"First Reponse Team" ---- Yes or No in CAP

Started by maverik, December 30, 2008, 05:23:35 AM

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maverik

Okay after running the squadrons ES night tonight I have discovered the following problem:
If we had a mission right now, our squadron doesn't have adequate paperwork in my oppinion to call up the most qualified. We just call the first person.
Solution:
Making a spreadsheet of the most qualified members: name,quals etc. and making them the squadrons first response team. These guys will be the first ones called up when we have a mission and they will have the most training obviously, also involvement is also a factor because I don't want someone who has every single qual but isn't active on a mission so my question is can the squadron commander and ES officer set this up? Or is it a no go?
KC9SFU
Fresh from the Mint C/LT
"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking." Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

Timbo

Oh by all means you can do it.  However in the process and after implementation, your fellow Squadron members that were not considered  "good enough" (and that is what you will be conveying) will let you know.  They may even become even less involved. 

So you have to weigh your options.  Remember you need to keep volunteers happy, or you will not have any volunteers in the end. 

The idea is doable, but is it what you should do??  Your decision. 

Duke Dillio

I have found that in most cases, you establish an alert roster and call everyone and then be happy with whoever answers the phone AND shows up.  

The issue that you may be raising is actually kindof prevalent in some wings and I wish it would stop.  It kindof sounds "good ole boyish" to me.  If you are in the club, you get to play in the real missions.  If not, then you won't get a call.  I call everyone and see who I can get.  Then, I work from there.  Each mission, training or actual, is in and of itself a training evolution.  If the people can't handle a real mission in training, how are they going to handle a real mission when they are fully qualified.

I admit I might have misinterpreted your statement but this is the way I read it.  Please excuse me and correct me if I am reading it wrong.

Eclipse

Quote from: Sqn72DO on December 30, 2008, 05:43:03 AM
It kind of sounds "good ole boyish" to me.

Ditto.  "Most qualified" is very subjective and is likely to cause unintended consequences.

What about the newb who just came back from NESA Aircrew School vs. the top guy in your squadron who hasn't flown in 6 months because of personal commitments? Who's "most qualified"?

It also depends on your state - mine does a wing-wide call-up for everything, so while the top performers are known, anyone can call direct to the IC and report in.  Some units do a unit-level call-up after the wing-wide one pops, but others don't.

This also touches on the idea of "aircrews" vs. "loose assets" - CAP-USAF has indicated to us that they like the idea of proficient crews working together, and that's a great idea in theory, but CAP-USAF is used to a consistency of training (i.e. all pilots do X-Y-Z, probably have sat in the same classrooms, etc.) that doesn't exist in CAP.  You can expect a USAF Flight Engineer to have at least a baseline of training and experience, while many of our Observers have trouble using the radios.

Locked-in aircrews can make it very difficult for the newbs to play.  Its bad enough as it is with people who only want to work/fly/whatever with a select group of members because they know and can trust them (I fess up to this as well).

"That Others May Zoom"

maverik

QuoteWhat about the newb who just came back from NESA Aircrew School vs. the top guy in your squadron who hasn't flown in 6 months because of personal commitments? Who's "most qualified"?

I stated that I will take the most qualified that is active. I think this would be a good thing for my squadron because we have a tendency to believe hey I wasn't picked the first time, but hey look I can do this,this and this to get qualified and be on the team. I am in no way going to limit the number of people who can be the first called. So really I guess I am starting an organized calling list in which it will go:
1. Cadet judy- GTL,CUL,MRO etc
2. Cadet Joe - GTM1,MRO
yes I think that's what I'll do, thank you.
KC9SFU
Fresh from the Mint C/LT
"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking." Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

Short Field

So the most qualified get more qualified and the less qualified get less qualified?  Oh, the lessor souls can attend all the training and maybe one day get a call if the "most qualified" ones are busy.

Establish an alert roster and rotate the names on it from top to bottom so everyone gets to play.  This will give you more experienced people in the long run.   You can break it out by specialties if you want - i.e. call the GTLs until you get one, then call the GTM3s to fill out the team.  If you want a "on-call" alert team, fine.  Pick the team from the roster and then rotate the people on it.   Don't always call your "best" MRO to work the radios - they might want to actually go out on a mission.
SAR/DR MP, ARCHOP, AOBD, GTM1, GBD, LSC, FASC, LO, PIO, MSO(T), & IC2
Wilson #2640

maverik

Quote from: Short Field on December 30, 2008, 07:34:14 AM
So the most qualified get more qualified and the less qualified get less qualified?  Oh, the lessor souls can attend all the training and maybe one day get a call if the "most qualified" ones are busy.

