CAP Talk GOOD FOR CAP Members?

[wingnut55]

In the years since I rejoined CAP I have found CAP Talk to be an attitude Boost, as bad as I think my Wing is I can see that many Wings are progressive, and have many hard working Volunteers. Thanks to many interesting and thoughtful comments and Topic discussions here.

How say You all. Is CAP Talk important to you??

[Capt Rivera]

In a word.... Yes...

[Hawk200]

CAP Talk can be good for new information that doesn't get out to the units that quickly. A lot of times, stuff gets posted here before the end of the day that it's released. Very handy.

Discussions can be enlightening, but can also be frustrating. Take it with a grain of salt at times.

[SarDragon]

A grain?

I keep a whole shaker handy. 

[a2capt]

Aw heck, I have a fist sized chunk direct from the Salt Mine at Hutchinson, KS.

The treads tend to be pretty uniform .. I can tell you that, by the regs. ;-)

[FW]

"It's not TV; It's CT" 

When it comes to CAP, CAP Talk works better than Prozac. 

Ahhhhhhh, I feel much better now 

[RADIOMAN015]

I think it serves a verify useful purpose by providing worthwhile information to CAP members by others more experienced in the working of CAP.  I also think it serves as an outlet for members' that are "frustrated" by some aspects of the organization.

Thanks again to the founders & moderators for all their efforts :clap:
RM

[Levi]

So far, I am glad for CapTalk. I discovered it while investigating the possibility of joining Cap. I've only been to a few squadron meetings, and am finding out about the larger attitude via ct.

[Capt Rivera]

So far, I am glad for CapTalk. I discovered it while investigating the possibility of joining Cap. I've only been to a few squadron meetings, and am finding out about the larger attitude via ct.

Hi Levi, welcome to CAP Talk and hopefully to CAP.
- Keep in mind, anything that's worth doing or having will probably find a way to frustrate you: Volunteering, Jobs, Family, etc... All worth it, but when you love something or at least enjoy or have buy in, it has the ability to frustrate someone more then if they didn't really care.

Many of the people on CAP Talk really care and can be loud when voicing concern or other feelings, both negative & positive.

What I hope you take from the overall attitude is that CAP is a worthy organization that may cause positive and negative stress like many worth while endeavors do. It will challenge you in many different ways which is a good thing and when you find something lacking, you can usually jump in at your level and improve that thing.

For example, when I joined my unit in 2002, the need was for a professional development officer and to get that program moving again. I stepped up to that challenge, taught myself what I needed to know and then began helping those who have been in before I know CAP existed.

As of October 29, 2009, I am the Squadron Commander. Again a challenge I am stepping up to and am learning as I go. In my short time in the position, I am already dealing with something that I hope no other squadron has to deal with.
- Side note: Test Control Officers/Assistants: Don't admin an AFIADL test even one day after the date of enrollment. If you or your TCOs don't know what that is or where to look, review CAPR 50-4 which will show you where to look. You can also contact AFIADL. If you don't have a checklist that reminds your people to check the date, make one/edit current one. - Trust me, people forget...

Regarding going to only a few meetings: Hopefully those went well. I can assure you that our squadron is an active one in all aspects of CAP core missions, however, at times that may leave us with hard choices. Do we stop everything to speak to the new person who showed up (invited or otherwise) or do we continue as normal and bring him in, and hope we don't loose him with too much or too little information. Usually we have someone who can spend the time to sit down with a perspective member, but sometimes its just not possible.

My best advice - Jump in, get involved and don't wait to be told what to do. Start asking what can you do or if you know what you want to do, ask to do it or let someone know you want to do it... Again, you get what you put into CAP and you usually get to put more in when your a little out going and let yourself be known that you want to get involved and how much...

Most squadrons are ecstatic to get new blood looking to contribute, however they are not all good at directing volunteers. They want you to volunteer, they don't want to order you or make CAP feel like your job.

The above are simply my thoughts, other views may and probably will vary, hope it helps...

[RicL]

I agree that captalk is probably a good thing overall for cadets because it gives them a look into other squadrons, into the lives of other cadets and helps to disseminate info. On the other hand I've seen more than my share of conflict, infighting and trashtalking on captalk. Personally I don't think that a public forum is the right place to air your dirty laundry.

