CAP Member Demographics

[davidsinn]

Are you near camp Atterbury?

No, I'm up near South Bend.

[flyguy06]

I had a greattime at NESA at Camp Addebury. I like the terrain too. Cornfields. No need to worry about an emergency landing spot there. lol

[Cecil DP]

Income is a question on the Application form for CAP.  It is also a demographic identifier and will be used on the upcoming census as well.


I would think that the Census Bureau  could that  obtain from the IRS

[Spike]

Income is a question on the Application form for CAP.  It is also a demographic identifier and will be used on the upcoming census as well.


I would think that the Census Bureau  could that  obtain from the IRS

Not everyone files a return or pays taxes.

[Cecil DP]

Income is a question on the Application form for CAP.  It is also a demographic identifier and will be used on the upcoming census as well.


I would think that the Census Bureau  could that  obtain from the IRS

Not everyone files a return or pays taxes.

True, but illegal immigrants usually don't return the census forms either.

[High Speed Low Drag]

I disagree about race not playing a part.  Yes, this is the 21st Century, but race is still important, particularly within the cadet ranks.

Civil Air Patrol is for all people.  There was another thread about this (I'm not going to go find it), but the vast majority of cadets appear to be Caucasian.  The demographics would be able to help tell us if we are reaching all audiences.  For example, I live in Little Rock, AR.  We run about 50-50, with a very small Hispanic and virtually non-existent Asian population.  However, when I first joined LRCS, there was only one Black cadet out of 15.  That told me we were not reaching 50% of our recruiting pool.  I also noticed that we would occasionally have Black prospects, but they wouldn't come back after the first meeting.  I ended up calling a couple back and the parents said they were not comfortable because there weren't any Black cadets or seniors in the group.

I wanted the demographics to more reflect the community.  First I recruited my wife (who is Black, I'm Caucasian) and my step-daughter.  Then, I began a focused recruiting drive in the LR Schools that resulted in a very mixed Open House.  It has been almost a year, but the results are paying off.  Now we have 10 Black cadets out of 47 cadets.  My wife, now a 2nd Lt., has told me that the parents of Black prospects almost always ask her all the time about how race is handled in the squadron, if her daughter likes the program, what she thinks of how the black cadets are treated, etc.  The issue of race relations/ratios is very important to the Black community in what seems to be an almost all White program.  My wife said the only reason she was comfortable with her daughter participating was because of me.

Unfortunately, we have had a few of the original cadets drop out because they didn’t like the changes.

I think the squadron has improved with the changes.  We have also seen an increase in the number of senior members who are of minority. I still think that it is important for CAP to look at demographics, including race, to see how effective our recruiting efforts are and where we need to improve.  After all, we are the American Civil Air Patrol.

[flyguy06]

^ you put that more eliquently than i ever could. But yeah... what he said.

many cadets are recruited from homeschool programs. There are not many homeschool programsinthe inner city so we need to lok at where we are focusing our recruting efforts. I rarely see CAP recruiting in the inner city or urban areas at all.

[Short Field]

The only recruiting I see is done by the squadrons and that is all local.

[flyguy06]

exactly. Loacl in their community. So if the majority of the members live in a certain arae of town that is where they will recruit inthat cetain area of town. if the majority of members are homeschooled. they will recruit other homeschooled cadets. If the majority of members live on the northside then thatis where they will recruit. CAP recruting is mostly word of mouth, telling your freids and people you know. So that means that areas where no current members live or have influence in will probably not get the word about CAP.

[simon]

My original question came into my head as I looked around in our weekly squadron meeting.

I was wondering, are the people in my squadron typical and is this the cross section of demographics that the organization is seeking?

The reason the question came into my head was because of a current pilot shortage. We have an airplane with only two current mission pilots. Some of the pilots are older and either not current, without medicals or have failed their annual Form 5. We are a senior squadron, like the demographics from this thread have indicated, a bunch of middle age white guys. Leaning to the high end of middle age, whatever that means these days.

We are not attracting enough younger pilots in our squadron. Men and women with a lot of flying years ahead of them. Now I can't speak to the average age of the pilots nationally or whether there are enough pilots for SAR generally, but it is something we are working on and keeping younger members cycling into the program is important. I do not have any experience with the cadet program. One would imagine that could be a good source of future pilots. But there are a few years to wait there.

[flyguy06]

My original question came into my head as I looked around in our weekly squadron meeting.

I was wondering, are the people in my squadron typical and is this the cross section of demographics that the organization is seeking?

The reason the question came into my head was because of a current pilot shortage. We have an airplane with only two current mission pilots. Some of the pilots are older and either not current, without medicals or have failed their annual Form 5. We are a senior squadron, like the demographics from this thread have indicated, a bunch of middle age white guys. Leaning to the high end of middle age, whatever that means these days.

We are not attracting enough younger pilots in our squadron. Men and women with a lot of flying years ahead of them. Now I can't speak to the average age of the pilots nationally or whether there are enough pilots for SAR generally, but it is something we are working on and keeping younger members cycling into the program is important. I do not have any experience with the cadet program. One would imagine that could be a good source of future pilots. But there are a few years to wait there.

We are not attracting younger pilots because most of them are trying to be airline pilots and want to use CAP to build time cheap. When they are told that they have to do a form 5, get a flight release and go through a number of other hoops. they generally don't want any part of that. They just want to fly and that's it. They don't care about SLS, CLC,specialty tracks. They just want to fly and build time.
We have to recruit, but we have to make sure they are joining for he right reasons.

