When you have too many cadet staff.

[Stonewall]

I just got an email from our former C/CC who is now the C/XO.  Basically, she's concerned that her talents are not being used because the new C/CC isn't giving her anything to do.

Why is this?

Because we have about 10 to 12 cadets showing up and about half are "staff".

We have 4 cadet officers, 2 Chiefs, a couple other senior NCOs and a couple SrA and above.

Any suggestions on what we can have her do to maintain and interest?  She's already been cadet commander for a year, now it's another cadet's turn (who out ranks her).

[RiverAux]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

[heliodoc]

Encourage her on her interests be it AE CP or ES

Where does she shine?  Cadet Commander can get old and it's not the end all in CAP


Encourage her interests or find someone who could light that up

[Stonewall]

What's funny is that she says her talents aren't being used yet in the past 2 weeks she developed, from scratch, a high speed squadron brochure, put together a squadron cadet roster with flight/duty assignment and followed up with our recent open house by collecting and tracking the new recruits.

To be quite honest, she's done more than most cadet officers.

[A.Member]

Have your cadets planned and held a UBX/SAREX yet?

[Trung Si Ma]

Put her on your staff as the activities officer, the AE officer, or the leadership officer.  There is nothing wrong with putting cadet officers in unit positions that are not age restricted.

[MIKE]

Come again?

1-6. a. (2) Advanced Positions. Cadets may not serve in any of the senior member staff positions listed in CAPR 20-1, ...

[SarDragon]

Put her on your staff as the assistant activities officer, the assistant AE officer, or the assistant leadership officer.

[USADOD]

assigning to unit assistant positions are good ideas, also look to group or wing..often they could use assistance at the higher echelons.

[Fifinella]

How about mentoring the junior cadets?  There's no challenge like leading others.

[DC]

How about mentoring the junior cadets?  There's no challenge like leading others.

Isn't that more the job of the junior cadets' lower Chain of Command? I've never understood why everyone believes cadets have to have a seperate 'mentor' aside from their Element Leader (assuming they are doing their job) and maybe a slightly more experienced 'battle buddy'. If there are any issues the aforementioned can't answer, surely their Flight Sergeant, Flight Commander, First Sergeant or Cadet Commander can answer it for them. 

What's funny is that she says her talents aren't being used yet in the past 2 weeks she developed, from scratch, a high speed squadron brochure, put together a squadron cadet roster with flight/duty assignment and followed up with our recent open house by collecting and tracking the new recruits.

To be quite honest, she's done more than most cadet officers.

It sounds like maybe she just needs to be reminded of how much she actually is doing. Unfortunately, with the current size of your squadron, there isn't much need for a C/XO, however with a third of your membership wearing rank on their shoulders there isn't much you can do about it. I agree with whoever said to get her working on a major recruiting drive. That will keep her busy for a while, and hopefully by the end of it you will have enough cadets to balance out your chief/indian ratio and she (and the rest of your cadet staff) will have more work to do.

[JoeTomasone]

I would be absolutely moving her from the XO position.   Can't be the XO if there's no other staff, and with 5/10 cadets, who can the XO be supervising?   That's why she's not getting any assignments; her duty assignment is meaningless.

What does your Squadron/Group need?   If it's like a lot of them in FLWG, it needs both ES and Comms trained folks; a great project would be to motivate and mentor cadets into both disciplines.   My experience as a Group ES/Comms Officer was that a lot of Cadets need said mentoring and motivation, so I echo the above about an Assistant to a Senior staff position(s).   

[NIN]

Gosh, UK, sounds like your new T-Flight Commander... 

BTW, how'd your open house go?

[Stonewall]

Gosh, UK, sounds like your new T-Flight Commander... 

and

How about mentoring the junior cadets?

Already have a T-Flight Commander and Flight Sergeant.

BTW, how'd your open house go?

Posted last night.

[Stonewall]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

We currently have 4 cadet officers:

1.  Cadet Commander
2.  Cadet Executive Officer
3.  Cadet Operations Officer
4.  A Flight Commander

I've only been DCC for a few weeks now, maybe a month, and I've missed a couple meetings as I only committed to 3/4 of meetings and a weekend activity every other month.  It will take time as I don't have the 5 to 10 hours a week to spend on CAP outside of meetings I used to when I was a CC/DCC in the past.

What should have happened was the new and former C/CCs reversing roles, but someone else, before my time, wanted the younger less experienced cadet to be C/CC first.  Long story, irrelevant now.

We have to crawl before we run and we're barely out of the crib, let alone crawling.  From where I'm sitting, it appears that the past couple of years was spent on allowing a few cadets to test and get promoted and not bring in new cadets to consistently maintain a solid A-Flight of lower ranking cadets.

In a nutshell:  Too many chiefs, not enough indians.

[cnitas]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

+1

[Stonewall]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

+1

Like I said, she created one helluva recruiting brochure and the squadron as a whole conducted a fairly decent recruiting drive.  Like others, we bring folks in during certain periods (the whole pipelining thing).

[notaNCO forever]

  If you have to much staff take some cadets of staff. If they want there position back they will have to recruit enough cadets to warrant needing the position.

[cnitas]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

+1

Like I said, she created one helluva recruiting brochure and the squadron as a whole conducted a fairly decent recruiting drive.  Like others, we bring folks in during certain periods (the whole pipelining thing).

How often are your join periods?  You may need to have them more often if you have no troops, but lots of staff.

[Stonewall]

How often are your join periods?  You may need to have them more often if you have no troops, but lots of staff.

Well, this is new.  I just took over as DCC a month or so ago and I just initiated this program.  Before this, cadets were allowed to trickle in and work everything out on their own without any one-on-one guidance.  This is why I started this program at my squadron.  People would come, hang out for a few meetings and then leave.  Zero structure and no one paid attention to the new guys.