Countdown to Armageddon

[Pumbaa]

Good grief.  Where's the leadership?  This should have been a briefing item to the national commander ONCE A WEEK and region commanders should have been monitoring what the wings were doing to keep this from happening. 

+1000

Where I work... towards the end of the year, a task that I normally do monthly, I started to do weekly.  This was to ensure that we were going to hit our target numbers.  it got to the point that I was calling people individually, to see what the hours/ dollars were going to be for a particular day.

For CAP not to demand something of this on a wing/ group borders on insanity.  Yes we are a volunteer organization, but in some cases we need to know who the chaff is.
Alaska really has ZERO mission pilots?  OMG!  Heads should roll if this is true.  I really hope that the reporting mechanism is wrong in this case.

[RiverAux]

Unfortunately, they didn't release the online reports that let commanders track compliance with the new regulations until sometime in November, which by then was almost too late to do anything about it.  That report should have been available at the same time they put the ICL into effect and it should have been a priority item as Gunner suggested.  Too late to cry over spilt milk though. 

[Major Carrales]

Too late to cry over spilt milk though. 

No, crying over spilled milk reminds us not to let it spill again.

I can tell you know that there was no "ready reference" that allowed me as a commander to know exactally who needed what ICS courses to remain current.  In fact, it take over an hour just for me to toggle back and forth between screens, names and modules just to check if people's quals are being approved at higher headquarters (please, let me know if there is a report in E-services that could show me that...I am yet to find it).

Yes, in about November our Wing Commander put out a NIMS report that showed what people in certain ES tracks needed.  This helped me greatly in that I could look at the "ALL OPS QUAL" feature and manually determine who needed to be reminded to take a certain ICS course.  We were able to save about 90% of the unit, the rest will be working on compliance now.

Maybe the idea was to scale back our personnel, at least for a while.  To solidify the core (corps) of active CAP Officers and Cadets and build from there.  Such attrition is almost one in likeness to the ancient Spartans.  I can't say that was the plan, but it might have that effect in hindsight.

I can't, however, say that I am impressed with ICS200, 700 and 800.  They seem to repeat the same stuff ad infinitum.   Maybe, as we train at SARex activities, we should stress the ICS part in blatant form along with the CAP side? 

After all, most downed pilots, hurricane victims and lost children's first question when they are rescued is "What is span of control/unity of command?"

[RiverAux]

You may need some higher level approval to get to these, but go in the Reports section and there are two NIMS reports.  One labeled something like NIMS statistics which gives the statistical breakdown of how many people had courses by ES position.  That was very helpful before 12/31, but now all the non-complianct people aren't considered in it.

The one you want is Missing NIMS Training which breaks it down by person. 

[Short Field]

As soon as they started allowing you to enter the ICS courses as a separate acheivement (May or Jun timeframe??), you could track your units progress.  All you needed to do was run a report asking for specific Ops Achievements - as in who has completed ICS 700?  I was tracking the Wing's completion rate since at least June.

You really need to make sure you are given permissions to run all the restricted report functions in eServices if you are in a leadership or senior management position.  If you are only on the Squadron staff, your permissions would be limited to squadron so it is not a big deal.  There are a lot of tools in eServices that make managing a unit a lot easier.

[Eclipse]

After all, most downed pilots, hurricane victims and lost children's first question when they are rescued is "What is span of control/unity of command?"

Without ICS working, the odds of ever finding them are significantly decreased.

[Nomex Maximus]

MIWG is down to 15 mission pilots. We used to have about 50.

[SAR-EMT1]

Case in point though... Alaska. According to someone here, E-services shows they have no Mission Pilots. Are we sure they haven't flown any missions since midnight of the 31st?

It's like Pennsylvania and it's safety issue a few months back, except I can't see a Washington Wing A/C flying a mission to cover Alaska.

If something major happened I'm sure they would man the planes. Either that or have the USAF cover it out of Elmendorf.

[Short Field]

^^Or have the MP take 30 mins and complete IS 700.  If they haven't done IS 200, that will take another 40 mins.

[Al Sayre]

We are running a SAR mission in MS & AL starting 01/03/09.  I don't know about AL, but I have spent a lot of time calling MS people who were de-certified to get them to do the IS700 and get re-certified so we can prosecute this mission.  It's been a giant pain.  Mr. Murphy and I saw this coming from a long way off, but nobody wanted to listen.  Now half the wing has been up till 0300 doing ICS courses for the last 2 nights...

[Short Field]

And how many people did you hear pontificate on how the training was worthless, too hard to do, and that National would never hold our feet to the fire and actually make us meet the arbitrary deadlines they set???

[Al Sayre]

Heard a lot of it, mostly from the folks who haven't done the training.  Many of those same folks have changed their tunes about the ICS 300 & 400 training since they actually took it.  But it really doesn't matter what you think of the training, the simple fact is no completion = no participation.  So spread the word to get the courses done!

[Eclipse]

I just noticed that the WMU now has fields for ICS-requirements in the various SQTRS, listed at the top of the FAM/Prep section and taking data from MIMS.

[0]

You may need some higher level approval to get to these, but go in the Reports section and there are two NIMS reports.  One labeled something like NIMS statistics which gives the statistical breakdown of how many people had courses by ES position.  That was very helpful before 12/31, but now all the non-complianct people aren't considered in it.

The one you want is Missing NIMS Training which breaks it down by person. 

Are you sure they're not considered in it?  I ran one and it looks like they still are.  I know when I go to look at their 101 card nothing shows up now.

[RiverAux]

The report by individuals includes everyone with any ES Quals.  The statistics report seems to just include people that are current, and since 12/31 only people that are compliant with the NIMS regs are current, so the stats page is useuless.  UNLESS they changed something today. 

[Ricochet13]

^^Or have the MP take 30 mins and complete IS 700.  If they haven't done IS 200, that will take another 40 mins.

Wonder why FEMA estimates 180 minutes to complete each course?  Although, it did take me a couple of hours for each course. 

[Eclipse]

^^Or have the MP take 30 mins and complete IS 700.  If they haven't done IS 200, that will take another 40 mins.

Wonder why FEMA estimates 180 minutes to complete each course?  Although, it did take me a couple of hours for each course. 

The test itself took me 15 minutes.

If you sat done pretty cold to ICS, flipped through every slide, went back and forth, and looked things up along the way I could see several hours.

I believe there are also cases where if you are taking the class for work, and want credit, you actually have to sit through the whole, timed, root canal curriculum.

[Pumbaa]

Hell I cheated it only took me 5 minutes!

[Short Field]

^^Or have the MP take 30 mins and complete IS 700.  If they haven't done IS 200, that will take another 40 mins.

Wonder why FEMA estimates 180 minutes to complete each course?  Although, it did take me a couple of hours for each course. 

As the Wing/DO once told a young Lt many years ago in the RM, "You just have to remember, if they were as good as us, we would just be average".   

[ammotrucker]

MIWG is down to 15 mission pilots. We used to have about 50.

I feel sorry for you NM, I have 33 in my Group alone.