[High Speed Low Drag]

The only recruiting I see is done by the squadrons and that is all local.

True, but a lot of the recruiting support is from national.  I cry out for some updated PSAs, for updated video segments.  That can play a big part in how squadrons are able to recruit.

It is basic human nature that we do not want to be alone in strange place; we want to see others like us.  For example, we made the decision that we would attend my wife's church.  Hers in one of the larger ones, over 10,000 members, in the city and it is a Black Baptist church.   The sanctuary can seat 2,000.  My wife sings in the choir, so I am sitting in the sanctuary by myself (daughter goes to a teen service in the church's youth center).  The very first time I went, I was the only Caucasian in the entire sanctuary.  Talk about nervous, uncomfortable, and generally wanting to blend into the woodwork (to make it worse my wife kept waving at me from the choir stand).  I later found out there were about 20 Caucasian members in the entire church.

Race is a hard thing to talk about; in this country it is a social taboo to discuss it unless it is within certain parameters (i.e. academic studies).  There were even members of this board that were afraid to discuss it.  I understand why; having the potential of being labeled as prejudiced is a worry because of the social stigma.  (I had a Black Female call and complain after a traffic stop saying I racially profiled her and that I was prejudiced against Black Females.  Even with my domestic situation, I felt terrible and stained just being investigated for the accusation).  But we must talk, even in this age of political correctness, because the only way to improve is to have honest discussions.  Prejudice exists within all races/ethnicities; we have to reach beyond that.

CAP needs to examine the demographics, incl race (which, in this discussion, includes ethnicity), and ask why is it that approximately 88% (based on the previously cited Dr. Montgomery's study) of our membership is Caucasian when the country is not 88% Caucasian.  (& same goes for the gender issue as well.)  We must ask the question: why are there not more _____ (Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, etc) in our squadron, in our wing, in our CAP.  We cannot be ostriches with our head in the sand because we are afraid to say the R word.  Can anyone here think of a race of youth our program cannot help, inspire, teach, and mold?  It is up to us as an organization to take a hard look at what we can do to target the youth of America; to inspire the youth of America, to reach the youth of America.  And it begins with you, the CAP senior member.

[flyguy06]

People are afraind to talk about race, because they assume they will called racists, which is NOT true. You are correct High Speed. race is the 900 pound elephant inthe room people try hard to ignore. Until we address intelligently and not argue or throw insults at each other we will continue to have this problem. And that goes for boths sides of the discussion.

But in terms of CAP. you are correct. People want to be around pthers they can relate to. its interesteing my cadets were watching the NCSA vidoes that they have onthe National website. They loved the videos. hated the music put with it. Another example, Many cadets come from an environment where people there own age dont generally tell them what to do or yell at them. So that is something they have to be eased into. Motivations for joining are also different. Many cadets join because of duty. They want to serve. Others join because their parents believe it is good for them and will keep them out of trouble. Something positive in their lives. So you have to llo at all these factors.

CAP does a lot of recruting inthe home school community. Well, there is no home school community in my neighborhood, so how do we reach out to those kids?

[lordmonar]

Well....except for the broad support that wing and national give us via the web sites and PSA and recruiting materials.......all recruiting should be done on the local level!

That is because it is the local level unit that will be taking these people in.

[Spike]

They loved the videos. hated the music put with it.

Your Cadets must be country music fans??

[flyguy06]

Well....except for the broad support that wing and national give us via the web sites and PSA and recruiting materials.......all recruiting should be done on the local level!

That is because it is the local level unit that will be taking these people in.

I agree. But what if there is no unit inthatlocalarea? How do we reach them?

[davidsinn]

Well....except for the broad support that wing and national give us via the web sites and PSA and recruiting materials.......all recruiting should be done on the local level!

That is because it is the local level unit that will be taking these people in.

I agree. But what if there is no unit inthatlocalarea? How do we reach them?

You don't. What's the point of reaching them if there is no unit to join?

[flyguy06]

You crreate a unit, like they did in my neighborhod. if that were the case then I wouldnt be a member today. There are kids that would benefit from CAP but dont know anything about the program. Nobody ever came to my school to talk about CAP. My mom somehow found out about it and got me into it. I want to expose this great organization to kids that other wise may not have knowledge of it. i want us to be more inclusive.
There are good kids in all neighborhoods. CAP is not promoted in many of them. For example, the fly a teacher program. I went to the urban schools and they never even heard of it. why is that? because nobiody from CAP bothered to promote it there but they promoted it in other school systems. Thats what I mean about exposure.


I have two twin brothers that I mentored that are currently at the USAFA. They are both private pilots. They didnt know abotu CAP when they were in high sschool until it was too late. I dont want to loose any other young people

[Spike]

^ You need to get into contact with the school initiative people at NHQ.  They have done great things in Philadelphia inner city and else where. 

You are the driving force now for your part of the city.  If you want to expand into other areas, you need to get out and about, meet and greet and get others interested in starting units in their part of the city.

CAP by all intents and purposes is a "grassroots" program.  We severely lack any National recruiting program, and it us up to units to help start other units.

So.....have you been out to start any units lately??  I have!

[flyguy06]

^ I hear ya Spike and you are right, but I am not talking about an SEP program. I am talling about regular onece a week composite squadrons. Not just recruting cadets but recruting senior members as well. I am sure there are many adults that want to get involved in SAR in my community.

And also outside of my community. Say other city urban areas. But you are right. it is a grass roots organizationbut I am om only one person and I have to maintain my regular life as well.