Meeting Schedule

[TheSkyHornet]

Wondering how other squadrons schedule their meetings as I am working on a new cadet training plan for next year.

At the moment, we meet on Sundays from 1500-1730.

Week 1: Aerospace / Special Activity
Week 2: CPFT / Special Activity
Week 3: Safety / Emergency Services
Week 4: Character Development / Special Activity and Boards
Week 5: Aerospace / Special Activity
Week 6: CPFT / Special Activity
Week 7: Safety / Emergency Services
Week 8: Character Development / Special Activity and Boards
Week 9: Aerospace / Special Activity
Week 10: CPFT / Special Activity
Week 11: Safety / Emergency Services
Week 12: Character Development / Special Activity and Boards
Week 13: Special Activity 1 / Special Activity 2

Our schedule always seems incredibly bland, and we never seem to be able to fit in everything we planned on doing because there are a lot of "if we have time" type situations that come up. Rather than having boards planning out, it's "if we have time to conduct boards," or rather than having a time set aside to do drill, it's however long they need within the time constraints of the meeting. I find it to be very disorganized.

Some good ideas came up at TLC over the weekend, but another squadron I'm close with has a much more active schedule at each meeting, which I really like the structure of, as it includes the core lesson for around an hour or so then two extra items of cadet-led instruction for about 25-30 minutes each. The cadets really seem to like that plan.

One thing I find to be somewhat difficult is to have those weekend activities once or twice a month because our meeting days are on the weekend. While Sunday gives us the most amount of time to get what we want done, if we were to just the day indefinitely, it means special activities that last the entire weekend, like a bivouac or aviation fair, take up our meeting time and we lose the lesson plans. Sometimes I find people hesitant to want to schedule weekend activities because it comes down to the question of "Well, can we get rid of the AE lesson for the week? Or is it too important?" Now, this is something we are discussing slowly to possibly change in the future, but it still requires more detailed talks and feedback.

But what are other squadron meetings like? I think I'm going to check out a few other local squadrons and see how they run their own meetings just to get some ideas. But this is a good place for me to start since it's on-paper, in a sense, and I can refer back to it later for follow-up questions.

I'd really like some ideas to put into consideration. This does not have to apply solely to cadet squadrons. Senior and composite squadrons have meeting schedules, too, so I'd like to see how those are organized since we are talking at our squadron about separating senior activities more during meeting times.

[Juice]

We sent out a survey monkey to the membership to find out what week day and time worked best for our meetings and went with majority rules. That leaves the weekends for the extra activities. We are also breaking out ES, COMMS, and Color Guard to other evenings and just those members involved in those activities attend those additional meetings, again scheduled when it is convenient for them. Allows plenty of time during normal meetings to get things done.

[The Infamous Meerkat]

Hey SkyHornet,

Your system looks relatively similar to ours, except that we attempt to identify our Leadership time as well on the schedule (Good proof for SUI). Do you just count drill time or do you also schedule classes and such? If so, I suggest putting them on paper, just so you can toss it on the desk in an SUI. 

[TheSkyHornet]

We do not really address scheduled drill.

The problem is we don't really have a running schedule of events of the day. What we publish is a block meeting time with the core lesson and UOD (i.e., "Meeting 1500-1730. UOD is Blues. Aerospace and Promotions."). What I did was I started having the cadets in leadership positions make a monthly training schedule to distribute, which is an excel spreadsheet that listed all of the November 2015 planned events, location of them, UOD, and who's leading the training. But that's still too basic for my liking. The Squadron CC, I'm assuming, came up with the 13-week schedule, but I've never seen the entire 13 weeks published anywhere other than the week by week play on our website.

We have a lot of "If we have time for it" planning. If we know we have 3 cadets that need boards, it seems to end up being "If we have time for boards after character development on the 4th week..." But what are the other cadets supposed to do during that time? We don't find out until that day...

"What else do we have?"
"Nothing scheduled."
"Maybe the cadets can go outside and practice drill."
"Okay, well I need to take so-and-so upstairs to have her board."
*come back down after to find they were doing a lecture on some random topic I wasn't aware of*

As the new CDC, I really haven't had a lot of previous input in the schedule, and even now, I really don't know what's going on in my own cadet program (the reason I am asking). I believe in having time slots to cover each lesson and moving on. It should be well-planned out so we know what's getting taught in a month in advance. And this is something that was heavily stressed at TLC.

