Initial Flight Training for SMs

[DNall]

Points sys/mgmt
We record credit for all kinds of things in eServices. I think it should be substantially more. That should include participation in SaRExs, missions, prof hours, mtg attendance... and perhaps performance reviews to cover things like meeting annual staff goals & other contributions.

All that is quite easy to input via some checkboxes on eServices. From that you could track individual points; unit/area readiness levels; performance standards, etc.. and from that you can better determine things like where to allocate resources, identify problems so you can step in before it's too late, and just all around have an accurate picture of what's going on. Such a system can't be the sole tool in managing the org, but it can be a powerful information source to give us information we've never had access to before so we can work smarter. I believe such a system should be put into place, and frankly the technology & work involved is not anything more than what we have running on eServices now. Think about all the crap you can do on AKO, it's not even remotely that hard.

Can I gurantee you the absolute accuracy of any of this? No, not really. Not any more than I can promise you that a skill input on an SQTR was actually done. There's some honor system involved, and there's an IG to back it up. That's what IGs are for is maintaining standards, not investigating stuff that would otherwise go to CID/OSI/LE. Yes units are irresponsible right now & report inaccurate information or not at all, because that's what the system encourages them to do & there's no one to hold them accountable or penalty for not doing so, and they've had no training to do it right or culture to back it up. All things that need to be changed about CAP, but in creating a new thing, you make it for how it should be & drive the rest of the process to that standard.

Reward vs obligation:
As to making the guy "pay" with service in order to earn the flight training as a reward. That gets the service out of them in exchange for the service rendered, but that wasn't te point. If that's all I'd wanted than I'd just have asked for the govt to allocate financial bonus money at the end of fvie years satisfactory service or whatever. Then that person could use it for flight training or whatever they please. That's not the point at all. The point is to have them continue in CAP AFTER qualified as an operational pilot. I don't care what they've done before, I care what they will do for me later. I don't want to play the odds that this guy will or will not quit after he'd got his reward, and I don't want to color everyone's service as just beinbg here to earn XYZ in the future.

risk mgmt
As far as allowing members to operate CAP aircraft before meeting the TMP point, w/ or w/o CFI. That has everythign to do with the fact that low time pilots tend to break our planes & themselves, hence the hour requirement to be a TMP. The govt is not comfortable with that risk, nor are CAP leadership. So, that's just not going to happen. In fact if anything, I'd expect the tracking of prof hours to go up in order to remain current. Almost 90% of our crashes are from low time pilots or older pilots that aren't flying at least a few hours a month & staying prof.

FAA restictions
And with gas prices like they are & major decline in the number of private pilots, flight schools are getting killed, and there's no way on earth FAA is lifting the restriction. If & when they do, it won't be for a reward to service, but MAY be for a military-like obligation to further service. The FAA has an incentive to see CAP members continue to serve, and to see more pilots in CAP.

[Dragoon]

Bottom line - this is very problematic and likely not executable with current resources.

Points sys/mgmt
We record credit for all kinds of things in eServices. I think it should be substantially more. That should include participation in SaRExs, missions, prof hours, mtg attendance... and perhaps performance reviews to cover things like meeting annual staff goals & other contributions.

If you've watched the pace of development of eServices, you'll notice it changes rather slowly.  Unless you got bucks to add programmers, it will continue to change slowly.  It could be many years before they get around to this sort of thing.

Also, there's the added administrative burden.  So far, eServices has automated things we did anyway.  This would be requiring folks to spend time keeping track of things that they don't track today.  This adds administrative burden at a time when there's a big push to DECREASE the administrative burden on the unit.

You mentioned AKO (Army Knowledge Online) as an example of what we could do.  Their budget runs well into the 10s of millions.  And....there really is very little eService-like functionality on AKO. (Meaning stuff where a commander can go in and update status on his people).  That's all done in other programs (like eMILPO and SIDPERS Guard and ARCAS) all of which have budgets in excess of $10 Million.  We don't have the money to duplicate that kind of stuff any time soon.  (Though I wish we could)

Can I gurantee you the absolute accuracy of any of this? No, not really. Not any more than I can promise you that a skill input on an SQTR was actually done. There's some honor system involved, and there's an IG to back it up. That's what IGs are for is maintaining standards, not investigating stuff that would otherwise go to CID/OSI/LE.