Having said that, I believe in freedom of speech and will not bar any of my squadron's cadets from captalk nor discourage it's use. You can bet though that if there comes a day that one of my cadets is found painting CAP in a negative light, swearing or otherwise behaving poorly on captalk that we're going to sit down and have a little counseling session.

I'd also like to remind the non-CAP members which read this that captalk that has ~2300 members and CAP has ~65,000. If you figure it out, only ~3.5% of CAP is a member of captalk. The opinions and attitude you see here may very well be the minority.

[MIKE]

I agree that captalk is probably a good thing overall for cadets because it gives them a look into other squadrons, into the lives of other cadets and helps to disseminate info.

Not really, mostly because this place is crawling with senior members... And the typical level of "discussion" here I would not term as cadet friendly. 

[RiverAux]

I've long held that participating in discussion boards like this are far more likely to hurt the morale of the person participating than to help it.  Sure every now and again you can get some CAP news quicker here than through official sources, but most of the threads are about ways that someone thinks CAP can be improved, the premise of which is that something we're doing now is wrong or not working as effectively as it could be.  It takes a certain type of person to accept that as an attempt at constructive criticism rather than a continuing litany of things that are "wrong" with CAP.

Then, of course, there are always a few trolls or quasi-trolls on any discussion board who, no matter the topic, only bash the organization in question.  Once you identify them you can learn to just skip their posts, but in the interim they can seem to be more representative of opinion than they really are. 

[Levi]

To RiveraJ:
Thank you for the welcome. I have visited with the Goldsboro, NC Composite squadron. I have attended two meetings to date. The squadron commander is a genuinely kind gentleman who appears to have integrity and concern for CAP. I noticed that he held the cadets in attendance in high regard and treated them respectfully. The Professional Development officer was new to his job and just learning the ropes. But I felt comfortable with him. Both of these men are Air Force retired. Those two were the only adults who attended both of the meetings that I did. I have seen only three cadets at these meetings. To be honest and truthful, I am excited and hopeful with CAP when I read through the material available on the internet, but less so at the local level. I do know that any volunteer organization is only as good as its individual members, and that among volunteer groups 20% of the people do 80% of the work. It is clear to me that I can be helpful and contribute. These two men are overworked, and they are doing the best they can. I have found that CapTalk has an element of remarks spawned by emotion and some posts have a negative twist. I am trusting that there are those responsible for monitoring these threads and that someone, somewhere, puts and end to any conversation that will do more harm than good to CAP. In any case, thank you for your remarks and encouragement. I intend to join, and am in the process.

[RicL]

To RiveraJ:
Thank you for the welcome. I have visited with the Goldsboro, NC Composite squadron. I have attended two meetings to date. The squadron commander is a genuinely kind gentleman who appears to have integrity and concern for CAP. I noticed that he held the cadets in attendance in high regard and treated them respectfully. The Professional Development officer was new to his job and just learning the ropes. But I felt comfortable with him. Both of these men are Air Force retired. Those two were the only adults who attended both of the meetings that I did. I have seen only three cadets at these meetings. To be honest and truthful, I am excited and hopeful with CAP when I read through the material available on the internet, but less so at the local level. I do know that any volunteer organization is only as good as its individual members, and that among volunteer groups 20% of the people do 80% of the work. It is clear to me that I can be helpful and contribute. These two men are overworked, and they are doing the best they can. I have found that CapTalk has an element of remarks spawned by emotion and some posts have a negative twist. I am trusting that there are those responsible for monitoring these threads and that someone, somewhere, puts and end to any conversation that will do more harm than good to CAP. In any case, thank you for your remarks and encouragement. I intend to join, and am in the process.

There very well may be other cadets that weren't in attendance at the two meetings you attended. It may also be that the squadron just has low membership right now. I wouldn't develop any opinions of a small squadron until after a few months of membership. Small squadron's are perfect for cadets just starting out because you get more of a detailed one-on-one introduction to CAP.

Also, cadets make some of the best recruiters because they can relate to other potential cadets. This squadron would probably be a great place for a cadet to receive his recruiter ribbon once he begins advancing and is more comfortable with what CAP's all about.

The more you think about it you'll probably realize that there are advantages to both large squadrons and small squadrons.