We're having our senior staff meeting this weekend, which is always an hour before the scheduled squadron meeting start time. I see some squadrons have their senior meetings done during the squadron meeting while the cadets and other senior members are doing their thing, as it should really only be a staff meeting, not a squadron-wide thing. I'd like to start having cadet programs meetings, or at the very least, a monthly cadet staff meeting where the Cadet Commander meets with his/her leadership staff to plan out the next month based on the existing schedule.

It seems to be the norm to have weekday meetings so we can have weekend events, and that's the general suggestion coming from the cadets. However, you get one or two cadets and one or two senior members who say "Sunday works best for me," and then 10 or more other people who say "I'd rather have it on a weekday." The rest say "Whenever" and really don't give input. I'm not partial to trying to schedule activities so every single person can always attend, and what the higher-up echelons seem to recommend is cutting your losses and at least having a more planned-out, active unit.

With our leadership changing coming February, we already know that many things will be different, including our scheduling of activities. But the current commander wants a briefing from what we learned in TLC and what should be adapted to the squadron. Based on prior experience, it's not going to go over well when I sit down and do the "everything we've been doing has been wrong, I've said it was wrong a long time ago, and now Group, Wing, and National are reinforcing that this is wrong through their training programs." It's been a rough ride. While it's a lot of work to plan out, which I'm fine with, I'm increasingly concerned that it isn't going to be backed up by the current commander as we progress into next year. The inconsistency from my own leadership makes it look like I'm coming up with new weekly ideas for my own colleagues and subordinates but that I'm doing a, well, half-asinine job with it all.

I have ideas on paper. I've discussed them with my cadet leadership and some of my peers. But it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks and even harder to get people who have been so set in their ways for a long time to see new proposals. I personally don't think our squadron will last through next spring if we don't start changing things immediately. We're are crumbling.

The cadets want more weekend activities, but we can't cancel our squadron meetings. They want more joint and social events, but we can't always "fit it into the schedule or budget." The seniors want more senior activities, but we can't coordinate unofficial CAP activities for just the senior members. "We have to invite the cadets." You see where this is going...

[The Infamous Meerkat]

Oh I hear ya, it's not an easy thing. We've been rebuilding a squadron for some time from an after school club for kids into a functioning Cadet Unit, and it's still not there yet... it's been about two years since we began. Our Cadets still haven't taken the hints that they need to  plan things more than a week in advance, plan specific activities at specific times, delegate their multiple tasks to some subordinates, etc.  Our new CDC has a background in large project management and has already set about teaching them some new tricks. Their lax attitude towards planning makes getting the required contact hours difficult sometimes because they "forget" to factor them into the equation... so frustrating to work with.

It sounds like you and I are in very similar places right now... more work is needed. I want our CDC to have a Master Training Schedule that makes an SUI a joke. Handing them the document should answer nearly all of the questions on the SUI, and should clearly Inform every member what training benefit they will receive at each meeting, rather than hoping it is worth their time.

As for getting people together for meetings, who said "you have to invite Cadets"? Half the fun of being a senior member is working and networking with some of the finest volunteers you'll ever meet, but sometimes that needs to be done away from the cadets. Adults have adult ways of winding down after a long day, Cadets need not necessarily be under foot for it to be a real CAP Activity. 
Just my two bits worth.

My younger Senior Members and I have dinner after every meeting. Sometimes we're chatting until 1AM. YMMV, but it helps level some frustrations, and that to me is worth it.

[JC004]

I would kill Sunday meetings, if I could.  Kill it with fire.  That would never accommodate my weekend activities schedule.   It'd be chaos, except for a couple activities that would benefit from a single long block of time.  I'd try to avoid Mondays.  It's best to have a buffer day if you're doing weekend activities.  Plus, all the federal holidays on Mondays. 

[SarDragon]

I would kill Sunday meetings, if I could.  Kill it with fire.  That would never accommodate my weekend activities schedule.   It'd be chaos, except for a couple activities that would benefit from a single long block of time.  I'd try to avoid Mondays.  It's best to have a buffer day if you're doing weekend activities.  Plus, all  most of the federal holidays are on Mondays.

FTFY.

[JC004]

No. 

[SarDragon]

No.

?

There are three federal holidays that occur on Monday only one year in seven, on average - Jan 1, Jul 4, and 25 Dec. A fourth always occurs on Thursday (Thanksgiving). Therefore, my statement is correct.