One of the critical conditions of a contract is LEGALLY proving that a party is or is not in compliance.  eService doesn't fill that bill.  If someone stiffs CAP for flight training, eServices will not put them in jail or get them to pay it back. 

Again, that requires paper and signatures.  And responsible people dedicated to handling the admin overhead.

Yes units are irresponsible right now & report inaccurate information or not at all, because that's what the system encourages them to do & there's no one to hold them accountable or penalty for not doing so, and they've had no training to do it right or culture to back it up. All things that need to be changed about CAP, but in creating a new thing, you make it for how it should be & drive the rest of the process to that standard.

I'd agree, but that's been the way things have been for a long time.  Yes, way down the road we may fix this.  Perhaps not.   And until we can fix this for existing stuff (like vehicle mileage reporting) we can expect any new admin function to fail.  And indeed, it may fail even worse (or cause something else to fail), as it adds to the overall administrative burden.  And if folks can't get it all done today.....how the heck can we magically expect them to do more?

Reward vs obligation:
As to making the guy "pay" with service in order to earn the flight training as a reward. That gets the service out of them in exchange for the service rendered, but that wasn't te point. If that's all I'd wanted than I'd just have asked for the govt to allocate financial bonus money at the end of fvie years satisfactory service or whatever. Then that person could use it for flight training or whatever they please. That's not the point at all. The point is to have them continue in CAP AFTER qualified as an operational pilot. I don't care what they've done before, I care what they will do for me later. I don't want to play the odds that this guy will or will not quit after he'd got his reward, and I don't want to color everyone's service as just beinbg here to earn XYZ in the future.

If your goal is to produce mission pilots (and you figure out the contract thing), there's no reason to have them to anything in CAP until they get 175 hours. 

If, by your own admission, you don't CARE if they do ground stuff or staff stuff, then why require it? Why not just have them sign a contract promising to get 175 hours at their own expense within X years and then fly for us?.

Remember, though, I don't think the contract thing is feasible. 


It's nice to think "wouldn't it be cool if....", but the nuts and bolts of execution are much more difficult.  We've seen lots of ill defined programs come and go in CAP, killed by lack of follow through.  Good ideas, but beyond the capabilities of the organization to execute.

A lot of grandiose programs require dollars and people to run them.  You can't wish away the tough stuff.

[arajca]

It's nice to think "wouldn't it be cool if....", but the nuts and bolts of execution are much more difficult.  We've seen lots of ill defined programs come and go in CAP, killed by lack of follow through.  Good ideas, but beyond the capabilities of the organization to execute.

A lot of grandiose programs require dollars and people to run them.  You can't wish away the tough stuff.

Which is MAJOR benefit of forums like this one. Someone has an idea, puts it up here where the interested, knowledgable, and A-retentive folks can troubleshoot, examine, bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate it before it goes to National where someone will implement it without thought to the consequences or impacts to the membership. Here, we can provide input to the orginator to, hopefully, encouarge them to include a sufficient amount of detail and implementation planning in their submission. Or persuade them not to submit it because of the impact on the membership at large.

[ddelaney103]

It's nice to think "wouldn't it be cool if....", but the nuts and bolts of execution are much more difficult.  We've seen lots of ill defined programs come and go in CAP, killed by lack of follow through.  Good ideas, but beyond the capabilities of the organization to execute.

A lot of grandiose programs require dollars and people to run them.  You can't wish away the tough stuff.

Which is MAJOR benefit of forums like this one. Someone has an idea, puts it up here where the interested, knowledgable, and A-retentive folks can troubleshoot, examine, bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate it before it goes to National where someone will implement it without thought to the consequences or impacts to the membership. Here, we can provide input to the orginator to, hopefully, encouarge them to include a sufficient amount of detail and implementation planning in their submission. Or persuade them not to submit it because of the impact on the membership at large.