[Pumbaa]

CAP Talk may only represent 3.5% of the CAP membership, but it winds up being a pretty accurate cross section of the opinions and attitude of the organization's membership.  Think of polls that only do 100-500 interviews and it is supposed to be accurate within a few percentage points.  Look at election polls, opinion polls etc... Well CAP Talk is essentially the same. A percentage of active membership espousing opinions does represent a good portion of the whole within a few percentage points.

It is a pretty good representation of the state of the organization and membership.

With that said... then I would say CAP is in deep kimchee.

Back on topic..
I agree that this is more of a senior discussion board than a cadet.  Cadet Stuff is more for them.

Do I think it is good for members?  ehhh... I can take it or leave it.  I beleive it fosters more negative than positive... I tend to use it more for the entertainment value now.  Once in a while I might get a useful  tidbit, but generally I have been finding it less than useful.

Why entertainment value?  Because a large percentage of the posts are trashing uniforms, complaining about national etc... these are brought up ad nausium... After being here for a while I could no longer take CAP Talk seriously and started posting just to see if I could irritate Mike.

Oh yeah and I just came off of a 30 day time out.

Why irritate Mike? Mostly, I think the mods are a bit heavy handed and are locking threads too often, they are banning folks for the most minor of offenses.. PM me for the 2 words that got me 30 days....

Discussions need to take on a natural course, sometimes threads will stray, but generally go back on track.  By locking a thread you stifle conversation and ideas. 

I look at online forums as living-room/kitchen conversations.  You will be on a topic, stray some, then come back to it.  By having the host, say.. okay guys shut up and stop talking, you hinder the flow of ideas.  I see this way too often here... Thus I feel that CAP talk has limited value for exchanging ideas in an open nature.

In their desire to create a professional discussion board, they have actually done the opposite.  More harm than good.

Flame Away....

[RiverAux]

I don't think CAPTalk really represents a broad cross-section at all.  CAPTalkers are more akin to the people who are active in political parties.  For example, those helping to run the local Democratic party probably have much stronger views and opinions about the party than the vast majority of party members who do no more than vote.  I think CAPTalkers care much more about CAP than the average member or else they wouldn't be spending so much non-CAP time talking about CAP. 

[flyerthom]

The primary value is in linking members in different areas and building and network.
The next value is in the gems of best practices you and learn.
A bit more of a gray value is the occasional (and usually good natured) chop busts that builds an organizational comradely. The flip side and the primary drawback is when things go to far and a person begins to take the board to seriously. After all it's a board and still only the Internet (innarwebs, home of ceiling cat, what's that song from Avenue Q?)

[NCRblues]

So, following pumbaas post I went back and looked at the CSU is gone thread and it was locked. Now why was this locked? I see nothing that would warrant a lock. If the lock is about the rumors on the last page I have a problem with this. In cap the rumor mill is one of the most amazing and structured (yes structured I say) rumor mills I have ever encountered. But what do we as an organization expect? We recently have an NEC that suddenly drops a full uniform set (I am all for this but still unexpected), we have a governance system that not a single person I have meet can truly explain how it works. We have national boards that have closed door meetings about god knows what (were a volunteer organization, why do we have closed door meetings, it's not like we have security clearances).  We have a good 'old boy system in full swing all over cap (and I know someone will flame me saying no no no good old boys aren't around anymore) but this just fuels the rumors. So why can't we talk about those rumors? Funny thing I learned in the military is the scuttle butt usually is based in some form of truth. Why not hear all the ideas...not just the ones that the mods like? Flame away my friends, flame away.

[a2capt]

Another facet of CAPTalk. Some threads deserve to be locked, but this forum has the most happy-go-locky moderators I have ever seen.

..and most of the time they're locked with explanation. At least that one got a "ding" (it's done)  ..

But I agree, it is frustrating, especially when it's answered with "Don't like it, run your own forum and don't lock them."

A long with the "you didn't search before you posted that!!!" type of answer.

Some subjects are not easy to search for due to many common terms. Plus some search functions use weird boolean logic, others act googlish. It's not easy for everyone to get the same results you do.

Lastly, this very forum pretty much urges you to post a new thread when it comes back with
"Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 60 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic."

So.. all around the circle, be careful what you ask for. [darn]ed if you do, [darn]ed if you don't.