[TheSkyHornet]

Oh I hear ya, it's not an easy thing. We've been rebuilding a squadron for some time from an after school club for kids into a functioning Cadet Unit, and it's still not there yet... it's been about two years since we began. Our Cadets still haven't taken the hints that they need to  plan things more than a week in advance, plan specific activities at specific times, delegate their multiple tasks to some subordinates, etc.  Our new CDC has a background in large project management and has already set about teaching them some new tricks. Their lax attitude towards planning makes getting the required contact hours difficult sometimes because they "forget" to factor them into the equation... so frustrating to work with.

It sounds like you and I are in very similar places right now... more work is needed. I want our CDC to have a Master Training Schedule that makes an SUI a joke. Handing them the document should answer nearly all of the questions on the SUI, and should clearly Inform every member what training benefit they will receive at each meeting, rather than hoping it is worth their time.

As for getting people together for meetings, who said "you have to invite Cadets"? Half the fun of being a senior member is working and networking with some of the finest volunteers you'll ever meet, but sometimes that needs to be done away from the cadets. Adults have adult ways of winding down after a long day, Cadets need not necessarily be under foot for it to be a real CAP Activity. 
Just my two bits worth.

My younger Senior Members and I have dinner after every meeting. Sometimes we're chatting until 1AM. YMMV, but it helps level some frustrations, and that to me is worth it.

This finally got talked about at our last senior staff meeting.

I take issue with the fact that senior members who aren't Cadet Programs Officers (under the Deputy Commander for Cadets) have a say in how the cadet programs meetings are scheduled/arranged on-paper. I've addressed this and it seems to be progressing forward now after I brought up that I'm going to work on new master training schedules.

Cadet and Senior meetings need to be held at the same time for the sake and betterment of the squadron's cohesion, but they need to be interactive only when necessary for the purpose of the mission or training activity. Aside from that, seniors need to get their hands out of the cadet meeting unless they're teaching a specific course (like AE). I think the ball is now rolling on this one and I expect it to work out well based on the schedules I made up and presented to our incoming commander. He's totally on board, and even our current commander is open to changes, even if she may not approve all of them.

I would kill Sunday meetings, if I could.  Kill it with fire.  That would never accommodate my weekend activities schedule.   It'd be chaos, except for a couple activities that would benefit from a single long block of time.  I'd try to avoid Mondays.  It's best to have a buffer day if you're doing weekend activities.  Plus, all the federal holidays on Mondays.

This has been talked about many times at our squadron. And it was brought up yesterday.

The consensus---
"You're going to lose me as a senior member if you change meeting days. I just can't make it out here."
"I'd prefer not to lose weekends, so we should discuss this more."

The opposing argument from our new commander:
"We need to take that leap of faith. That's stressed by National and Wing. We can't always expect everyone to be able to meet the schedule we want or need. And we have to move on in some cases."

We do have some scheduling conflicts with our meeting location that immediately removes Wednesday due to the local flight school teaching ground school that day, and every third Thursday of each month, the EAA meets. But we've discussed possibly seeing if the EAA could relocate to a different meeting area or a different day, or we have a jump day in the schedule. We're also being asked by two different airports if we would consider moving to their locations. This would require some serious investigating and negotiating, since we pay no rent at the moment and pretty much have full run of the place on our meeting days.

What I did in the mean time was built a new squadron meeting schedule that lasts 2.5 hours from open to close and have two main blocks of instruction time, with one of those blocks on each day possibly being split into two smaller blocks for additional training and the ability for us to pull some cadets aside for any paper testing or boards where they wouldn't miss out on the important core classes (like AE, ES, etc.). I built a senior meeting schedule to match it with the various senior activities for each week that would be going on simultaneous to the cadet meeting but not always intertwined (only on some days). Like our senior staff meeting would be conducted during Character Development rather than having an hour of time used up before the meeting normally starts, freeing up the schedule if the days ever did shift. Just an example though.

It seems like changes will definitely be coming. Specifically what, I'm not quite sure yet, but I've had enough feedback in the squadron and out of the squadron to push things forward and get the conversations started. Appreciate the input, folks.

[sarmed1]

Some things that quickly come to mind.

-I like Sundays, they tend to not conflict as much as week nights with the other things cadets are involved in, namely after school activities and other school needs, homework.  Though I would say maybe a little later start time would de-conflict with CAP related weekend activities:  1600-1830?  You could have your special groups come in early at 1500 and everyone else at 1600.

-You only plan you schedule 1 month in advance, I would say do quarterly planning.  At least big plans, and maybe monthly make sure the details are worked out or tweaked.

-As you have already put forth the idea, unless you are a very small squadron, CP and the rest of the squadron shouldnt "have" be intertwined.  There are some areas that can/need to be, but in general no need (safety briefings, commanders call/promotion/awards, and maybe ES if you do that sort of thing)

-What else to do with everyone else during boards-develop "hip pocket training": short 15 min classes on common cadet topics that any NCO or officer can do with minimal equipment or prep time.... can be anything leadership, AE, uniforms, ES, commo all come to mind.

MK

[TheSkyHornet]

Some things that quickly come to mind.

-I like Sundays, they tend to not conflict as much as week nights with the other things cadets are involved in, namely after school activities and other school needs, homework.  Though I would say maybe a little later start time would de-conflict with CAP related weekend activities:  1600-1830?  You could have your special groups come in early at 1500 and everyone else at 1600.

-You only plan you schedule 1 month in advance, I would say do quarterly planning.  At least big plans, and maybe monthly make sure the details are worked out or tweaked.

-As you have already put forth the idea, unless you are a very small squadron, CP and the rest of the squadron shouldnt "have" be intertwined.  There are some areas that can/need to be, but in general no need (safety briefings, commanders call/promotion/awards, and maybe ES if you do that sort of thing)

-What else to do with everyone else during boards-develop "hip pocket training": short 15 min classes on common cadet topics that any NCO or officer can do with minimal equipment or prep time.... can be anything leadership, AE, uniforms, ES, commo all come to mind.

MK

I think we're sticking with Sundays at this point. That discussion may come up later, but I don't think Sundays are going anywhere for now.

It seems people also want to stick with the 1500 start time as well because they want the ability to be home for dinner. Everyone is worried about having to be up early the next morning for work. This discussion sort of came hand-in-hand with the weekday meeting idea. They didn't want to do a weekday meeting because it would require a 1900 start, and people didn't want a meeting running at 1900 because they "had things to do." So I think we'll stay on with the 1500. The plan is to extend the meeting to 1800 rather than ending at 1730, so long as the meeting is productive. My proposed schedule has allotted specific start and finish times for each training session, so I don't see any room for "wasting time" in the 3-hour format.

The 13-week schedule is essentially the same in each quarter. That's the easy part. The issue is that while we know what each week's core lesson is, it isn't specific to the actual lesson to be taught. We know 13 weeks out that the first week of the month will have Aerospace Education, but we don't generally know what the topic is until a week out or maybe even that day. And that's just an example. Our AEO is really good about planning his activities well in advance. But most of our other training days, we don't know what's going to be taught that day until that day arrives. That's my frustration. This is when it turns into "What do you have planned?" "Well, I'd like to, if we have time, do blah blah blah." This should have been planned a month ago. You knew you have cadet instruction every 3rd week, so why aren't you planning it? That applies to the cadets and seniors.

I did put out the idea of removing that intertwining of CP and the rest of the squadron. My new schedule format includes the periods when the senior members should be fully excluded from what's going on in the cadet program, aside from the CP officers. Really, I'm tired of everyone else thinking they have a stake in my cadet program as it is, and deciding what our cadet meeting will consist of. This is something I took some heat for from some of our other seniors, to the point where I brought up to the Deputy Commander for Seniors that we need to have time to sit down with the other seniors and explain that they are not within my chain of command, which he fully agrees. Some of the cadets have already complained to me about some issues with seniors butting in on their training, especially during drill and inspections.

If I have boards, or time needed for cadet testing, I'd like the cadets to run their own, well-planned training activity which an individual cadet may be excluded from and not necessarily lose out on essential instruction that may be carried over to another meeting. I slotted room for pulling someone aside where they aren't missing core instruction. If the seniors don't want to run their meetings the way I'd like to run my cadet meetings, my schedule can still run itself. I just ask that the seniors exclude their fingers from my training plan.

I'll attach my training plan as an aid. Just need to make some tweaks.

[TheSkyHornet]

I attached a zipped folder with my proposed schedules. There are purely just for discussion purposes as a visual aid at the moment and will probably get tweaked. But I think it captures in that idea of segregating the seniors from the cadets while making sure everyone has time to get their agenda accomplished.

Thoughts?