Out of curiosity, you are in the US Civil Air Patrol, aren't you?

Because 9 times out of 10 around here people get some idea and then defend it against all comers.

Meanwhile, at echelons above reality, the NEC/NB/oligarchs have these "wouldn't it be cool if" discussions that end in bad craziness.  Alternately, random Cadets wander up to the CAP/CC and make off the wall suggestions (Blue Berets, hooah!) which then get approved but neither delineated in policy nor commanders intent given.

This has the end result of leaving people more confused than before.  For example, what can HMRS grads wear and can their commander stop them?

Rare are the times that a forum and the "powers that be" link up.

[DNall]

Unless you got bucks to add programmers, it will continue to change slowly. 

You think so? We have a staff of full time programmers at HQ, not one guy, a staff, check the directory.

What I'm talking about is VERY easy in fact. A couple check box submit forms accessible by ICs/CCs that dump to a master database. Auto-reports tracking & suspense. Much easier than half the stuff up there now.

Also, there's the added administrative burden.  

I don't know, maybe a tiny bit. All you're doing is inputting a sign-in sheet, which I think we can do a better job of automating as well. What you get back is critical tracking data that we're unwilling to look at now cause it doesn't present a very pretty picture. However, I believe the org would be managed very differently if we faced up to the manning & use of resources issues that dominate the org.

You mentioned AKO (Army Knowledge Online) as an example of what we could do.  Their budget runs well into the 10s of millions.  And....there really is very little eService-like functionality on AKO. (Meaning stuff where a commander can go in and update status on his people).  That's all done in other programs (like eMILPO and SIDPERS Guard and ARCAS) all of which have budgets in excess of $10 Million.  We don't have the money to duplicate that kind of stuff any time soon.  (Though I wish we could)

I mentioned AKO as an example of what's possible. Obviously we don't need that level of functionality, but we can make eServices more user friendly like that, add social networking, have access to all kinds of personnel information... We can make something of a hybrid that would best serve our needs, and while doing so we can put on teh email system too.

Can I gurantee you the absolute accuracy of any of this? No, not really. Not any more than I can promise you that a skill input on an SQTR was actually done. There's some honor system involved, and there's an IG to back it up. That's what IGs are for is maintaining standards, not investigating stuff that would otherwise go to CID/OSI/LE.

One of the critical conditions of a contract is LEGALLY proving that a party is or is not in compliance.  eService doesn't fill that bill.  If someone stiffs CAP for flight training, eServices will not put them in jail or get them to pay it back. 

Again, that requires paper and signatures.  And responsible people dedicated to handling the admin overhead.[/quote]
That's not exactly accurate. You do need a legal sig on the contract, yes (and that could be electronic), BUT you do not need sigs on routine tracking. If your commander logs into his eServices account & inputs an item, and that transaction is stamped with his log-in & IP, then that's much more than required by law. All you really need is what we have now in the commander's menu. Ultimately though, an individual would be responsible for keeping track of their own participation, and retaining those records for appeal if necessary. Again, this is what IGs are supposed to do.

Yes units are irresponsible right now & report inaccurate information or not at all, because that's what the system encourages them to do & there's no one to hold them accountable or penalty for not doing so, and they've had no training to do it right or culture to back it up. All things that need to be changed about CAP, but in creating a new thing, you make it for how it should be & drive the rest of the process to that standard.

I'd agree, but that's been the way things have been for a long time.  Yes, way down the road we may fix this.  Perhaps not.   And until we can fix this for existing stuff (like vehicle mileage reporting) we can expect any new admin function to fail.  And indeed, it may fail even worse (or cause something else to fail), as it adds to the overall administrative burden.  And if folks can't get it all done today.....how the heck can we magically expect them to do more?[/quote]
Nothing gets fixed by accepting the way things are & tailoring to that situation while citing practicality. You have to take bold action in the face of problems & force a shifting paradigm. The key that is not in place now is accountablility & consequneces.

