Requested NCC Feedback

[Eclipse]

My team commander has gone on to use his drill skill with his ROTC unit and it has gained him a lot of respect and leadership as a result.

How nice for him.

[Ron1319]

3) We didn't spend very much money on uniform preparation.  Some of the cadets needed new pants and shirts.  Shirts are about $13.  We did our own tailoring.  We did well in the event.  The cadets are proud of their tailored uniforms, wear them to squadron meetings, and when they outgrow or stain a shirt, they go buy another one and someone with a sewing machine tailors them a new one.  NCC or no.  They look good.

For NCC? Seriously?  Wings spend waste literally THOUSANDS of dollars on custom-tailored uniforms, which in some cases are more jumpsuits then
CAP uniforms, not to mention hats, shoes, insignia, ribbons, etc.

Yes, we took 2nd place in inspection in 2013.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Air_Patrol_National_Cadet_Competition

And yes, we replaced some ribbons and some hats and they each spent $45 or whatever it was on new shoes that they wore to meetings and events afterwards.

[Ron1319]

My team commander has gone on to use his drill skill with his ROTC unit and it has gained him a lot of respect and leadership as a result.

How nice for him.

So now skills learned in CAP that are used in the military afterwards are not important?  We aren't teaching some of them leadership and skills for military service?  A lot of our cadets have received academy appointments.

[Майор Хаткевич]

Show me a cadet who has been to NCC who doesn't know how to put a uniform together.  I linked mine above.  That's how they wear the uniform.  Not just the Spaatzen, but all of the ones who went.

And that's the problem a lot of people had with NCC. All about those cadets, with little/marginal effect on the rest.

ALL cadets should know how to wear the uniform right, and it doesn't have to be tailored to look good.

[Eclipse]

We aren't teaching some of them leadership and skills for military service?  A lot of our cadets have received academy appointments.

Actually, >NO< CAP isn't, specifically.

NCC had so little to do with actual cadet life it was ridiculous, it bred so much background noise, not to mention consumed
a significant amount of resources and essentially took cadets out of the real program in order to prepare for it.

Good on 'ye and yours if you managed to avoid that and participated in a way which lived up to both the spirit and letter of the
program, but I can assure you that the animosity and pushback on the old program didn't just come from an occasional random issue.

[Майор Хаткевич]

My team commander has gone on to use his drill skill with his ROTC unit and it has gained him a lot of respect and leadership as a result.

How nice for him.

So now skills learned in CAP that are used in the military afterwards are not important?  We aren't teaching some of them leadership and skills for military service?  A lot of our cadets have received academy appointments.

I think he'll learn quite quickly that drill is a very small part of the military...

Our unit had 3/7 graduating cadets go to Service Academies. One to VMI, and the rest to great colleges. None did NCC.

[SKI304]

We all get it by now that our two esteemed ILWG members here have an axe to grind with the way their wing handled NCC over a decade ago.  That experience is not consistent with the majority of other wings, especially in GLR's other participating wings.  NCC used to be a great way to build cadets and squadrons when done right.  MIWG, OHWG, and WIWG can attest to that.  Hopefully the new program can be improved before final publishing so that it can continue to challenge and build cadets.

[Ron1319]

It does seem to be distracting from the main point that the plan as written is severely broken.

I would feel differently if their message was, "We're sorry but we can't financially support the drill portion of the competition in 2015, so we are going to hold the color guard competition and we are going to try some things to make it more accessible at the wing and region levels.  We are opening up the color guard competition to cadets of all grades."  I feel that would make Phase IV cadet super color guards, which is effectively what they have just done, but at least it would make more sense.

I would really feel better about it if they said.  "Our sponsorship department at National Headquarters has sat down in meetings with Vice Presidents from Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and General Motors and they have each pledged to support the cadet program with minimum donations of $50,000 each with Intel being the head sponsor at $150,000.  As a result, we have decided to title-sponsor National Cadet Competition 2015 as "brought to you with generous support from Intel Corp" and Intel will be providing T-shirts to all participants as the official PT uniform for the event.

I was an engineer for Intel for 7 years.  I once dropped a prototype (it slipped out of my hands) that was worth about $25,000.  When I took the broken board to my manager, he handed me another one and said, "That's why we have spares!"  $150,000 is negligible in the budget of a major MNC.  I offered at NCC last time to find contacts for someone at national HQ at major corporations to discuss sponsorship and nobody ever followed up with me.