[Garibaldi]

/snip

There was a unit in Wisconsin that met on Sunday, if I remember right. I think it is a mixed idea. One, you could get permission to visit a church, in blues, before your meeting, so you can possibly take potential recruits to a meeting that night so the immediacy is still there, and not a week later when they may change their mind about going. Another is, how do you handle it when you have a weekend FTX or something? Do you suspend the meeting, or do you just end the activity on Saturday evening? This is just a question I've had.

[TheSkyHornet]

/snip

There was a unit in Wisconsin that met on Sunday, if I remember right. I think it is a mixed idea. One, you could get permission to visit a church, in blues, before your meeting, so you can possibly take potential recruits to a meeting that night so the immediacy is still there, and not a week later when they may change their mind about going. Another is, how do you handle it when you have a weekend FTX or something? Do you suspend the meeting, or do you just end the activity on Saturday evening? This is just a question I've had.

This is the point I've brought up, as well as some seniors and cadets. This came up as heavy discussion in TLC.

Weekend activities are just that---on weekends. When we schedule a bivouac that starts on Friday night, goes through Saturday night, we generally have to cancel our Sunday meeting. When we want a field trip or extra activity, such as recruiting at an air show, we have to cancel our Sunday meeting. So usually the squadron tries to plan those events around that special 5th week of a month, of which there is only one per quarter. But we still lose that ability to hold a meeting and lose valuable training time.

If we held a meeting on Thursday night, you could still have activities on Saturday and Sunday. That 5th week meeting can be used to train for that 5th weekend activity.

Now, we have a cadet or two, and a senior or two, who say they can't do any other day, period. If we move the meeting day, we lose them. But if we move the meeting day and can add in more activities on the weekend, we can boost the group morale and keep up the recruiting and retention of new members. It's not personal to me. I don't want to see someone leave because they can't commit, but I'm not really willing to sacrifice our ability to grow just because a couple of people can't be a part of it. One of the things we discussed at our last staff meeting is how do we deal with turning some people away because they can't commit to our schedule. As our new CC said, "You just have to take that leap of faith that we won't disappear without that person being there."

A lot of squadrons hold weeknight meetings. Those same squadrons are no different from ours in the respect that the cadets have school the next day and the senior members have work. I see squadrons with 50 people that show up on a weeknight and they have a ton of weekend activities without the concern of canceling a meeting.

So that's where I stand. I know I can't have my way every time I have an idea. But at the same time, we can't schedule every activity around the idea that one or two people can't show up to it. If they can't make it, move on.

I think my next proposal will be that when we do some new recruit training and hold parents orientations, we do it on a weeknight and see what the attendance is and what the parents think of that plan.

[Garibaldi]

/snip

There was a unit in Wisconsin that met on Sunday, if I remember right. I think it is a mixed idea. One, you could get permission to visit a church, in blues, before your meeting, so you can possibly take potential recruits to a meeting that night so the immediacy is still there, and not a week later when they may change their mind about going. Another is, how do you handle it when you have a weekend FTX or something? Do you suspend the meeting, or do you just end the activity on Saturday evening? This is just a question I've had.

This is the point I've brought up, as well as some seniors and cadets. This came up as heavy discussion in TLC.

Weekend activities are just that---on weekends. When we schedule a bivouac that starts on Friday night, goes through Saturday night, we generally have to cancel our Sunday meeting. When we want a field trip or extra activity, such as recruiting at an air show, we have to cancel our Sunday meeting. So usually the squadron tries to plan those events around that special 5th week of a month, of which there is only one per quarter. But we still lose that ability to hold a meeting and lose valuable training time.

If we held a meeting on Thursday night, you could still have activities on Saturday and Sunday. That 5th week meeting can be used to train for that 5th weekend activity.

Now, we have a cadet or two, and a senior or two, who say they can't do any other day, period. If we move the meeting day, we lose them. But if we move the meeting day and can add in more activities on the weekend, we can boost the group morale and keep up the recruiting and retention of new members. It's not personal to me. I don't want to see someone leave because they can't commit, but I'm not really willing to sacrifice our ability to grow just because a couple of people can't be a part of it. One of the things we discussed at our last staff meeting is how do we deal with turning some people away because they can't commit to our schedule. As our new CC said, "You just have to take that leap of faith that we won't disappear without that person being there."