It'd be quite easy to fix your silly milage reporting if you tell units they have till X date to be current & Xth of the month to report & if they hadn't then the plane or vehicle will be picked up w/o notice & not returned for at least a year, and CCs will be reviewed for removal on deriliction. Actually back that up, set some examples, and you won't have any further problems. What you're talking about is a leadership failure, not an administrative one. You want accurate reporting? Misuse of resources funded by federal allocation should be referred to the US Attorney. Misuse of corporate resources will result in fraud charges or neglegince suits. Scare the crap out of people & hold them to it.

Reward vs obligation:

If your goal is to produce mission pilots (and you figure out the contract thing), there's no reason to have them to anything in CAP until they get 175 hours. 

If, by your own admission, you don't CARE if they do ground stuff or staff stuff, then why require it? Why not just have them sign a contract promising to get 175 hours at their own expense within X years and then fly for us?.[/quote]
Did I say that? My mistake, I DO care if they do other things. I do NOT want someone who's primary, much less only, job in CAP is to fly. I want a standard hard working staff officer who happens to also fly on the side. I want them current & avail to serve as a MP on missions, but otherwise I don't care about their flying & "active member" would have little to do with their flying duties. Especially since I want that standardized "active member" tracking system in place universally for all members regarldess of contract status.

It's nice to think "wouldn't it be cool if....", but the nuts and bolts of execution are much more difficult.  We've seen lots of ill defined programs come and go in CAP, killed by lack of follow through.  Good ideas, but beyond the capabilities of the organization to execute.

A lot of grandiose programs require dollars and people to run them.  You can't wish away the tough stuff.

Very true. I don't believe I'm wishing away anything. I belive this organization is HORRIBLLY managed at every level & wastes millions of administrative dollars that could be put to more efficient use. We do have the resources at NHQ to do dramatic things elctronically & otherwise. Our biggest problem I think is, well two things: first is we don't have a legit picture of what's going on (that's the tracking system & resultant resource/personnel mgmt changes I'm talking about); and second, we have a dramatic lack of leadership. That's also at every level. There a re a few exceptional people in CAP, as ther eare anywhere, but we do a terrible job of training leaders/managers from within. We expect people to come to us with outside training & experience, just like we do with pilots, and that's not cutting it. Leadership is more than a techincal skill you can run down to the local FBO & write a check for. Most of the problems we have are ultimately leadership failures from unmotivated masses. You'd never see that in a military organization, and that's not cause they do or don't get paid or cause they are better or worse than us, it's just a lack of solid leadership & we need to fix that bad.

[Dragoon]

Unless you got bucks to add programmers, it will continue to change slowly. 

You think so? We have a staff of full time programmers at HQ, not one guy, a staff, check the directory.

Who said anything about one programmer?

The points is (and read carefully hear) - eServices is changing VERY slowly.  There are a LOT of pressing things in the queue that aren't done yet.  Therefore, it's a safe assumption that if you add new work, you either add more folks (read that as $$$$) or wait a long time to get what you want.  It's not as simple as "we'll just change eServices".

It will require dollars, time or a reshuffling of requirements.

Also, there's the added administrative burden.  

I don't know, maybe a tiny bit. All you're doing is inputting a sign-in sheet, which I think we can do a better job of automating as well. What you get back is critical tracking data that we're unwilling to look at now cause it doesn't present a very pretty picture. However, I believe the org would be managed very differently if we faced up to the manning & use of resources issues that dominate the org.

1.  Someone will have to keep a legible sign-in sheet for every event (currently not required).  This means someone has to watch over the sheet, ensure that everyone signs legible, and that no one signs their absent buddy in to help him out, and then deliver the sheet to the right guy.  If you've ever run sign-in at a mission, you'll see the burden.  Especially if you want to use the sign in later for possile legal action!

2. Someone will have to take that sheet, log in to e-Services and manually create an event and input each and every CAP ID into the system.  That's when they'll discover that one or two of the CAP IDs are non-existent, and they'll have to contact the people and get the right IDs. Depending on the size of the event, this could take more than an hour.

Personally, I don't think any of this is unreasonable. But we can't get everyone to go on e-Services for 5 minutes a month to update van mileage!  So until we get THAT level of admin straight, adding more is just a recipe for disaster.