We're talking about gutting an event for the sake of saving $20-30,000.  Or maybe passing that extra expense onto the teams.  Or making teams sleep in tents instead of in college dorms.

[Eclipse]

We all get it by now that our two esteemed ILWG members here have an axe to grind with the way their wing handled NCC over a decade ago.  That experience is not consistent with the majority of other wings, especially in GLR's other participating wings.  NCC used to be a great way to build cadets and squadrons when done right.  MIWG, OHWG, and WIWG can attest to that.  Hopefully the new program can be improved before final publishing so that it can continue to challenge and build cadets.

A decade ago?  No. 

NCC was an issue up to an including the last years it was still running, the problems were discussed here and on CS (before it's reboot).

NCC may well have been an excellent program in yeas past, many parts of CAP were.  The current staffing, funding, and low number of
cadets, especially those interested, no longer supports an activity of this kind, assuming it actually ever did at any level other then brute force
and "because we always did".

the total reach at NCC has decreased from a potential 152 cadets to 96. 

You've made this comment about the "potential reach" a number of times, yet tha fails to acknowledge the fact that in many (most?) wings
the interest in NCC was so low that the wing couldn't even put together enough teams to have a local comp, let alone a legitimate sampling
of the entire cadet population of the wing. 

Having the "potential of 152" is meaningless when no one is interested.

[Eclipse]

It does seem to be distracting from the main point that the plan as written is severely broken.

I would feel differently if their message was, "We're sorry but we can't financially support the drill portion of the competition in 2015, so we are going to hold the color guard competition and we are going to try some things to make it more accessible at the wing and region levels.  We are opening up the color guard competition to cadets of all grades."  I feel that would make Phase IV cadet super color guards, which is effectively what they have just done, but at least it would make more sense.

I would really feel better about it if they said.  "Our sponsorship department at National Headquarters has sat down in meetings with Vice Presidents from Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and General Motors and they have each pledged to support the cadet program with minimum donations of $50,000 each with Intel being the head sponsor at $150,000.  As a result, we have decided to title-sponsor National Cadet Competition 2015 as "brought to you with generous support from Intel Corp" and Intel will be providing T-shirts to all participants as the official PT uniform for the event.

I was an engineer for Intel for 7 years.  I once dropped a prototype (it slipped out of my hands) that was worth about $25,000.  When I took the broken board to my manager, he handed me another one and said, "That's why we have spares!"  $150,000 is negligible in the budget of a major MNC.  I offered at NCC last time to find contacts for someone at national HQ at major corporations to discuss sponsorship and nobody ever followed up with me.

We're talking about gutting an event for the sake of saving $20-30,000.  Or maybe passing that extra expense onto the teams.  Or making teams sleep in tents instead of in college dorms.

It's not "$20-30k" when you factor in the time and expense of each wing - multiply that by about 10 and you might be close.

And to say that "$150K is negligible in the budget of an MNC." ignores the fact that the operational budget of most wings
is only $20-40K a year, and many are begging paperclips and paper at the end of each year just to get things done.
Milk is cheap at $3 a gallon, unless you don't have $3.

But Ron, I actually agree with you, if this is important, go find the money.  Yes, there's a professional fundraiser who apparently...isn't...
but with that said, instead of saying "MNCs should be able to give us the money..." go and get it.

Emailing a contact to someone at NHQ is not the same as knocking doors.

While there were plenty of issues with the former NCC< the high cost was certainly icing on the cake
to those who had to make the decision to support it or not.

[Майор Хаткевич]

It does seem to be distracting from the main point that the plan as written is severely broken.

I would feel differently if their message was, "We're sorry but we can't financially support the drill portion of the competition in 2015, so we are going to hold the color guard competition and we are going to try some things to make it more accessible at the wing and region levels.  We are opening up the color guard competition to cadets of all grades."  I feel that would make Phase IV cadet super color guards, which is effectively what they have just done, but at least it would make more sense.