Establish an alert roster and rotate the names on it from top to bottom so everyone gets to play.  This will give you more experienced people in the long run.   You can break it out by specialties if you want - i.e. call the GTLs until you get one, then call the GTM3s to fill out the team.  If you want a "on-call" alert team, fine.  Pick the team from the roster and then rotate the people on it.   Don't always call your "best" MRO to work the radios - they might want to actually go out on a mission.

this is what I was talking about. Kind of. In no way am I as an ES officer going to tell cadets to get less qualified. No. I actually do like the idea though to have seperate teams and rotate them around, makes more sense than what I was proposing so I thank you.
KC9SFU
Fresh from the Mint C/LT
"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking." Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

davedove

All I can think of right now is that you must have a large roster to draw from.  The way our squadron does it is the ES Officer calls everyone on the list and then works with the ones who respond.  Granted, that tends to be the same people a lot of the time.  If you have the luxury to pick and choose who to call, because they are the "most qualified" you are lucky indeed.

Now, as I'm sure others will agree, the ES Officer tends to call certain people first because they are more likely to respond, but that doesn't stop him from calling the others as well.
David W. Dove, Maj, CAP
Deputy Commander for Seniors
Personnel/PD/Asst. Testing Officer
Ground Team Leader
Frederick Composite Squadron
MER-MD-003

Stonewall

Most qualified?

You're either qualified or you're not.  It's that easy.

You can't call a Mission Pilot who isn't GTM qualified for a Ground Team mission and you can't call a Ground Team Leader for a mission that requires a Mission Pilot.

We have A LOT of missions, almost weekly.  We have a "first response" list that rotates every week with a primary team and a secondary team.  95% of our missions are non-distress ELTs so our teams consist of 2 seniors each.  Which I plan to change with the scheduling of qualified cadets.
Serving since 1987.

Flying Pig

It willl work until your "first response team" members are out of town or the mother in law is visiting.  And then your other members will be like..."oh..whats the matter....your boys out of town?"

Duke Dillio

^^^ and then you might not get anybody to come out...

maverik

Okay I see where this could kind of go the wrong way. We really don't have alot to choose from though since it breaks down ike this:
okay so 5 cadets have GT quals and the other 4 (this is an example not actual numbers) are trainees so I guess I really have one option, alright thanks again.
KC9SFU
Fresh from the Mint C/LT
"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking." Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

Al Sayre

Depending on the size of your AO, you might want to think about the "Closest Qualified".  I'm one of the guys who gets the first 2:00 a.m. phone call, and that's how I start the missions.

I ask myself the following questions:
What squadron is closest?
Do they have personnel who are qualified to do the mission?
Do they have the assets necessary to prosecute the mission?
Will I need more than just this one squadron and their assets?
Where are the next closest assets?  

Then I start waking people up...
Lt Col Al Sayre
MS Wing Staff Dude
Admiral, Great Navy of the State of Nebraska
GRW #2787

jeders

Quote from: SARADDICT on December 30, 2008, 08:01:17 PM
Okay I see where this could kind of go the wrong way. We really don't have alot to choose from though since it breaks down ike this:
okay so 5 cadets have GT quals and the other 4 (this is an example not actual numbers) are trainees so I guess I really have one option, alright thanks again.

Remeber, supervised trainees can go on actual missions. Don't let there trainee status stop them from being used.
If you are confident in you abilities and experience, whether someone else is impressed is irrelevant. - Eclipse

maverik

okay, but I have a question  when deploying teams how would I go about getting some of my members as radio operators and supprot roles providing they are qualified and want to.
KC9SFU
Fresh from the Mint C/LT
"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking." Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

Duke Dillio

I don't quite understand your question.  Are you saying you have MRO's that you want to put on GT's?  If that's the case, just get them their training quals as GTM-3's and they can participate as GTM's.  If you are talking about setting up a satellite mission base for people to support the GT's then you can do that.  When I have run missions in the past, we have had GT's deploy from our squadron facility in which we had a satellite mission base which ran comms and support.  The IC could be miles away and talk to us here via phone or radio.  Then the satellite base would relay information to us in the case that the IC could not contact the GT's directly.  Again, I didn't quite understand what your question was... 

RiverAux

When I was the person making these calls for my squadron I tended to get the minimum number of people with the necessary qual (say a qualified Mission Pilot), then I would call anybody in Trainee status for the other jobs (Observer, