Using Cadet Great Start for the First Time

[GTCommando]

Greetings,
My Squadron will be conducting Cadet Great Start for the first time this winter. We've not been very active as far as recruiting recently, but we want to change that. Does anyone have any pointers, any road bumps you came upon in the program?

Any comments, pointers or suggestions are very appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help.

[afgeo4]

Greetings,
My Squadron will be conducting Cadet Great Start for the first time this winter. We've not been very active as far as recruiting recently, but we want to change that. Does anyone have any pointers, any road bumps you came upon in the program?

Any comments, pointers or suggestions are very appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help.

Our squadron had implemented this program, but it wasn't too successful. It doesn't work well because each cadet progresses at significantly different rates. Some cadets can pass the Curry exam one week into their membership while others have a very difficult time adjusting and take as much as four to six months to progress through their first achievement. The difficulty is that the program is built on everyone progressing at the same pace. It's hard to not promote a cadet who's passed all pre-requisites for promotion in exactly 8 weeks just because some other cadets are very slow.

[DC]

Greetings,
My Squadron will be conducting Cadet Great Start for the first time this winter. We've not been very active as far as recruiting recently, but we want to change that. Does anyone have any pointers, any road bumps you came upon in the program?

Any comments, pointers or suggestions are very appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help.

Our squadron had implemented this program, but it wasn't too successful. It doesn't work well because each cadet progresses at significantly different rates. Some cadets can pass the Curry exam one week into their membership while others have a very difficult time adjusting and take as much as four to six months to progress through their first achievement. The difficulty is that the program is built on everyone progressing at the same pace. It's hard to not promote a cadet who's passed all pre-requisites for promotion in exactly 8 weeks just because some other cadets are very slow.

So promote the ones that are ready and don't promote the ones that aren't. Then try to find out what's holding those cadets back and try to help them through it.

[davidsinn]

Greetings,
My Squadron will be conducting Cadet Great Start for the first time this winter. We've not been very active as far as recruiting recently, but we want to change that. Does anyone have any pointers, any road bumps you came upon in the program?

Any comments, pointers or suggestions are very appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help.

Our squadron had implemented this program, but it wasn't too successful. It doesn't work well because each cadet progresses at significantly different rates. Some cadets can pass the Curry exam one week into their membership while others have a very difficult time adjusting and take as much as four to six months to progress through their first achievement. The difficulty is that the program is built on everyone progressing at the same pace. It's hard to not promote a cadet who's passed all pre-requisites for promotion in exactly 8 weeks just because some other cadets are very slow.

So promote the ones that are ready and don't promote the ones that aren't. Then try to find out what's holding those cadets back and try to help them through it.

That plus give your new one stripers their first leadership assignment and assign them to mentor one of the basics because they were just there.

[Ron1319]

Further, if you have a cadet who can not pass the first leadership exam (note there is only one written test they need to take), then they deserve more help than just being put in a class with everyone else and looked at funny when they fail the test.  The test is fairly simple, even for a 12 year old.  With the classes in the great start program, they should be able to pass it easily.  If you haven't taken it yourself, go take the 10 minutes and take it.  It should be easy to get a high score on.  If there are concepts that are confusing, then spend the time to explain them.  For instance, they need to understand what an "oath" is, as they're expected to take their cadet oath.  I believe one class in the GS program is based on the cadet oath and should explain that concept thoroughly. 

The whole purpose of the program is to show them that they do not need to take 6 months to complete achievement requirements.

As far as road bumps, did they ever update jeopardy to the new leadership material?  With the old material, it was very spoon fed, as the questions on the test were essentially in the jeopardy game in the great start program.

[GTCommando]

As far as road bumps, did they ever update jeopardy to the new leadership material?  With the old material, it was very spoon fed, as the questions on the test were essentially in the jeopardy game in the great start program.

Actually, I'll be assigning a staff member to look for just that kind of thing. Obsolete cites, references to the L21C textbooks, etc. are the only problem I've seen so far.