I would really feel better about it if they said.  "Our sponsorship department at National Headquarters has sat down in meetings with Vice Presidents from Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and General Motors and they have each pledged to support the cadet program with minimum donations of $50,000 each with Intel being the head sponsor at $150,000.  As a result, we have decided to title-sponsor National Cadet Competition 2015 as "brought to you with generous support from Intel Corp" and Intel will be providing T-shirts to all participants as the official PT uniform for the event.

I was an engineer for Intel for 7 years.  I once dropped a prototype (it slipped out of my hands) that was worth about $25,000.  When I took the broken board to my manager, he handed me another one and said, "That's why we have spares!"  $150,000 is negligible in the budget of a major MNC.  I offered at NCC last time to find contacts for someone at national HQ at major corporations to discuss sponsorship and nobody ever followed up with me.

We're talking about gutting an event for the sake of saving $20-30,000.  Or maybe passing that extra expense onto the teams.  Or making teams sleep in tents instead of in college dorms.

I'd rather have $450,000 to send 2,250 cadets to encampment, but to each his own.

[Storm Chaser]

Show me a cadet who has been to NCC who doesn't know how to put a uniform together.  I linked mine above.  That's how they wear the uniform.  Not just the Spaatzen, but all of the ones who went.

It was against the old NCC rules for anyone but cadets on the team to assemble their uniforms.  Clearly, you could pay a tailor to do tailoring work.  Our cadets did most of their own tailoring work with some assistance.  We did have a tailor do the pants hemming because we didn't have the right sewing machine for it.

As a former CAP cadet, drill team member, Air Force NCO and current officer, I can tell you that tailoring the shirts like that does >not< look good and it's >not< the way the uniform in worn in the real Air Force.

[SKI304]

We all get it by now that our two esteemed ILWG members here have an axe to grind with the way their wing handled NCC over a decade ago.  That experience is not consistent with the majority of other wings, especially in GLR's other participating wings.  NCC used to be a great way to build cadets and squadrons when done right.  MIWG, OHWG, and WIWG can attest to that.  Hopefully the new program can be improved before final publishing so that it can continue to challenge and build cadets.

A decade ago?  No. 

NCC was an issue up to an including the last years it was still running, the problems were discussed here and on CS (before it's reboot).

NCC may well have been an excellent program in yeas past, many parts of CAP were.  The current staffing, funding, and low number of
cadets, especially those interested, no longer supports an activity of this kind, assuming it actually ever did at any level other then brute force
and "because we always did".

I apologize for the timeframe, for some reason I had the 2003-2004 seasons in my head.  The last time we saw a wing wide ILWG team at region was in 2006.  The more recent iterations were from just a couple Chicago area squadrons I believe. 

That aside, the negatives you have repeatedly stated seem to only reflect your local experience.  I've been at numerous competitions at every level for 13 years and talked with enough participants to know that those problems you mentioned did not occur at a level near where you assert them as being a widespread systemic problem.  Were there problems with the old program?  You bet.  But those problems were far outweighed by the benefits.  I was part of the National NCC Working Group in 2010-2011 and we came up with a number of improvements to fix those problems and make NCC much more accessible to local units.  Unfortunately the work of that group didn't get implemented.

I still contend that one of the biggest deterrences to the number of participants in recent years is a lack of awareness of what NCC was and what it could do in the field.  There has been very little coverage in CAP's media releases.  The 2013 NCC got two online mentions on VolunteerNow.  Only a few years earlier there were numerous articles, videos, and significant coverage in the Volunteer magazine.  NCC was left out of the Quality Cadet Unit Award program (but CyberPatriot participation was included).  The CAP Honor Guard program was proliferated with its emphasis on not competing.  All the while a small but vocal number of members have filled the information void with their own negative experiences and prejudices.  Many units shut out interest without even looking at the program or trying.  Those units who did have experienced many benefits from their competition participation.  What could be the Super Bowl of the Cadet Program has been marginalized into obscurity by misunderstanding.

YMMV, and I know it does, but please do not malign the entire NCC program and those who pursued it based on local problems.

[Eclipse]

I still contend that one of the biggest deterrences to the number of participants in recent years is a lack of awareness of what NCC was and what it could do in the field.

What, exactly, could it "do in the field"?

I've said repeatedly that CG has it's place because a unit-level CG can be used for any number of events and activities and
the bar to entry is essentially zero.