That's not exactly accurate. You do need a legal sig on the contract, yes (and that could be electronic), BUT you do not need sigs on routine tracking. If your commander logs into his eServices account & inputs an item, and that transaction is stamped with his log-in & IP, then that's much more than required by law. All you really need is what we have now in the commander's menu. Ultimately though, an individual would be responsible for keeping track of their own participation, and retaining those records for appeal if necessary. Again, this is what IGs are supposed to do.

You mentioned eServices as a tracking mechanism ensuring people fufill their contract.  If we try to hold someone in breach of contract, it's not going to the IG - it's going to COURT.  And in court, a good lawyer could show (easily) that eServices doesn't count as a legal record of what someone did.  So....just because a guy isn't recorded in eServices as attending something is not legal proof that he wasn't there.

You're correct that you'd end up having the individual keeping pen and ink proof (with signatures) of him fufilling his contract.  That's the least burdensome way.  But we still have to deal with.....

Lawyers.  Expensive Lawyers.

IG's aren't going to solve a contract issue.  That's going to be solved by Lawyers.  Lawyers cost dollars.  In an earlier post you mentioned taking someone to court if they don't fufill the contract.  So who's gonna pay for the CAP Lawyer.  Do you think the existing corporate counsel could pick up this additional workload accross all Wings without additional dollars?

Yet another cost.

It'd be quite easy to fix your silly milage reporting if you tell units they have till X date to be current & Xth of the month to report & if they hadn't then the plane or vehicle will be picked up w/o notice & not returned for at least a year, and CCs will be reviewed for removal on deriliction. Actually back that up, set some examples, and you won't have any further problems. What you're talking about is a leadership failure, not an administrative one. You want accurate reporting? Misuse of resources funded by federal allocation should be referred to the US Attorney. Misuse of corporate resources will result in fraud charges or neglegince suits. Scare the crap out of people & hold them to it.

Great.  Once you fix the "silly mileage" reporting, than and only then can you make any valid comment about easy it would be to add more admin burden.

It always sounds easy when you're not the one in charge.  And who knows, maybe when you're running things one day you'll clean all this up.

But the CAP of TODAY has these sort problems, and a large number of pretty smart folks have been unable to solve them.  I'm willing to accept that as evidence that it is not "easy" to solve them.

Funny how fast you go to some kind of legal action to solve all of CAP's ills. Once again you are neglecting to consider the cost to the organization of preparing for and taking legal action. 

Did I say that? My mistake, I DO care if they do other things. I do NOT want someone who's primary, much less only, job in CAP is to fly. I want a standard hard working staff officer who happens to also fly on the side. I want them current & avail to serve as a MP on missions, but otherwise I don't care about their flying & "active member" would have little to do with their flying duties. Especially since I want that standardized "active member" tracking system in place universally for all members regarldess of contract status.

All the more reason to adopt the much simpler model of making guys be hard working staff folks first, and then earn the righ to learn to fly.

First, we get our "payment" up front.

Second, by the time they are allowed to learn to fly (at their own expense), we've got our hooks into them.  They are invested in the organization, and are less likely to bail on us.

Sure, we'll lose a few.  But they already paid us with years of staff and ground service.  But the ones we keep will be dedicated CAP officers first and pilots second - not just flying club members.

And you avoid all the overhead involved in enforcing a contract.

It's nice to think "wouldn't it be cool if....", but the nuts and bolts of execution are much more difficult.  We've seen lots of ill defined programs come and go in CAP, killed by lack of follow through.  Good ideas, but beyond the capabilities of the organization to execute.

A lot of grandiose programs require dollars and people to run them.  You can't wish away the tough stuff.