A lot of squadrons hold weeknight meetings. Those same squadrons are no different from ours in the respect that the cadets have school the next day and the senior members have work. I see squadrons with 50 people that show up on a weeknight and they have a ton of weekend activities without the concern of canceling a meeting.

So that's where I stand. I know I can't have my way every time I have an idea. But at the same time, we can't schedule every activity around the idea that one or two people can't show up to it. If they can't make it, move on.

I think my next proposal will be that when we do some new recruit training and hold parents orientations, we do it on a weeknight and see what the attendance is and what the parents think of that plan.

It's a hard thing to do, changing meeting nights. There will always be someone or a few someones who will wail and gnash their teeth and rip their clothing while declaiming "YOU CAN'T MOVE THE MEETING NIGHT!!! I'LL HAVE TO QUIT!" Those people have been around since the squadron was conceived back in the 40s, usually. Kidding, but you see the point. They are resistant to change, or they've built their lives around the weekly CAP meeting. The units I've been in have always met either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. There used to be something somewhere in the regs about when the best time to have meetings, based on demographics or some such. But, it is what it is. Build around when the majority CAN make it, not to accommodate a few.

[TheSkyHornet]

/snip

There was a unit in Wisconsin that met on Sunday, if I remember right. I think it is a mixed idea. One, you could get permission to visit a church, in blues, before your meeting, so you can possibly take potential recruits to a meeting that night so the immediacy is still there, and not a week later when they may change their mind about going. Another is, how do you handle it when you have a weekend FTX or something? Do you suspend the meeting, or do you just end the activity on Saturday evening? This is just a question I've had.

This is the point I've brought up, as well as some seniors and cadets. This came up as heavy discussion in TLC.

Weekend activities are just that---on weekends. When we schedule a bivouac that starts on Friday night, goes through Saturday night, we generally have to cancel our Sunday meeting. When we want a field trip or extra activity, such as recruiting at an air show, we have to cancel our Sunday meeting. So usually the squadron tries to plan those events around that special 5th week of a month, of which there is only one per quarter. But we still lose that ability to hold a meeting and lose valuable training time.

If we held a meeting on Thursday night, you could still have activities on Saturday and Sunday. That 5th week meeting can be used to train for that 5th weekend activity.

Now, we have a cadet or two, and a senior or two, who say they can't do any other day, period. If we move the meeting day, we lose them. But if we move the meeting day and can add in more activities on the weekend, we can boost the group morale and keep up the recruiting and retention of new members. It's not personal to me. I don't want to see someone leave because they can't commit, but I'm not really willing to sacrifice our ability to grow just because a couple of people can't be a part of it. One of the things we discussed at our last staff meeting is how do we deal with turning some people away because they can't commit to our schedule. As our new CC said, "You just have to take that leap of faith that we won't disappear without that person being there."

A lot of squadrons hold weeknight meetings. Those same squadrons are no different from ours in the respect that the cadets have school the next day and the senior members have work. I see squadrons with 50 people that show up on a weeknight and they have a ton of weekend activities without the concern of canceling a meeting.

So that's where I stand. I know I can't have my way every time I have an idea. But at the same time, we can't schedule every activity around the idea that one or two people can't show up to it. If they can't make it, move on.

I think my next proposal will be that when we do some new recruit training and hold parents orientations, we do it on a weeknight and see what the attendance is and what the parents think of that plan.

It's a hard thing to do, changing meeting nights. There will always be someone or a few someones who will wail and gnash their teeth and rip their clothing while declaiming "YOU CAN'T MOVE THE MEETING NIGHT!!! I'LL HAVE TO QUIT!" Those people have been around since the squadron was conceived back in the 40s, usually. Kidding, but you see the point. They are resistant to change, or they've built their lives around the weekly CAP meeting. The units I've been in have always met either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. There used to be something somewhere in the regs about when the best time to have meetings, based on demographics or some such. But, it is what it is. Build around when the majority CAN make it, not to accommodate a few.

The general recommendation from Group and Wing are to use a weekday meeting night so you can have those free weekends for the extra activities.

Like you said, it is what it is. I'm in favor of building around the majority, not the few. If we lose 3 people but gain 3 and can have weekend events on top of the typical meeting, I'd support that. I can do either. Weekdays would be a bit harder for me, but not everything is about me. My cadets have asked for more activities, and I can't give them all of the activities they would like because it would involve canceling an AE meeting, and the AEO is now pissed off. I can cancel a day of PT, but now the cadets who couldn't get their CPFT scores in are pissed.