Not so for drill, at least the way NCC did it.

[PHall]

We all get it by now that our two esteemed ILWG members here have an axe to grind with the way their wing handled NCC over a decade ago.  That experience is not consistent with the majority of other wings, especially in GLR's other participating wings.  NCC used to be a great way to build cadets and squadrons when done right.  MIWG, OHWG, and WIWG can attest to that.  Hopefully the new program can be improved before final publishing so that it can continue to challenge and build cadets.

Yeah, I've noticed that the two and only two defenders of the NCC here are Ohio Wing people.
Curious it is...

[lordmonar]

I like the idea of a national level even where lots and lots of cadets get together and compete.

I don't think this gets us there.....yet.   But it does look better then the old NCC/NCGC.

[Майор Хаткевич]

We all get it by now that our two esteemed ILWG members here have an axe to grind with the way their wing handled NCC over a decade ago.  That experience is not consistent with the majority of other wings, especially in GLR's other participating wings.  NCC used to be a great way to build cadets and squadrons when done right.  MIWG, OHWG, and WIWG can attest to that.  Hopefully the new program can be improved before final publishing so that it can continue to challenge and build cadets.

Yeah, I've noticed that the two and only two defenders of the NCC here are Ohio Wing people.
Curious it is...

Nah, one is OH, one is CA.


Still, both seem to be tunneling it based on their attendance AT NCC.


That's great, valid opinions.


But the cost factor alone is so crazy to serve those 156 cadets...

[PHall]

We all get it by now that our two esteemed ILWG members here have an axe to grind with the way their wing handled NCC over a decade ago.  That experience is not consistent with the majority of other wings, especially in GLR's other participating wings.  NCC used to be a great way to build cadets and squadrons when done right.  MIWG, OHWG, and WIWG can attest to that.  Hopefully the new program can be improved before final publishing so that it can continue to challenge and build cadets.

Yeah, I've noticed that the two and only two defenders of the NCC here are Ohio Wing people.
Curious it is...

Nah, one is OH, one is CA.


Still, both seem to be tunneling it based on their attendance AT NCC.


That's great, valid opinions.


But the cost factor alone is so crazy to serve those 156 cadets...

The one in CA is from OH. He was a cadet in OHWG.

[Ned]

All,

Thanks for the feedback so far.  We will definately be making some changes based both the feedback here and on the Cadet Blog.

To avoid a really, really long and difficult to read post, I have responded to each of Ron's concerns in a PM.  I greatly respect his experience in this area and his service to CP.

Couple of highlights -

Please note that the plan -- as described in the draft -- is to ramp up the competition starting in 2015, when the numbers directly involved at NCC will be relatively small and some events offered only as exhibitions.  The real heavy-lifting, so to speak, will start in 2016 and beyond.  The numbers will get larger, and based on experience, events may be modified, added, or deleted.

But a look at the published metrics will reveal that we will be growing cadet participation the NCC program as a whole, measured by participation at local, wing, and region levels.  Everyone understands that only a small percentage of cadets will be able to travel to NCC and compete, but we attempting to support local units by creating a system where a substantial majority of cadets will be able to participate in the program at some level.

To reach this point, NHQ CP has gone through an extensive and inclusive process working with cadets and CP seniors to shape the current proposal.  We've had a lot of input from various CACs, the CSAG and Command Council, and especially from the dedicated volunteers on the NCC Working Group.  We've offered previous drafts publicly for feedback, and have incorporated changes based on that feedback.

We have been as open and inclusive as we know how to be in this re-boot.

And it is not over, by any means.  That is why we are encouraging feedback on the latest draft.  I promise every comment will be considered very carefully.  But at some point, we need to pull the trigger and get the final version of the program out to the field.  And we know that has to be sooner than later in order to give everyone a fair chance to prepare for the 2015 NCC.

So, please, help us make this as good as it can be.

We are also looking for wings and regions to help us beta-test some of the events and procedures.  Interested DCPs / DCS/CPs should contact Curt LaFond.

Ned Lee
National Cadet Programs Officer

[Майор Хаткевич]

Why rush it? Another year off could address a lot of Ron's concerns and iron out details, instead of doing something that may not reflect on next year at all.

I bet a lot of encampments ran into that this year with the new requirements!