Any suggestions?

[V. Basile]

Hello, all!

As I have posted on the "get to know each other boards"  that I am the Activities NCO at my squadron.  Well, we have had some problems on what kind of events to plan.  We have asked the cadets and one cadet said something and it was Aerospace Education.  Well, I know that speaking from experience some of the cadets (especially my squadron) aren't interested in Aerospace.   But we are using his request and planning a Model Rocketry class in June. 

But we don't know what to plan after that.  Any suggestions?

V/R

C/SSGT Victoria Basile

[lordmonar]

On aerospace or just in general?

On aerospace....if you are near a major airport or military base...there is always a tour of the ATC facility.

If you have a large airport near by there is always a vist to the maintenance facility.

Other areas you can look at are Emergency Services...and civic activities (like a vist to the local court or mayor's office).

There are lots of things you can do.

Good luck!

[Cecil DP]

Not knowing where in Washington, you're located or the local resources. Try having a guest speaker come in. Most colleges and military bases are happy to send a speaker who can talk about things of interests to Cadets and Seniors. All the Academies have Liason Officers who will brief on the opportunities and process of applying for admission. American Legion, VFW and the Air Force Association may be able to provide veterans to speak about WWII, Korea, or Vietnam. Heck even the Congressional Medal of Honor Society will send a speaker if there is one in the vicinity. 

[billford1]

SGT Basile, I used to live in Snohomish County and worked in Redmond. It would be a full day trip but if you made the trip to Seattle the Boeing Museum is really hard to beat. If that's too far to travel I would work to persuade your Squadron Commander to organize a Model Rocket activity that would include a professional model rocket outfitter if available. If your Commander inquires with the Wing Aerospace Officer there may be some contacts available for where this has been done elsewhere in the Pacific Coast Region. Electric remote control airplanes know as "Park Flyers" run on rechargeable batteries and can be purchased which are almost completely assembled and "Ready to fly" out of the box. Those are a lot of fun. 

[mynetdude]

I've only been to WAWG officially once however it seems that you have more at your disposal, have a military guest speaker, maybe have a CERT trainer come talk about what CERT is and how CAP can possibly get involved for those who have GES qualifications (since now CAP can work with CERT).

Sgt Basile, not positive but were you at WTA in March?

[BillB]

There are many activities that cadets can do. Have an Emergency Services weekend bivouac. There cadets could be taught many of the skills needed to assist in Missions. If there is a CAP aircraft available, work with Senior members to get the cadets qualified as Flight Line Marshalers.  Hold a Communications Saturday. Teach the cadets the information needed to get a CAP BCUT or ACUT radio operator permit.
Your main drawback will be getting the Senior members to teach the classes and supervise the activities. If your Squadron doesn't have qualified Senior members, Ask through the chain of command if an activity can be planned inviting other Squadrons that may have qualified Seniors. You could always run a Squadron Cadet Leadership School to prepare your cadets to become Cadet Officers.

[mynetdude]

There are many activities that cadets can do. Have an Emergency Services weekend bivouac. There cadets could be taught many of the skills needed to assist in Missions. If there is a CAP aircraft available, work with Senior members to get the cadets qualified as Flight Line Marshalers.  Hold a Communications Saturday. Teach the cadets the information needed to get a CAP BCUT or ACUT radio operator permit.
Your main drawback will be getting the Senior members to teach the classes and supervise the activities. If your Squadron doesn't have qualified Senior members, Ask through the chain of command if an activity can be planned inviting other Squadrons that may have qualified Seniors. You could always run a Squadron Cadet Leadership School to prepare your cadets to become Cadet Officers.

They have training once a month in WAWG and sometimes they offer FLM so good suggestion because they ARE providing FLM in 2 weeks and I most likely will be there again. Amongst other things they offer is ACUT classes, DFAC, etc.

I would highly recommend you visit your wing's website and check out the training weekends you have for cadets only and the senior members/cadets as well.

[Spaceman3750]

First and foremost, find out what your cadets interests are. I'm not saying that you should do GT 4 weeks per month if that's what they like, but if you do only AE, GT, and leadership, and your cadets are interested in say, comms, you're going to have a real retention problem.

Second, assess what resources you actually have at your disposal. Identify potential speakers, and area organizations with outreach programs that you could invite in. Identify local attractions (museums, events, etc) that your cadets would be interested in. It's great to say you are going to have a bivouac but if there's not a suitable site nearby you're out of luck.

Finally, get with (through your chain of command) other squadrons in your group/wing and find out what they're doing. If they're, for example, taking a trip to the Boeing Museum there's a lot of reasons why both squadrons would want to plan a joint outing. You don't have to re-invent the wheel here. Likewise, make sure other squadrons know what you're doing, they just might want to be a part of it too.

Just to get you started, find out if there's any local events (think airshows, festivals etc [the squadron I was a cadet in for a couple of years directed car-parking {the lot was an open field} at the local airshow until it shut down]) that your squadron can volunteer at. Service to community, state, and nation is part of your cadet oath so it makes sense to try implementing it at the local level.

I know you were asking for specific ideas, but it's kind of like that horse to water thing...

[A.Member]

http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=28.0

[V. Basile]

Thank you all for your help!

I have already taken my squadron to the MUseum of Flight, and that was in February.  Most of the cadets seemed to enjoy it.

We are planning a Model Rocketry "fun" day, where we can get all the cadets their model rocketry badge in June. 
We are trying to do ES training days, but whenever we plan them they usually get canceled because of the weather .
We hope to do crowd control and recruiting at the Kitsap County Fair this summer.  Our squadron also helps out with the Blackberry Festival in September.

And no, I was not at March WTA, that was my sister .

