain 90%. Are you going to keep the one?

The issue is there are a number of members who can only commit to a limited amount of CAP work, but do an great job within their limitations. That's fine. There is also a number of members who commit to CAP work and do a very poor job at it, but will not accept they are not the greatest thing in the world. Then you have the members who will only do one thing and then only for the fun stuff and will not do any required training or will do the bare minimum only after being harrassed by their commander and expect everyone else to do the tedious work of making sure they can still do the fun stuff. The last two are the problems. Those are ones we need to move out.

A member who can only make one meeting every two months, but keeps the sqdn's website running and current is contributing. A similar member who commits to the website maintenance, but lets it fall into disarray and blames everyone else for it is not contributing.

[AirDX]

Back at the hair salon...

one of the four employees commits to 90% full, but only manages 20% full seating while the other three maintain 90%. Are you going to keep the one?

The issue is there are a number of members who can only commit to a limited amount of CAP work, but do an great job within their limitations. That's fine. There is also a number of members who commit to CAP work and do a very poor job at it, but will not accept they are not the greatest thing in the world. Then you have the members who will only do one thing and then only for the fun stuff and will not do any required training or will do the bare minimum only after being harrassed by their commander and expect everyone else to do the tedious work of making sure they can still do the fun stuff. The last two are the problems. Those are ones we need to move out.

A member who can only make one meeting every two months, but keeps the sqdn's website running and current is contributing. A similar member who commits to the website maintenance, but lets it fall into disarray and blames everyone else for it is not contributing.

A very good description of the problem, and exactly what I'm talking about.  I think Eclipse calls them "empty shirts".  We don't need them, and in fact keeping track of them consumes valuable volunteer time far better expended elsewhere.

EVERYONE's time is limited.  I am tired of hearing that as an excuse for not doing something you've committed to do.

[SamFranklin]

I think Eclipse calls them "empty shirts".  We don't need them, and in fact keeping track of them consumes valuable volunteer time far better expended elsewhere.

As Ron said, perhaps many of us sort of nod to your sentiment, but in practice, that's another story.

Of course I'm not going to call an absentee member to respond on an ES mission, except as a last resort. But I'll gladly help an occasionally-active member find a niche that allows him or her to contribute when their schedule allows.

If that "empty shirt" is not active today, perhaps tomorrow will be different. No volunteer non-profit can afford to alienate potential contributors. It's people over process, not vice versa. If your admin processes make you think you're better off without people, then you've got a counter-productive process.  Read Blanchard sometime: the time spent investing in people is the best time you can spend.

The corporate (not appropriated) budget sure could use the "empty shirts'" annual dues and donations. To say keeping those folks on the rolls is not worth your time betrays an ignorance of the big picture and the nature of volunteerism.

[DakRadz]

I think Eclipse calls them "empty shirts".  We don't need them, and in fact keeping track of them consumes valuable volunteer time far better expended elsewhere.

As Ron said, perhaps many of us sort of nod to your sentiment, but in practice, that's another story.

Of course I'm not going to call an absentee member to respond on an ES mission, except as a last resort. But I'll gladly help an occasionally-active member find a niche that allows him or her to contribute when their schedule allows.

If that "empty shirt" is not active today, perhaps tomorrow will be different. No volunteer non-profit can afford to alienate potential contributors. It's people over process, not vice versa. If your admin processes make you think you're better off without people, then you've got a counter-productive process.  Read Blanchard sometime: the time spent investing in people is the best time you can spend.

The corporate (not appropriated) budget sure could use the "empty shirts'" annual dues and donations. To say keeping those folks on the rolls is not worth your time betrays an ignorance of the big picture and the nature of volunteerism.

If you read arajca's post, to which AirDX responded with his "empty shirts" comments, you will see they are talking about the people who don't do their job or are very bad and refuse to accept they are bad, AND are empty shirts.

They acknowledged that a member who makes a meeting every month or two, but keeps the squadron website running, is still contributing in a big way. And all the other examples to match this.

Context helps.

[Eclipse]

If that "empty shirt" is not active today, perhaps tomorrow will be different.

Then call me tomorrow.

the time spent investing in people is the best time you can spend.

How about the time wasted training and tending to people who take more than they will ever give?

Volunteerism?  How about the 20-40% of members who are doing the heavy lifting that allows the other 60% to have a really cool card in their wallet?
Their time, patience, and initiative is not infinite, and because we carry so much dead weight, we burn out the good ones and then are stuck with people
who haven't a clue but have lots of free time.

