Fully funding the cadet program

[Eclipse]

...in my wing, it is a small group of seniors (generally the same people every year pretty much) that come out to support encampment.

There's your answer.  Growth provides opportunity.

[Ford73Diesel]

There is plenty of opportunity. It is that we could barely get enough SM's to run one encampment, let alone two.

[SARDOC]

Maybe because JROTC is not a civilian non-profit corporation that is only *sometimes* a part of the Air Force.

Don't see how that is relevant to the conversation when the feds are already sending millions our way to partially fund the program.  Why not fully fund it?

Part of the difference between CAP and JROTC.  Is that both are only partially funded by the Sponsoring Service.  In the case of JROTC's they are also subsidized by their sponsoring public school district and by program related fundraisers.  When I was JROTC we held many a Car Wash and even sponsored and held a very large 10k Run to help pay for activities.  If we had a benefactor or foundation that could subsidize the balance we could do what JROTC does.

I got an Idea...Get your cadets to sell 25 Wreaths for WAA and if they do...The Squadron pays that cadets dues.  They sell another 15...They get a Free Set of BDU's etc...   Just examples.  It raises money for the Squadron to help pay for activities and the cadet personally benefits for their efforts. 

[Eclipse]

There is plenty of opportunity. It is that we could barely get enough SM's to run one encampment, let alone two.

Unless and until we can fix that, which is by no means just in your wing, we might as well not discuss growth anywhere else,
because that is the core of our problems.

[Patterson]

We also do "Cadet Training Weekends", aka CTW, Wing-wide. One in the Winter/Spring and one in the Fall/Winter. Fri-Sun, and we push it as a "prep-school" for Encampment that summer.

Yet another Squadron "training Cadets for Encampment".  Too bad CAP Leaders have the mindset that we need to spend 51 weeks each year training for the 1 week Encampment.  (Should be the other way around, Encampment trains Cadets for the Squadron).

On topic: A fully funded Cadet Program would change the program altogether (maybe not in a good way).