If I Were King (CAP/CC) For A Day . . .

[cnitas]

All of these are interesting ideas, but they are really details.

What really needs to be done is for senior leadership to formulate a comprehensive plan on how CAP is to respond to current and future demands. 
Before it can be decided what training is appropriate, or even what uniforms we need, this must be determined.

It seems everyone has some idea of how to answer this, but it is the job of our senior leaders to formulate this vision and provide it to everyone else.

BOR-ING.

Lets talk some more about uniforms!

[mikeylikey]

^ With that said, I would fire all the senior leadership for not getting these plans created.  How many years since 2001?  Seven years?  CAP could and should have been a huge Homeland Security asset, yet we ARE not.  (And please, don't cite your Wing's participation in exercises where you dressed cadets up to look like casualties, those don't count, nor does the one aerial photography picture you took and sent to your States EOC or National Guard).  We as an Organization, are not entrenched enough to even be considered for a real HLS mission if one were to present itself. 

Sorry for the drift.....

[A.Member]

^ With that said, I would fire all the senior leadership for not getting these plans created.  How many years since 2001?  Seven years?  CAP could and should have been a huge Homeland Security asset, yet we ARE not.  (And please, don't cite your Wing's participation in exercises where you dressed cadets up to look like casualties, those don't count, nor does the one aerial photography picture you took and sent to your States EOC or National Guard).  We as an Organization, are not entrenched enough to even be considered for a real HLS mission if one were to present itself. 

True statement.  I'd probably fire a very large percentage of the current leadership.   

If anything, leadership from Wing levels on up have demonstrated an inability to provide a clear direction, develop cohesive and effective goals/vision, and they appear to be out of touch with the opportunities available and the desire of many members.  Far too many of the "old guard" are left in positions that afford them too much visibility and influence (there are also those that maintain an undue amount of influence but float under the radar - they too must be removed).   Seems that a number may have forgotten why the organization exists and perhaps why they joined in the first place.  That is not healthy for the organization right now.  A house cleaning is in order.

[jimmydeanno]

None of the above.

This isn't a "corporate officer bash" but I think that much of CAP's problems come from ineffective corporate officers that in any other non-profit wouldn't even be considered for the job, never mind hold onto it for years.  I think my main goal would be to make the corporations officers responsible for the success of the organization as they should be.  

I think that one of problems is that with so many corporate officers having a say in everything the organization does, it become WAY to bureaucratic and to locally oriented (most of the COs think only about how something will affect their wing, not if it really makes sense on a national level.)  

I think that the Region Commanders, National CV and National CC should be the ones that focus on the direction of the organization and establish national policy - this way the Wing Commanders can focus on running their Wing (which many of them aren't doing effectively anyway.)  They get too caught up in low level junk, like who can wear CAP Pilot Wings instead of focusing on national level organizational needs.

Our national plans always start with nitty gritty low level, pety crap.  "Let's start a program where we help the Air Force."  "Great, what color are the pants going to be?" instead of "What kind of things can we do."  

Everyone is out to make "their mark" on the organization instead of focusing on running an effective efficient organization.  

Some things in particular I'd want worked on...

1) Fund raising:  The NB should be the main fund raising element of CAP (I don't count appropriated dollars and membership dues to be 'fund raising.')  Currently, corporate officers tend to cost the corporation more than they produce in revenue (travel, board meetings, etc).  

This would also include training people on the reason that we, as a non-profit organization, can just rely on appropriate dollars and how to get donations from corporations, get people to leave CAP in their wills, planned giving, grants, etc.

Oh, and we need to spend money to make money...we are way to penny wise and pound foolish.

2) Recruiting:  My reading of the historical documents that I have show that at one time, CAP wing commanders were responsible for meeting recruiting quotas established by NHQ.  Right now, there is no penalty for having a wing with 2 squadrons.  Small wings like NH have a higher membership % based on population than larger wings with 10X the population.

3) Streamline the missions:  I think we spread ourselves out into so many things that we can't 'specialize' in anything specific.  We do anything that someone is willing to pay for; Counter-drug, Homeland Security Stuff, SAR, Aerial Photography/disaster assessment, Aerial interception missions, Sundown Patrols, Electronic Search, Disaster Relief, and on and on.

4) National Advertising Campaign - self-explanatory.

5) Funding to the local level.  How can we expect things to happen effectively and efficiently when the place where "the rubber meets the road" and CAPs missions are actually executed don't receive any funding.  They are left on their own to get their own money.  Let's use the Red Cross as an example, you don't see individual chapters hanging out in front of Wal*Mart doing car washes for their own chapters funding.

"We'd love to do the model rocketry program in our squadron, but we need to do a fund raiser first so we can afford the first set of rockets.  Maybe we can get a grant - anyone around here a grant writer?  Oh well, we can't raise enough money - cadets, it's going to be $150.00 from each of you to do the program."