Very true. I don't believe I'm wishing away anything. I belive this organization is HORRIBLLY managed at every level & wastes millions of administrative dollars that could be put to more efficient use. We do have the resources at NHQ to do dramatic things elctronically & otherwise. Our biggest problem I think is, well two things: first is we don't have a legit picture of what's going on (that's the tracking system & resultant resource/personnel mgmt changes I'm talking about); and second, we have a dramatic lack of leadership. That's also at every level. There a re a few exceptional people in CAP, as ther eare anywhere, but we do a terrible job of training leaders/managers from within. We expect people to come to us with outside training & experience, just like we do with pilots, and that's not cutting it. Leadership is more than a techincal skill you can run down to the local FBO & write a check for. Most of the problems we have are ultimately leadership failures from unmotivated masses. You'd never see that in a military organization, and that's not cause they do or don't get paid or cause they are better or worse than us, it's just a lack of solid leadership & we need to fix that bad.

I don't think there's any argument that we don't do a great job of training leaders.  But we also don't do a good job of training followers.  There are lots of issue behind that, from the lack of resources to the lack of time to spend with each member, to a basic recruitment policy that makes us want to let anyone in in order to look big on paper.

But until we fix this kind of stuff we are not likely to be able to do more complicated things (like managing and enforcing contracts).  So, with the CAP we have today, there are limits.  And some things which sound good are simply not feasible.

Now, the big question is how to increase the efficiency of the organzation

1.  Within the existing dollars available.

2. While keeping the organization at an optimal size (meaning we don't shrink too small because folks either quit or are fired over higher standards).

If we can do that, then we can take on more complicated tasks and perhaps succeed at them.

[DNall]

Admin - pgmrs - $$
We have a whole team of full-time paid programmers. There is no excuse for eServices being the clunker POS that it is now, and effecting retention to the degree it is. That is wholly unacceptable & should be addressed. Not everything is addressed by throwing more money at it, some things benefit from the application of competence.

That said, the items I'm talking about are LITERALLY a check box submit form, that goes to CC approval & on to a database. It's easier than most of what's on eServices now.

Logistics/sign-in
You are required now to have a ledgible & controlled sign-in sheet that is legally binding. If that's not happening, then it is a very serious risk mgmt issue & needs to be addressed decisively by leadership. And WMIRS gets lots of info you may not be aware of.

I don't know why you'd be using pen/paper now unless you had to. It should already be electronic. I'd like to go forward with that to a) directly inputing data on eServices, and b) card readers that automate the whole process (I realize that costs a couple dollars, but not much, and it lifts a lot of admin burden, there's some other stuff about that in some ID threads around here. I think that's the direction we're heading.

Legality/tracking
When you get a car loan, you sign a physical contract, and then you make payments, which they login to a system and input. There's no required electronic signature, some safety features no doubt but they are not legally required. What you're talking about though is no different than the dozen or so restricted applications we have now. I fully think that it should stamp login/time/IP on record changes, but that's not required.

I've dealt with issues very simliar to this in another non-profit, and have sent cases to court that stood up just fine on unorganized scraps of paper as a tracking record. The court isn't interested in the technicalities of your system. They are interested in what a reasonable person would believe the truth to be based on records available. It doesn't take much to make it over that bar.

Admin - Something about milage again
Once again, people behave with incompetence or malfeasence because there are no consequences. Holding them accountable is a leadership issue & requires swift & decisive action. All too often in CAP people in mgmt positions tend to say "we're jsut volunteers & be people are doing the best they can with the time they can give." Yeah, okay well in that case I can just not worry about any regs & go do whatever I want then I guess. Obviously not! When people commit to a job/resource then they need to get it done or get out of the way. If your leadership is not forcing that accountability then perhaps your leader needs to think about getting out of the way, respectfully.

Service up front or After
You absolutely cannot offer flight training as a reward for service. That is 100% not going to be allowed by FAA. It's just paying for services in another way. When alternatively that person may work paid employment int hose hours to save up for commercially avail flight training. So absolutely not.

From a more practical view, I don't want people here that are just here to earn flight training & don't otherwise care. Once they reach their target then they have no more use for CAP. If they are going to stay on for additional ratings... well that's just paying members by other means.

What I want is more viable qualified pilots serving in all facets of the organization. The number of in the zone MPs we have is miniscule, and the distribution is horrendous. We can't move quality people around to make up for the bad ones, and we can't retire people or move them to backwater staff jobs when they can't do it anymore. We have to beat it by attrition.

