When you have too many cadet staff.

[Stonewall]

I just got an email from our former C/CC who is now the C/XO.  Basically, she's concerned that her talents are not being used because the new C/CC isn't giving her anything to do.

Why is this?

Because we have about 10 to 12 cadets showing up and about half are "staff".

We have 4 cadet officers, 2 Chiefs, a couple other senior NCOs and a couple SrA and above.

Any suggestions on what we can have her do to maintain and interest?  She's already been cadet commander for a year, now it's another cadet's turn (who out ranks her).

[RiverAux]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

[heliodoc]

Encourage her on her interests be it AE CP or ES

Where does she shine?  Cadet Commander can get old and it's not the end all in CAP


Encourage her interests or find someone who could light that up

[Stonewall]

What's funny is that she says her talents aren't being used yet in the past 2 weeks she developed, from scratch, a high speed squadron brochure, put together a squadron cadet roster with flight/duty assignment and followed up with our recent open house by collecting and tracking the new recruits.

To be quite honest, she's done more than most cadet officers.

[A.Member]

Have your cadets planned and held a UBX/SAREX yet?

[Trung Si Ma]

Put her on your staff as the activities officer, the AE officer, or the leadership officer.  There is nothing wrong with putting cadet officers in unit positions that are not age restricted.

[MIKE]

Come again?

1-6. a. (2) Advanced Positions. Cadets may not serve in any of the senior member staff positions listed in CAPR 20-1, ...

[SarDragon]

Put her on your staff as the assistant activities officer, the assistant AE officer, or the assistant leadership officer.

[USADOD]

assigning to unit assistant positions are good ideas, also look to group or wing..often they could use assistance at the higher echelons.

[Fifinella]

How about mentoring the junior cadets?  There's no challenge like leading others.

[DC]

How about mentoring the junior cadets?  There's no challenge like leading others.

Isn't that more the job of the junior cadets' lower Chain of Command? I've never understood why everyone believes cadets have to have a seperate 'mentor' aside from their Element Leader (assuming they are doing their job) and maybe a slightly more experienced 'battle buddy'. If there are any issues the aforementioned can't answer, surely their Flight Sergeant, Flight Commander, First Sergeant or Cadet Commander can answer it for them. 

What's funny is that she says her talents aren't being used yet in the past 2 weeks she developed, from scratch, a high speed squadron brochure, put together a squadron cadet roster with flight/duty assignment and followed up with our recent open house by collecting and tracking the new recruits.

To be quite honest, she's done more than most cadet officers.

It sounds like maybe she just needs to be reminded of how much she actually is doing. Unfortunately, with the current size of your squadron, there isn't much need for a C/XO, however with a third of your membership wearing rank on their shoulders there isn't much you can do about it. I agree with whoever said to get her working on a major recruiting drive. That will keep her busy for a while, and hopefully by the end of it you will have enough cadets to balance out your chief/indian ratio and she (and the rest of your cadet staff) will have more work to do.

[JoeTomasone]

I would be absolutely moving her from the XO position.   Can't be the XO if there's no other staff, and with 5/10 cadets, who can the XO be supervising?   That's why she's not getting any assignments; her duty assignment is meaningless.

What does your Squadron/Group need?   If it's like a lot of them in FLWG, it needs both ES and Comms trained folks; a great project would be to motivate and mentor cadets into both disciplines.   My experience as a Group ES/Comms Officer was that a lot of Cadets need said mentoring and motivation, so I echo the above about an Assistant to a Senior staff position(s).   

[NIN]

Gosh, UK, sounds like your new T-Flight Commander... 

BTW, how'd your open house go?

[Stonewall]

Gosh, UK, sounds like your new T-Flight Commander... 

and

How about mentoring the junior cadets?

Already have a T-Flight Commander and Flight Sergeant.

BTW, how'd your open house go?

Posted last night.

[Stonewall]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

We currently have 4 cadet officers:

1.  Cadet Commander
2.  Cadet Executive Officer
3.  Cadet Operations Officer
4.  A Flight Commander

I've only been DCC for a few weeks now, maybe a month, and I've missed a couple meetings as I only committed to 3/4 of meetings and a weekend activity every other month.  It will take time as I don't have the 5 to 10 hours a week to spend on CAP outside of meetings I used to when I was a CC/DCC in the past.

What should have happened was the new and former C/CCs reversing roles, but someone else, before my time, wanted the younger less experienced cadet to be C/CC first.  Long story, irrelevant now.

We have to crawl before we run and we're barely out of the crib, let alone crawling.  From where I'm sitting, it appears that the past couple of years was spent on allowing a few cadets to test and get promoted and not bring in new cadets to consistently maintain a solid A-Flight of lower ranking cadets.

In a nutshell:  Too many chiefs, not enough indians.

[cnitas]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

+1

[Stonewall]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

+1

Like I said, she created one helluva recruiting brochure and the squadron as a whole conducted a fairly decent recruiting drive.  Like others, we bring folks in during certain periods (the whole pipelining thing).

[notaNCO forever]

  If you have to much staff take some cadets of staff. If they want there position back they will have to recruit enough cadets to warrant needing the position.

[cnitas]

Seems like she needs to take on a project to plan and carry out a major recruiting drive...

+1

Like I said, she created one helluva recruiting brochure and the squadron as a whole conducted a fairly decent recruiting drive.  Like others, we bring folks in during certain periods (the whole pipelining thing).

How often are your join periods?  You may need to have them more often if you have no troops, but lots of staff.

[Stonewall]

How often are your join periods?  You may need to have them more often if you have no troops, but lots of staff.

