Advice For Starting A New Squadron.

[exFlight Officer]

Hello All!

I am in the process of starting a new squadron. As I have mentioned in previous threads, I currently drive a four hour round trip to my squadron meetings every week.

The new squadron will be a cadet squadron. A location at the city airport has been found to host the weekly meetings.

Three people including someone who has agreed to be the squadron commander have stepped forward to be senior members in the new squadron. I will be transferring from my current squadron to the new squadron. A few students are interested in joining as cadets. I will be going to a local high school to do a recruiting drive.

I am asking from the CAPTalk community for any advice or learned experiences in starting a new squadron. 

Thanks in advance!

[FARRIER]

Are you competing against any other organizations such as the Young Marines, Royal Rangers, the Scouts/Adventure Crews, or if in a rural area the FFA. Thankfully you have the Senior Members already set up. If you have a community paper, I would ask if they would run a PSA for the prospective squadron.

Repsectfully

[AirAux]

If you are going to meet on an airport, I would recommend that you start a composite squadron.  It adds more opportunities for you and will help insure you have enough senior assistance for everything you want to do.  Recruit some local pilots.

[DakRadz]

The new squadron will be a cadet squadron. A location at the city airport has been found to host the weekly meetings.

Consider the location seriously. My squadron started out at an airport, but we had to move because of the fact that we outgrew their conference room.

*Drools* You have a really nice FBO... But if you plan to meet in those main facilities, it's fairly small. (Gotta love Google) Now, if you have a hangar or something, that would work.

[RiverAux]

Hmm, if starting from scratch would it be better to start off with high school age recruits or middle school age?  Some older recruits might be able to pick stuff up a little quicker but it seems to be a little harder to bring them in at that age since many already have a bunch of other activities. 

Tend to agree about the meeting place.  Airports can be good, but many don't have the space and often are so out of the way that they aren't terribly convenient.  If I was starting any sort of unit I probably woudn't choose one unless the facilities were outstanding. 

Unless your town is really big I can almost guarantee the paper would want to run a story about starting a new CAP unit in the town -- no need to talk them into a PSA.  Just make sure you've got a date for an "open house" of some kind to promote in the news story.  If the school has a paper you might want to try to get them to do a story about it as well.

[arajca]

Have you contacted your wing commander? He makes the determination as to whether a unit gets formed.

Consider starting as a flight off your current sqdn. That gives you some experienced staff support that is invaluable when starting a unit.

[DakRadz]

Have you contacted your wing commander? He makes the determination as to whether a unit gets formed.

She*

[RiverAux]

Didn't mean to rag on the meeting place so much -- if its free, its great.  Can always change later if necessary.

[Pylon]

Be flexible.


See if local organizations like the VFW will make a contribution to help get the organization going.  Also ask local store managers at places like Walmart, Staples, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes for in-kind contributions from their stores or gift cards.  You'll be amazed at how quickly you'll need/want things like office supplies, filing cabinets, locks, batteries, a laptop, an all-in-one printer/copier/fax/scanner, digital projector, etc.  Those are all things I've gotten donated for squadrons before.


Schedule an informational open house and paper the crap out of the community (and schools, and public buildings, and bulletin boards in stores, and anywhere else) with flyers advertising CAP and the open house. 


Ask school principles if you can post flyers and/or set-up a table during lunch periods or when school lets out.  Ask school guidance offices if you can chat with their counsellors to explain CAP (so they can recommend it to students they interact with, especially those considering careers in the military) and offer to leave recruiting materials in the guidance office.


You may need to operate under the charter of an existing unit.  I helped a squadron start-up from scratch, and they operated as a "second meeting location" of our squadron until they had enough people to be properly chartered, etc.  This helped them not worry about all of the administrative burdens of setting up a new unit and focus mostly on recruiting in the early days.


Feel free to ask here for advice.


I'll see if I can find my recruiting plan the last time I stood up a new unit.

[BillB]

You won't be able to get recruiting materials, brochures etc until you have a charter number. National won't send them out without a charter number. A catch-22 situation in starting a new Squadron.