SO I want to take people who have served a couple years & competitively earned a chance, who passed some tests & junk to make sure they'll be able to do this, and ten offer them a contract to come get free training, but in exchange for keeping that expertise in-house for a period of time after, and meassured by the same standards we'll be holding everyone in the org to.

[Dragoon]

Admin - pgmrs - $$
We have a whole team of full-time paid programmers. There is no excuse for eServices being the clunker POS that it is now, and effecting retention to the degree it is. That is wholly unacceptable & should be addressed. Not everything is addressed by throwing more money at it, some things benefit from the application of competence.

Nice sentiment, but that's not reality talking.  With the team we have, doing the best job they can, you can see what we've got.  To say things like "this should be addressed" sound great, for a politician, but contain no details.

You are making assumptions that the existing team is incompetent
You are making assumptions that a better team could be hired and managed for the same outlay of dollars.  (labor comes cheap in Alabama, but you get what you pay for)

You got any facts to back that up?

And even if it turns out that we've hired a bunch of bozos while a bunch of unemployed high speed programmers sit just off base waiting to be hired, don'tcha think that until this gets fixed, basing a plan on expanded eServices is a bit....premature?

Logistics/sign-in
You are required now to have a ledgible & controlled sign-in sheet that is legally binding. If that's not happening, then it is a very serious risk mgmt issue & needs to be addressed decisively by leadership. And WMIRS gets lots of info you may not be aware of.

Show me the CAP reg that requires "legally binding sign-in sheets for all CAP activities"  (hint -it doesn't exist).

There is a ICS sign in form, only required for missions.  There is no rCAP equirement for it to be legally binding and controlled.
There is a Director's report for certain classes, which does require the director's signature.
There is a requirement to keep attendance for Safety Meetings.
There is a flight release that will list who's on a flight

That's about it for CAP and sign-in sheets.  Nothing required for the vast majority of CAP things like meetings squadron training etc.  All stuff you want to track in a legally binding manner.

I don't know why you'd be using pen/paper now unless you had to. It should already be electronic. I'd like to go forward with that to a) directly inputing data on eServices, and b) card readers that automate the whole process (I realize that costs a couple dollars, but not much, and it lifts a lot of admin burden, there's some other stuff about that in some ID threads around here. I think that's the direction we're heading.
[/quote/

At some point, this would be a good idea.  I'm not sure it in any way relates to managing a contract, though.

Legality/tracking
When you get a car loan, you sign a physical contract, and then you make payments, which they login to a system and input. There's no required electronic signature, some safety features no doubt but they are not legally required. What you're talking about though is no different than the dozen or so restricted applications we have now. I fully think that it should stamp login/time/IP on record changes, but that's not required.

That's because you PAID them. You've got the entire security of the American Banking Industry (millions of dollars of people and automation behind them).  They ain't doin' that in eServices.  They are QUITE a bit more sophisticated since they deal with financial transactions. 

Now if the car loan guys wanted to require you to do something else besides pay money, they'd need some other system to do it.  And my guess is that it would involve human verification and signatures, if they wanted it to stand up in court.

I've dealt with issues very simliar to this in another non-profit, and have sent cases to court that stood up just fine on unorganized scraps of paper as a tracking record. The court isn't interested in the technicalities of your system. They are interested in what a reasonable person would believe the truth to be based on records available. It doesn't take much to make it over that bar.

Are you saying that you are aware of a non-profit that signed a volunteer to a contract of future service and then sued him when he didn't comply?  Please provide the details.

And again, who exactly will pay for these CAP lawyers?  Where is that money coming from.

Admin - Something about milage again
Once again, people behave with incompetence or malfeasence because there are no consequences. Holding them accountable is a leadership issue & requires swift & decisive action. All too often in CAP people in mgmt positions tend to say "we're jsut volunteers & be people are doing the best they can with the time they can give." Yeah, okay well in that case I can just not worry about any regs & go do whatever I want then I guess. Obviously not! When people commit to a job/resource then they need to get it done or get out of the way. If your leadership is not forcing that accountability then perhaps your leader needs to think about getting out of the way, respectfully.