Well, this is new.  I just took over as DCC a month or so ago and I just initiated this program.  Before this, cadets were allowed to trickle in and work everything out on their own without any one-on-one guidance.  This is why I started this program at my squadron.  People would come, hang out for a few meetings and then leave.  Zero structure and no one paid attention to the new guys.

[RiverAux]

I just got an email from our former C/CC who is now the C/XO.  Basically, she's concerned that her talents are not being used because the new C/CC isn't giving her anything to do.

Have you asked her what she WANTS to do? 

[Stonewall]

Nope.  Just got the email from her yesterday.

[Turtle1]

We have a similar situation in our squadron.  The cadet in question was definitely a high speed cadet from the time he joined, he has rotated through all the positions some even twice.  Now it seems as if there is nothing left, he does not voice this he is a good sport. When he turns eighteen we are encouraging him to go for scanning training and to continue to mentor the current staff.  The current staff is a bit immature so sometimes they do not realize the wealth of knowledge that they have right in front of them.

[cnitas]

I might have her get a feel for the new cadets who just entered the pipeline and what they might like to do as far as a weekend outing.

Perhaps she could plan a 'graduation'/Curry picnic, or a trip to a local AE venue (tour of a local airport's operations, AF Base, etc) for the group just as they finish the pipeline.  We have even had sucess with a hike and then an overnight campout out in the woods.

 

[DBlair]

I've seen the situation Stonewall explained in his original post several times, both WIWAC and currently in my unit. I remember a time when there were 4 C/LtCols, a few C/MSgts, and a variety of cadets in other grades (both enlisted and officer) in a composite squadron (total of about 50-60 cadets if I remember correctly) and it reached that point whereby these C/LtCols kind of felt like they outgrew the unit and almost felt out of place or like they weren't being utilized effectively.

Effort was put into figuring out what their specialty/niche was and how they could best serve the unit. They were asked about what they liked doing, as well evaluated according to their record of what they've accomplished during their years as a Cadet- in order to use their track record as a barometer of what they excelled at doing. One of them was a hardcore ES/GSAR type and so he was put in charge of organizing GSAR activities/training and was eventually part (ADY) of Wing's ES staff. He did a great job and it resulted in pretty much every Cadet being active in ES.

Another of them was all about the CP and was extremely sharp and highly effective at training Cadets in CP related things, so he was put in charge of the Basic Training program whereby he (and a few Cadets as his staff) were in charge of the new Cadets and training them before they were ready to join one of the regular flights. This, combined with the unit's heavy recruiting efforts, helped to produce a constant flow of some really sharp new Cadets and set the standard pretty high. He did an amazing job, inspired them, and was instrumental in the success of these newer Cadets- many who later became Cadet Officers, NCC members, and a variety of other extremely sharp Cadets.

Another was put as the Cadet Commander, and the last was put as the Deputy Commander. The other officers were put as Flight Commanders, and the C/MSgts as Flight Sergeants and the First Sergeant. The Deputy Commander didn't really have all that much to do and so he was ADY as the Cadet Commander of another local unit since they were completely void of Cadet leadership. This allowed him to serve his home unit as needed and also act in a command capacity in developing another local program which was largely a sister squadron and often did things together. With his guidance, this sister-squadron developed from a stuggling unit to a highly-functioning program.

My point is that rather than letting a senior Cadet feel like they don't have a place anymore (the reason I've seen many leave CAP), it is important to figure out where they shine and how their talents can best be utilized.

In the situation Stonewall described with 10-12 Cadets, half being staff, this does remind me of a variety of units I know of with all chiefs and no Indians. My suggestion would be to completely reorganize the Cadet Staff, condensing as necessary. With a membership that small, there is no need for so many staff positions. Consolidate the positions, embark on a massive recruiting campaign, and explain that the more members the unit has, the more staff positions will be opened. As for the current C/XO, figure out what is her niche and then give her the opportunity to shine in that capacity.

[Cecil DP]

Speak to the young lady and ask if she has any idea of what needs to be done in the Squadron that she will take on. If there is no suitable job for her, check with another unit (there are two others within 20 miles of you) or your next higher echelon to see if they have a position for her

[Pingree1492]

There have been a lot of replies here advising you to have her start some sort of recruiting and retention thing, which from other posts, you have done.  Now that you have those 7 new recruits, you have to ask yourself, "Is my cadet staff ready to handle them?"

Here is my advice, but not knowing the personality and persuasions of the cadets in your unit, YMMV.  I would recommend that you assign her to the Leadership Officer role, instead of the Executive Officer- with so few support staff positions, the position doesn't make a great deal of sense.

Have her do an analysis on where your cadet staff lie in their training.  Are your sergeants & chiefs good at teaching drill?  Are they teaching customs & courtesies properly, have good uniform wear, etc?  Are your cadet officers performing their duties properly- especially your Flight Commanders?

Have her identify areas where your cadet staff is weak in its training (there has to be something!), and develop and manage the execution of a training plan to fix the discrepancies.  She doesn't have to do all the teaching, etc, but she should plan and monitor the execution of the program.

You can recruit all the new members you want, but if your cadet staff isn't up to snuff, you can't expect to retain them.  Leave the training of brand new cadets up to your sergeants and chiefs, it should be an officer's job to oversee and direct that training, not do it themselves.

[tribalelder]

Your cadet officers study 'the book' (SDA's).  If they're mature, turn tasks over to them.

WIWAC(1965-1970), there was an 18 month period where all of the routine administration was in cadet officers' hands. This was back in the day before we became SO centrally controlled-I can not recommend being quite this creative anymore.

The squadron had 6+ Earhart cadets active, not yet away at school-this cadre was nicknamed "F Troop".  For that 18 month period, my rendition of the CC's signature was on the signature card at Maxwell. Another cadet kept the property book.  One was instructing seniors in drill and ceremonies.