But, honestly, I am not qualified to be a Wing CC never mind a National Commander.  I am glad that our current National Commander has actual executive level experience and knows how to run a business.

[jimmydeanno]

Forgot item number 6 - but this is just personal.

6.  Get rid of the current CAP safety program.  We have a safety program here at work.  No one has been injured here in the last 2 years and I don't have to sit through mandatory safety briefings at every meeting we have or be told where the building exits are.  Also, I don't need to be told not to put my hand in a running snowblower or not to speed.

[DNall]

Safety briefings are pretty standard (if over done) in the military. I give mine every drill, "Don't drink & drive, if you do drugs I hope you get caught. Call your SL when you get home. All yours Top. Let's get out a here, I need a beer." 

Seriously, there's a lot of good stuff listed through there. I know a lot of folks in our corporate leadership structure really aren't as bad as they get made out to be. It's just the nature of our jacked up system that prevents anyone from doing anything significant. I think I'd really have to reorg the governance structure, and place it subordinate to AF with a linear chain of command & at least AF confirmation if not selection of Wg & higher CCs. Just pretty much do away with the corporation as anything but a paper entity. We can do business as a corporate non-profit, or operate as the AF Aux. This attempt at hybrid is doomed to failure, as we've seen for a whole lot of years now. That's really ashame, cause CAP has a whole ton of unrealized potential.

[RiverAux]

2) Recruiting: Small wings like NH have a higher membership % based on population than larger wings with 10X the population.

A few years ago I ran a simple statistical test and there was a significant correlation between state population and CAP membership.  In other words, you could reliably predict how many CAP members you would have in a state of a given population size.   

[lordmonar]

1.  Fund raising....this I agree with.  We need to take a lesson from the Boy Scouts on how they do fund raising...and hire a professional staff to make that happen.

2.  Recruiting....what's the problem with recruiting?   Do you or don't you have enough people to to your assigned mission?

The kicker to that one is......you don't know, because no one has an assigned mission.  What I mean by that, compared to the USAF our squadrons have no mission.  We are not TASKED to produce X number of qualified flight crews, or X number of Ground Teams, or X number of MROs or other mission base personnel.  So how can a commander gage if he is meeting his recruiting goals?

As you say...a wing can have 2 squadrons.....and a squadron can have just 15 people (on the books)....but they can't do anything....and have not been tasked to do anything.

3.  Streamline the missions?

How can we specialize any more?  I mean right now we fly 3 basic profiles.

Route, contour and grid.

WHAT we are looking for and what deliverables our customers want may be different....but we fly them the same way.

If anything we need to expand our competencies to increase our marketability to customers.

4.  National advertising?  To what end?  What would the purpose of the advertising be?  Customer Education?  Recruiting?  Fund-raising?

If you are going to spend money like that you need to have a clear goal of what you want your pay off to be. 

We can just "advertise"......anyone remember our NASCAR?

5.  Local funding.  To a point I agree with you.  IF NHQ were to task squadrons with specific mission....they should fund us to do those missions.  We need to have a way to get basic funding to stand up and equip squadrons.  But we need to figure out WHAT we are going to fund.  As far as I know all of our operational missions are funded.  We need more money to fund training and we need some monies to off set cadet and AE missions.

6.  What's wrong with our safety program?  So you got to listen to some stock safety briefing once a month.....

[jimmydeanno]

1.  Fund raising....this I agree with.  We need to take a lesson from the Boy Scouts on how they do fund raising...and hire a professional staff to make that happen.

The purpose of boards in every non-profit is to ensure the success of the organization in the future.  This leaves them obligated to raise money (thereby being the main fund raising body) for the organization.  Right now we take the approach that the AF is just going to give us 42 million a year and that is sufficient.

Even if the board hired a professional fund raising company to do our fund raising it would be a significant amount more than they are doing now. 

Why do we need to have national board meetings at 4 star hotels in tourist areas?  Why can't they meet at NHQ?  Why do conferences cost us money to hold?  Most non-profits hold conferences/banquets to raise money for the organization.  Ever been to an AFA gala?  They give out awards and people have dinner, but they don't lose money holding the event.  But it's that whole "the AF will give us money" attitude, so we expect we shouldn't have to pay for anything.

2.  Recruiting....what's the problem with recruiting?   Do you or don't you have enough people to to your assigned mission?

The kicker to that one is......you don't know, because no one has an assigned mission.  What I mean by that, compared to the USAF our squadrons have no mission.  We are not TASKED to produce X number of qualified flight crews, or X number of Ground Teams, or X number of MROs or other mission base personnel.  So how can a commander gage if he is meeting his recruiting goals?