This is the CAP we have today.  Until we fix that, any attempt to do something even more complicated (like managing contracts) is doomed to failure.

Service up front or After
You absolutely cannot offer flight training as a reward for service. That is 100% not going to be allowed by FAA. It's just paying for services in another way. When alternatively that person may work paid employment int hose hours to save up for commercially avail flight training. So absolutely not.

You are asking someone to pay for flight training with non-flight service in your proposal.  It ain't no different.  If the FAA won't allow the payment up front, they ain't gonna allow it in the back.

Plus, if you actually read the proposal, no money exchanges hands.  The FAA doesn't get involved.  All we do is change the CAP rule to ALLOW flight training for certain members who have proved themselves worthy.  They still have to find a CFI and pay for it.  But we let them do it in our planes, just like we do for cadets.

In other words, a no cost, no hassle, no admin overhead solution.  The kind that might actually happen.

What I want is more viable qualified pilots serving in all facets of the organization. The number of in the zone MPs we have is miniscule, and the distribution is horrendous. We can't move quality people around to make up for the bad ones, and we can't retire people or move them to backwater staff jobs when they can't do it anymore. We have to beat it by attrition.

A noble goal, but as stated earlier, that new pilot still needs 175 hours PIC before becmoing an MP trainee.   Are you planning on paying for all those hours too?  At $65 an hour (wet) which is probably on the low side, we're talking at least $2600 (assuming only 40 hours to the license and the flight instruction for free), It's probably more like over $3200.


At that wet rate, the additional hours (I'm assuming he's got about 20 PIC hours when he gets his license) will cost about $10000

So....assuming we've got all these CFIs handy to teach for free, we can make a new pilot for $12000-$14000.

Plus the cost for the lawyers, the contract managers, etc.  Not insignificant costs.  My guess is that we're adding another $300K or so per year in paid support.  Plus convincing volunteers to handle the rest.

Now, how many pilots are you willing to make, and where are you going to get the money from?  Which programs will you cut to fund this?  And remember, you can't use procurement funds for this, so it's going to have to come out of the operations and maintenance budget.

On the other hand, it's much cheaper if we just provide the primary, and the pilot pays the rest- but that means years (3-5, I'd say) till the guy is of any value to us as a pilot.

And he can always just pay us back, void the contract and bail.  After all, we're still cheaper than the local FBO, so it's a great deal for him.

We aren't USAF. We're going to need more innovative solutions than throw money at it, make the volunteers do more admin work and use the courts for enforcement.

Perhaps a better approach to your goal is to focus on recruiting and retaining more experienced pilots and providing incentives to maintain an MP rating and participate.

[ddelaney103]

Geez O'Flip, I can't believe we're still talking about this.

DNall's plan will never happen and Dragoon's plan is only slightly more likely.  Even if Dragoon's plan was allowed, we'd be talking about a handful of pilots who would jump through the hoops and be able to find a CFI.

Frankly, anything that requires money is a non-starter.  This is because of CAP's status as a Contractor to the AF.

Now, that doesn't mean it would be illegal, it just means you would have to convince the AF that giving us piles of money is better for the AF.  However, that will be a tough sell because the AF doesn't require us to do any missions and so far there has not been a gap b/w what the AF wants and what they get.

If you look at the Statement of Work (http://level2.cap.gov/documents/u_011504073611.pdf - don't worry, we'll wait) you'll see that there is a bunch of things we can do for the AF if we and they want, but very few things we have to do.  Normally, a SOW would be full of all of the things a contractor has to provide the AF, # of people, hours worked or things produced.  The CAP USAF SOW list a pile of "nice to haves,"  with the "need to haves" boiled down to "don't screw up."

The gov't tends to treat a contractor like a "black box" - money goes in and the goods or services come out.  They don't worry about what goes on inside the box as long as it produces.  Right now, the AF puts money in the CAP box and ES, CP and DDR comes out.  To get them to put more money in the box, you would have to convince them the box won't work without it.

Again, a new idea for CAP has to be long on results and short on cost.  A multi-million dollar proposal which gives them results they don't need is just a non-starter.