[tsrup]

You won't be able to get recruiting materials, brochures etc until you have a charter number. National won't send them out without a charter number. A catch-22 situation in starting a new Squadron.

It sounds like he is already associated with a squadron, so the charter number is a non-issue

[exFlight Officer]

FARRIER:  The only organizations that I am competing against are the FFA (which I am a former President of the chapter) and a AFJROTC at a near by high school (which I intend to go speak to them with the permission from the Colonel there).

AirAux: I do intend to recruit local pilots.

DakRadz: The airport has agreed to let us use the main building and I will speak to the manager to see if he will allow us to use a hangar if we expand.

RiverAux: I also intend to recruit at the Middle School as well as the local high schools in my area. An open house is in the planning stages and will have a date for it soon. Contacting the newspaper is a great idea! I also plan to contact the local TV news.

arajca: I have contacted my Wing Vice Commander and my Group Commander at the recent Commander's Call. They have given approval of the new squadron.

Pylon: I am interested in your recruiting plan! One local company has agreed to fund the new squadron. I will ask the VFW and other organizations for donations also, thanks for the tip.

BillB: My current squadron commander has agreed to lend me recruiting materials and assistance.

tsrup: You are correct.

[spacecommand]

I agree if you are meeting at the airport, intend to recruit pilots, it might be better to aim and start a composite squadron. 

[ol'fido]

If you have already checked with your group CC and he's approved the squadron, see if he can put together an "incubator" team of group staff officers to help set up things in the administrative sense for the first few months. This will take some of the burden off of your seniors who may be trying to recruit, set up the files, and learn their duty positions all at the same time.

[Persona non grata]

You won't be able to get recruiting materials, brochures etc until you have a charter number. National won't send them out without a charter number. A catch-22 situation in starting a new Squadron.

PM ME and I will send you what ever recruting material you need

      good luck]

[C/Martin]

I have talked with some Army JROTC instructors (I do not know if other branches of JROTC have this), but apprently there is a joint AJROTC-CAP thing so that Army JROTC cadets can participate as CAP cadets and get credit for activities and such. Something to check into, if there are any local JROTC units.

[PhoenixRisen]

If you have already checked with your group CC and he's approved the squadron, see if he can put together an "incubator" team of group staff officers to help set up things in the administrative sense for the first few months. This will take some of the burden off of your seniors who may be trying to recruit, set up the files, and learn their duty positions all at the same time.

+1

Not sure what your situation is with regard to the number of current members you've got helping you with this, but when I helped with chartering my current squadron, we had members from local squadrons helping out with various functions for quite a while.  Of course, at the time of our charter, I was the only current member of CAP.  Everyone from our first 10 cadets to our first two senior members (including the first unit commander) were brand new to CAP.  Get as much help out of your neighboring units as you can.  Without the help we received, we would probably still be burdened by n00b squadron stuff that should've been done years ago.

I have talked with some Army JROTC instructors (I do not know if other branches of JROTC have this), but apprently there is a joint AJROTC-CAP thing so that Army JROTC cadets can participate as CAP cadets and get credit for activities and such. Something to check into, if there are any local JROTC units.

This is true for all types of JROTC (Army, Navy, Air Force & Marine Corps). I'm not sure how JROTC honors CAP service, but per CAPR 52-16, if you have 2+ years in a JROTC program, you can receive accelerated promotions (see ther regulation for specifics).  You can also receive encampment credit for completion of an AFJROTC summer leadership school.

[CMSgt. FirstSgt]

Sir,

Two cadets and I once tried to start a new squadron, we had everything necessary for starting the squadron including ways to recruit, proper paperwork, manuals on how to start new CAP squadrons, etc.

Feel free to email me and I will glad share my experiences, paperwork, and ideas with you. You can reach me at flyboy@alpha1beta.com

[exFlight Officer]

Update:

All recruiting activities have been postponed until the beginning of the new year.

I have gotten assistance from the CAPTalk Community and I greatly appreciate the assistance! Any assistance is always welcome!

Once things pick up again in the new year, I will put updates to how things are going.

Thanks!