Sucessful Open house

[AvroArrow]

The exact same thing, except for CAP. You have cadet enter at a certain time of the year, go through a standarized training regimen, and then join the regular flights.

Little slow today.

Pipelining means to teach new recruits and eventually "promote" them to regular flights?

[JayT]

It means that you don't just accept cadets every meeting of the year, but only at a few intervals, to ensure that you can conduct a proper indoc to them.

[NIN]

[snip]
The commander and I agreed that if we get 12, we'll be doing well. I bet we get more.

Remember, the Maximum Effective Range of Recruiting is 1m.

Walked in the door about 90 minutes ago.  21 new recruits standing tall on deck.

12. *Pfft*  I was clearly sandbagging when I agreed with my commander that we'd do well getting 12 cadets this time around.

See the attached  photo taken about 10 min ago.

[Gunner C]

Good crowd!  That's going to blast training those new cadets.

[NIN]

Good crowd!  That's going to blast training those new cadets.

Proof is in the pudding. Consistently high retention numbers (we beat the national average by a few percentage points), active unit, well trained cadets, etc.

( I was wrong in my earlier post today about our numbers.  59 cadets and 30 seniors. )

People have told me that I should be thrown out of Civil Air Patrol for "not allowing people to join when they want to."  No, we allow people to join, but for administrative and training reasons, we only take new members 2x per year.  If you can't wait till then, there are units nearby, you can join them.



For those who don't believe it, "pipelining" works.  Come to my unit some time and see.

[RiverAux]

I think the reason that pipelining seems to work is that it is done in conjunction with a focused recruiting drive.  A unit that does two strong recruiting drives a year but accepts cadets at other times as well is probably going to do just as well.  However, what often gets compared is the twice-yearly recruiting drive with pipeline system against a unit that doesn't do anything but accept the random recruits that happen to come by.  Obviously the latter isn't going to do that well.

[jimmydeanno]

NIN,

Your Cadet Commander sent me a text message with that number last night, I think it's fantastic and congratulations. 

Oddly enough though, we had 37 of regular cadets show up last night and they brought along 7 potentials [44 total cadets, 32 seniors at the meeting doing stuff]. 

I go back and forth about the pipelining, but generally agree that it is a proven method of getting more people to stay longer, etc.  It helps alleviate a lot of administrative issues, logistical issues, etc. 

However, I really believe that an active unit that doesn't have pipelining has the same chances of success as another unit that does do pipelining.  Not three months ago, we had half that attendance on a given night.  Over the last few months we've been ramping up our activities schedule, fixing the meeting schedule issues, doing more o-flights, improving the cadet/senior relationships, and voila.  In a mere three months we have twice the meeting attendance and a miraculous 7 kids that want to join.

My unit down in VA didn't have an official pipeline program, but it sort of worked out that way.  We only had about 3 cadets actively participating when my wife and I joined the unit.  We had a change of command at the unit and recruited hard at the airshow.  Within 6 months we had nearly 80 cadets showing up to every meeting.  (BTW, that's a lot of uniforms to issue )  For some wings, that is their encampment. 

There is just something about being able to have an encampment style formation every week.  Now, it looks weird when I go to another squadron and there are less than 20 cadets there.  I want to shake the DCC and Squadron Commander and tell them they too can have a huge, successful cadet program if they really wanted to.

Where I think most of these units struggle, isn't with whether they do pipelining or not, but in their weekly meetings, recruiting efforts and what their actual squadron environment is like.  YMMV.

Again, keep up the great work up there in the Capital City.

[NIN]

I think the reason that pipelining seems to work is that it is done in conjunction with a focused recruiting drive.  A unit that does two strong recruiting drives a year but accepts cadets at other times as well is probably going to do just as well.  However, what often gets compared is the twice-yearly recruiting drive with pipeline system against a unit that doesn't do anything but accept the random recruits that happen to come by.  Obviously the latter isn't going to do that well.

And therein lies a lot of the issue.

"Trickle-in" recruiting is not very resource intensive on its face.  They show up, fill out some forms, pay some money, stand in formation, eventually get trained.    How hard is that, right?

Problem is, if your unit is seating a membership board like CAPR 39-2 suggests (and you are conducting membership boards, right?), then with trickle in your personnel officer is always processing CAPF 15s and 12s, your membership board is always meeting, your logistics officer is constantly issuing new member kits and uniforms, etc.  Takes your personnel officer away from day-to-day "personnel" business, your logistics officer away from the unit's overall "logistical" things, and the poor dudes who make up your membership board can't give it their full attention, or their duties suffer.