[mynetdude]

Thank you all for your help!

I have already taken my squadron to the MUseum of Flight, and that was in February.  Most of the cadets seemed to enjoy it.

We are planning a Model Rocketry "fun" day, where we can get all the cadets their model rocketry badge in June. 
We are trying to do ES training days, but whenever we plan them they usually get canceled because of the weather .
We hope to do crowd control and recruiting at the Kitsap County Fair this summer.  Our squadron also helps out with the Blackberry Festival in September.

And no, I was not at March WTA, that was my sister .

The weather still seems to be shaky here in the Pacific NW but it is also getting better and I would recommend if you want any ES time to go to WTA next weekend.   I am sure there will be lots for you and the fellow cadets to do during this summer season including encampment .

[V. Basile]

Thank you all for your help!

I have already taken my squadron to the MUseum of Flight, and that was in February.  Most of the cadets seemed to enjoy it.

We are planning a Model Rocketry "fun" day, where we can get all the cadets their model rocketry badge in June. 
We are trying to do ES training days, but whenever we plan them they usually get canceled because of the weather .
We hope to do crowd control and recruiting at the Kitsap County Fair this summer.  Our squadron also helps out with the Blackberry Festival in September.

And no, I was not at March WTA, that was my sister .

The weather still seems to be shaky here in the Pacific NW but it is also getting better and I would recommend if you want any ES time to go to WTA next weekend.   I am sure there will be lots for you and the fellow cadets to do during this summer season including encampment .

We already have five cadets from our squadron planning on attending this WTA .

[mynetdude]

Thank you all for your help!

I have already taken my squadron to the MUseum of Flight, and that was in February.  Most of the cadets seemed to enjoy it.

We are planning a Model Rocketry "fun" day, where we can get all the cadets their model rocketry badge in June. 
We are trying to do ES training days, but whenever we plan them they usually get canceled because of the weather .
We hope to do crowd control and recruiting at the Kitsap County Fair this summer.  Our squadron also helps out with the Blackberry Festival in September.

And no, I was not at March WTA, that was my sister .

The weather still seems to be shaky here in the Pacific NW but it is also getting better and I would recommend if you want any ES time to go to WTA next weekend.   I am sure there will be lots for you and the fellow cadets to do during this summer season including encampment .

We already have five cadets from our squadron planning on attending this WTA .

Cool I can't wait to see you guys back at WTA again, will you be there this time? I'll be doing FLM training. It will be my last trip until Cascade Falcon then hopefully I will make 1 or 2 more trips after that before winter sets in again.

[raivo]

WTA was the first CAP activity I went to outside my squadron. Good times.

[JC004]

Do something with civics/government careers.  If you ship all your cadets to the OTHER Washington, I'll give them the grand tour, but considering THAT isn't going to happen...

- have the cadets meet one (or more!) of your members of Congress and get a brief from a Legislative Assistant or similar person on the inter-workings of the legislative branch, etc.
- if there is a local field office for an agency like the DEA or something, get a speaker from there (or a tour if they'll allow)
- tour the state Capitol
- emergency services/management: get a tour of the local EOC, fire department training facility (maybe watch a building burn practice), law enforcement training facility, etc.
- judicial branch (they're good folks, ask Ned): maybe watch some hearings at the county court in the summer (when you cadets don't have to be in school (although my SCHOOL did this when I was in middle school), maybe get a brief by some judicial staff folks
- have a speaker from the District Attorney's office...a talk about what they do, maybe do some DDR stuff.  A lot of sheriffs, DAs, state police, etc. do the Fatal Vision stuff and general DDR
- have a speaker from the election bureau talk about voting

Some of these agencies and all have fun stuff to show the cadets...like the county bomb squad may have a bunch of weapons/deactivated explosives. 

There's tons of stuff that you could do in that area.  Always work through a senior member for this kind of outside coordination.  Although WIWAC, that just meant a thumbs-up to do it myself.  That's how I ended up chatting with Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department.   

A really important thing that CAP does is make great citizens of our cadets.  That's part of our mission.  So there are some ideas for doing that.

[mynetdude]

Do something with civics/government careers.  If you ship all your cadets to the OTHER Washington, I'll give them the grand tour, but considering THAT isn't going to happen...

- have the cadets meet one (or more!) of your members of Congress and get a brief from a Legislative Assistant or similar person on the inter-workings of the legislative branch, etc.
- if there is a local field office for an agency like the DEA or something, get a speaker from there (or a tour if they'll allow)
- tour the state Capitol
- emergency services/management: get a tour of the local EOC, fire department training facility (maybe watch a building burn practice), law enforcement training facility, etc.
- judicial branch (they're good folks, ask Ned): maybe watch some hearings at the county court in the summer (when you cadets don't have to be in school (although my SCHOOL did this when I was in middle school), maybe get a brief by some judicial staff folks
- have a speaker from the District Attorney's office...a talk about what they do, maybe do some DDR stuff.  A lot of sheriffs, DAs, state police, etc. do the Fatal Vision stuff and general DDR
- have a speaker from the election bureau talk about voting

Some of these agencies and all have fun stuff to show the cadets...like the county bomb squad may have a bunch of weapons/deactivated explosives. 

There's tons of stuff that you could do in that area.  Always work through a senior member for this kind of outside coordination.  Although WIWAC, that just meant a thumbs-up to do it myself.  That's how I ended up chatting with Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department.   

A really important thing that CAP does is make great citizens of our cadets.  That's part of our mission.  So there are some ideas for doing that.

Excellent ideas, I went to visit the local county courthouse as part of a school trip, we sat through 2 1/2 hours of arraignments then our guest speaker came to talk to us after all the arraignments were over.