You're right, I don't know how many people I "need."  But that doesn't matter because there are 2 other missions besides ES that don't require/need a certain number of people to perform them. 

How many cadets do you need to accomplish the CP mission?  As many as you can possibly get.  How many people does it take to accomplish the AE mission?  The more the merrier.

As you say...a wing can have 2 squadrons.....and a squadron can have just 15 people (on the books)....but they can't do anything....and have not been tasked to do anything.

As I said before, the other 2 missions can be accomplished by as many people as you can possibly get.  So I wouldn't call a wing with 2 squadrons successful, I would call it a failure in every sense of the word.  If your state has a population of 5 million people and you only have 100 cadets, you've failed.  If your squadron is in a city of 1 million and you only have 15 members, you've failed, miserably. 

We talk all day about how grade and rank and all the trappings don't matter, what matters is the missions - to accomplish the missions, you need people.  ES isn't the only mission and there isn't a designated amount of people that are needed for any of them.  You don't have to wait to be tasked by AFRCC to do something to accomplish other missions of the organization.

The worst that happens from having 'excess' people is your membership dues pool of money increases.

3.  Streamline the missions?

How can we specialize any more?  I mean right now we fly 3 basic profiles.

Route, contour and grid.

WHAT we are looking for and what deliverables our customers want may be different....but we fly them the same way.

If anything we need to expand our competencies to increase our marketability to customers.

"Stick to the knitting" was my point here.  Companies succeed by not diversifying too much and sticking with what they are truly good at.  We talk about it all the time here how we aren't anywhere close to being a "professional SAR organization" because we don't do the right training and don't comply with certain standards, etc.  Part of this, I believe, is because our current ES missions are so spread out that we can't take the time to really specialize in anything. 

All of the separate ES programs require different training, etc.  It isn't just "flying the grid."  If we are doing an ARCHER mission, you need to have a trained ARCHER crew.  If you are doing a CD mission, they need the CD training, if you are doing an SDIS mission you need SDIS training.

My point is that instead of spreading ourselves too thin and being a "C" player in a bunch of different missions, why not streamline a little and become an "A" player.

4.  National advertising?  To what end?  What would the purpose of the advertising be?  Customer Education?  Recruiting?  Fund-raising?

Yes.  Advertising accomplishes all of the above.  The last Red Cross commercial I saw on TV showed Red Cross volunteers helping people (customer education), said if you want to help call this number (recruiting) and to continue helping people, my support is needed (fund raising).

If you are going to spend money like that you need to have a clear goal of what you want your pay off to be. 

We can just "advertise"......anyone remember our NASCAR?

The NASCAR is different, it didn't have a message behind it other than "cap.gov"  Just because Jeff Gordon wins doesn't mean that I am running out to buy DuPont brand anything, I don't even know if they could say that their sales increase at all from sponsoring a NASCAR.  What it does do is increase their visibility in the marketplace, but when your car is running 45th out of 40 you don't get too much air time.  So, waste of money.

Let's do commercials, have some professionally done commercials that we can put on "real" TV and have some PSA type commercials that each wing can get out to public broadcasting/local stations.  Let's do billboards in large metropolitan areas.  Let's do tractor trailer displays that go to air shows and public events.  Let's do newspaper ads, in color even, in major newspapers (NY Times, Washington Post, etc).  Heck, even some internet advertising wouldn't hurt.

5.  Local funding.  To a point I agree with you.  IF NHQ were to task squadrons with specific mission....they should fund us to do those missions.

They have tasked us all with specific missions, CP, AE, and ES.  ES is "reimbursable" as stated, but locally the other two receive no funding.  Recruiting goals could come into play here, you get "x" amount each year for each member you have to do your missions.  With it they could buy equipment, go on trips, etc.

We need to have a way to get basic funding to stand up and equip squadrons.  But we need to figure out WHAT we are going to fund.  As far as I know all of our operational missions are funded.  We need more money to fund training and we need some monies to off set cadet and AE missions.

We should have funding to stand up new units and standing up new units should be a priority of the organization.  It is a lot easier to get someone to start a unit if they know they won't be paying for things out of their pocket, or know they will have support in starting it or get some sort of training before they do so they know what they'd need.

6.  What's wrong with our safety program?  So you got to listen to some stock safety briefing once a month.....

Because it doesn't do anything.  It is ineffective.  The topics are irrelevant.  I would rather have a safety program that involved the safety guy checking the equipment/buildings for hazards and seeing that it gets fixed.  I would rather have a safety culture that involved people doing safe things instead of talking about them. 

For example, a good safety program would be the pilots making sure they do their pre-flights/checking weather, etc.  A good safety program would be the senior member going over an equipment list for a hike before they start up the mountain, or the transportation officer reminding people that the van will roll over if people do 50 in the 35 zone on the highway exit before he licenses them.