ES tends to float to the top in these discussions because it tends to be the pinch point of effort, planning, preparation because the "goal" is somewhat
subjective.  We all know the paradigm of military and public service "Bad things usually have to happen to someone before we get to play.  It's also a lot
easier from a life-management perspective to be involved in CP or AE as they tend to be cyclical, structured, and scheduled.

But that doesn't make a CP-heavy member somehow "less-valuable".  CP is arguably 1/2 of our real mission, and things like encampments, NCSA's, or just the day-to-day herding of the cadet cats are crticial to our mission and serious draws on manpower and other resources.  However isn't it "funny" how in most wings the majority of the fully-engaged CP people are also involved in ES and AE, and vice-vice-versa?  And then those same members, usually about 20-40% of the wing, listen to other people complain how they have "no time", etc. (when in most case it is a choice, not a burden).

Anyone who wants to "contribute" is welcome in any party I run, but "contribute" does not equal "you're lucky I showed up at all".

[AirDX]

The corporate (not appropriated) budget sure could use the "empty shirts'" annual dues and donations. To say keeping those folks on the rolls is not worth your time betrays an ignorance of the big picture and the nature of volunteerism.

Ignorance (you used the I-word, not me) is failing to actually look at the financials and see just how much of our operating revenue is made up of dues and contributions.  Between the two they total about $4.7M of out $59M operating budget.  Roughly 8%,  AGAIN, nothing to sneeze at, but not the difference between life and death.  If we lost a third of that in one stroke, it's not great, but again, not the apocalypse you think.

I'll go out on a limb and say that I sincerely doubt we're getting much in the way of contributions from the empty shirts, and a lot more from the folks that actually participate in the program.  I can't prove it, but.... think about it.

Everyone seems to think I want to change CAP into the Marines, and that's not the case.  In fact, we wouldn't need to change anything except to enforce the regulations and standards as they are written.  If people want to contribute in a small way they can - but they need to actually DO what they say they will DO.  And if ES is a special case, if you can't train, keep up your quals and show up when needed, then don't pretend to be an ES person.  If your niche is sweeping the salon floor, then be the best [darn]ed sweeper ever.  Have some pride.

My background and frame of reference is 25 years in the FAA as an air traffic controller.  I have zero tolerance for anyone who shows up at a job, paid or unpaid, and doesn't give it 100%.

One of the exchange students who have cycled through my house over the years, a young man from Uzbekistan, observed that Americans all seem to have two jobs: one they do for money, and one they do for free.  Just because you are doing something for free, don't give it less than your best shot.

[RiverAux]

Everyone seems to think I want to change CAP into the Marines, and that's not the case.  In fact, we wouldn't need to change anything except to enforce the regulations and standards as they are written. 

I don't think that would get you what you want.  There is no regulation that would, for example, force a member to participate in a particular number of squadron meetings.  And in the ES field there is no regulation requiring a participation in a certain percentage of missions in order to maintain your qualifications.  It doesn't really take that much work to maintain ES quals. 

So, current regulations would not remove those being called deadwood. 

[SamFranklin]

Ignorance (you used the I-word, not me) is failing to actually look at the financials and see just how much of our operating revenue is made up of dues and contributions.  Between the two they total about $4.7M of out $59M operating budget.  Roughly 8%,  AGAIN, nothing to sneeze at, but not the difference between life and death.  If we lost a third of that in one stroke, it's not great, but again, not the apocalypse you think.

Sorry to divert the main conversation, but I wonder if you understand that the corporate budget funds activities and programs that by law the appropriated budget cannot.

Operating budgets for the regions. Travel funds for wing and region and higher commanders. National Cadet activities. Cadet scholarships. Chaplains. Legislative services. Volunteer magazine. Aerospace programs. Professional development. The list goes on.

People will certainly disagree about which of those areas ought to be the priority, but you're mistaken if you think foregoing roughly one-third of the measely 8% of our revenue represented by dues income would have only a modest impact on CAP's effectiveness. It would be a devastating blow.

Seems the "empty shirts" are more valuable after all.

[Ron1319]

The counter argument is rather straightforward.  It sounds like this, "A more professional organization would attract more members to replace those who were lost due to the higher standards so the budget would remain flat."  or "I'd be willing to pay 30-40% more per year, still less than $10/month, for membership in a more professional organization."

I'd personally be willing to pay $2/year more so that the NCSAs wouldn't have to cut things like pins and T-shirts because of budget cuts.  We'll have to wait and see if the federal budget news of the last few weeks has any impact on CAP.