And this is going on, ALL THE TIME.

With pipelining, you do a unit recruiting night 2x a year, an inprocessing night 2 x a year, and run a basic flight 2x/year.   My inprocessing is on the 2nd of April. By the end of that night, 75-80% of the cadets will have their CAPF 15 in the mail to NHQ, the squadron will have sized them (correctly) for their FCU, issued BDUs, sat them in front of a membership board, snapped an ID-card photo of them, and thats that.

The following week, the personnel officer has to deal with a couple follow-ups and then goes back to doing his/her personnel officer duties as assigned. The logistics officer is about to make a bulk order for insignia, once, and the guys who comprise the membership board are back doing their duties. For the next 5-7 months until the next inprocessing.

[CadetProgramGuy]

Where can I see a copy of the PPT?

I am in the process of starting a new squadron, getting the initial Cadre up to speed.  We are going to have the open house there in a month or two.

[Stonewall]

We have begun a major recruiting drive that will culminate in a squadron open house on 23 Apr.  It will follow a major air show in the area the week prior.  We will place brochures and flyers at local middle schools, libraries, at the air show and a very popular Army Navy surplus store that is a provider for BSA troops in the area as well as being the largest Air Soft and Paint Ball store and it's only 3 miles from our meeting place.

[NIN]

Dude, make the date & Open House "BIGGER" (please tell me you have the correct fonts..Eras Bold ITC, Eras Demi ITC and the Word Art is done in Hattenshweiler and Arial Black..)

I'll email you what we do for a program.  I think our presentation is still available on the squadron website (whoops, squadron website is gone.. that's bad news bears..)

[RADIOMAN015]

We have begun a major recruiting drive that will culminate in a squadron open house on 23 Apr.  It will follow a major air show in the area the week prior.  We will place brochures and flyers at local middle schools, libraries, at the air show and a very popular Army Navy surplus store that is a provider for BSA troops in the area as well as being the largest Air Soft and Paint Ball store and it's only 3 miles from our meeting place.

Are you going to have a recruiting booth and display at the airshow?  We got a fair number of recruits that way, especially cadets but also a few seniors
RM

[Stonewall]

Dude, make the date & Open House "BIGGER" (please tell me you have the correct fonts..Eras Bold ITC, Eras Demi ITC and the Word Art is done in Hattenshweiler and Arial Black..)

I'll email you what we do for a program.  I think our presentation is still available on the squadron website (whoops, squadron website is gone.. that's bad news bears..)

I thought it looks pretty good.  Send me what you got before I go into production and start pasting these throughout the city.

Are you going to have a recruiting booth and display at the airshow?  We got a fair number of recruits that way, especially cadets but also a few seniors
RM

I'm not the POC for the air show, but I will be there and if you know me, I'll make contact with 100 people whether they like it or not and spread the word.  From Andrews AFB air show to Manassas Air Port, I'm a true "salesman" when it comes to recruiting.  I've recruited people for other squadrons in other states from a McDonald's.

[NIN]

I've recruited people for other squadrons in other states from a McDonald's.

I was there, and that doesn't count. That young man was not cadet aged.  But his mom was pretty hot.

[Stonewall]

I've recruited people for other squadrons in other states from a McDonald's.

I was there, and that doesn't count. That young man was not cadet aged.  But his mom was pretty hot.

I knew you were going to bring that up.... "like the patch do ya...do push-ups" is not a recruiting line.

I was thinking of WV during ANG drill weekend.

[Stonewall]

Well, I forgot to mention last week that we had our open house and after conducting some follow up calls since last Thursday, we're expecting at least 7 new cadets to show up for T-Flight on May 7th.

We didn't do the full blown planning and execution of how I like to advertise and solicit for new members, but we needed to act fast to get our numbers up so we can average 15+ cadets at our meetings.

7 may not sound like a lot, but that more than doubles our A-Flight (after they graduate T-Flight).

[biomed441]

I was "pipelined" as a cadet back on 2001. Now I'm a senior member. The system works.  I learned a whole lot more in a t-flight (my squadron just called it bravo flight) that was catered to the development of new cadets. Proper drill, memory work, introductions to the program and all of its aspects. I don't know why so many seem to object to this form of training. Different teachers, different methods I guess.