A good safety program would get people to think about how to apply safety concepts to what they are doing.  Teach people to not take unnecessary risks like flying in a blizzard. 

A safety program shouldn't be a "mandatory down day" or "mandatory safety meeting" where I get told to not stick my hand in the chute of the snowblower or not to stick forks in electrical sockets.  Or a safety policy that requires that everyone read the safety policy and have it annotated on a CAPF 11 or else they can't participate in squadron meetings.

Bad things happen, sometimes no matter what you do.  Our current safety program implies that safety is first - which it isn't, accomplishing the mission is. 

[A.Member]

^ Likes the way this guy thinks (I think).

[Senior]

EVERYONE would go to 6 weeks of basic training.  You will learn how to wear your uniform properly.   You will learn correct customs and courtesies.  You will be in shape.

[ColonelJack]

EVERYONE would go to 6 weeks of basic training.  You will learn how to wear your uniform properly.   You will learn correct customs and courtesies.  You will be in shape.

There's a place that already does that, my friend.  It's called the Air Force.

Jack

[nesagsar]

EVERYONE would go to 6 weeks of basic training.  You will learn how to wear your uniform properly.   You will learn correct customs and courtesies.  You will be in shape.

There's a place that already does that, my friend.  It's called the Air Force.

Jack

That place sounds like fun, can I go? But I would like to do it in Alabama and for a bit longer than 6 weeks, more like double that.

Realisticly, I would like to see all ground teams trained by NESA standards. NESA was the best GT training I have ever had in or out of CAP and the other cadet GTMs I saw in CAP that were not NESA trained just werent as good as NESA grads.

[Hawk200]

That place sounds like fun, can I go? But I would like to do it in Alabama and for a bit longer than 6 weeks, more like double that.

Why? The Air Force does six weeks. What do you think you're going to learn over and above that in twice the time that will mean anything?

Realisticly, I would like to see all ground teams trained by NESA standards. NESA was the best GT training I have ever had in or out of CAP and the other cadet GTMs I saw in CAP that were not NESA trained just werent as good as NESA grads.

I find it hard to believe that you have enough GT experience to even make this judgement. It certainly doesn't sound like an objective observation.

As for the course you attended, most people say the same thing about whatever pet school they attended. You're not any different in that regard. And until you attend all of them, your observations are just wild guesses.

[nesagsar]

Why? The Air Force does six weeks. What do you think you're going to learn over and above that in twice the time that will mean anything?

http://www.afoats.af.mil/OTS/index.asp

[Gunner C]

Are their 8 more of you who haven't voted?  I'd like to see an even 100 - it's still a small sample, but . . . 

GC

[Gunner C]

Thanks to all who "clicked" their opinions.

Numbers are rounded.

While this isn't a scientific poll, nor is it a large sampling, the results are interesting.  Generally speaking, members of this board believe that the standards in CAP, generally, are not high enough. 

• 28% believe that professional development standards are too low and should be raised,
  
• 20% believe that uniform and grooming standards need to be stricter, 19% believe that the rank structure is broken, and
• 20% believe that uniform and grooming standards need to be stricter, 19% believe that the rank structure is broken, and
• 17% believe that ES standards aren't high enough. 

In the aggregate, 83% believe that the first thing that should be done to improve CAP is to raise some sort of standards.

Interestingly, there is an aggregate 16% that would like to either get rid of uniforms or getting rid of military rank seemingly not enjoying the traditional military aspects of CAP.

A strange 1% would like to lower ES standards.


GC

[Cecil DP]

4.  National advertising?  To what end?  What would the purpose of the advertising be?  Customer Education?  Recruiting?  Fund-raising?

If you are going to spend money like that you need to have a clear goal of what you want your pay off to be. 

We can just "advertise"......anyone remember our NASCAR?

Yes, But I also remember the  $6,000,000 plus that went down the drain with the Noble Experiment"

[mikeylikey]

^ NASCAR may have been a bust, but the billboard campaign of 2002-2003 was seemingly successful (based on what NHQ staffers say).  I know my SQD at the time got 12 new cadets and 5 Officers that said "we saw the billboard". 

To me at the SQD level, that was a successfull move on the part of NHQ. 

We should do that again!

[lordmonar]

4.  National advertising?  To what end?  What would the purpose of the advertising be?  Customer Education?  Recruiting?  Fund-raising?

If you are going to spend money like that you need to have a clear goal of what you want your pay off to be. 

We can just "advertise"......anyone remember our NASCAR?

Yes, But I also remember the  $6,000,000 plus that went down the drain with the Noble Experiment"

That was what I was alluding to.  We spend a lot of money on a NASCAR driver...but we did not really have a clear idea of who or what we were advertising for.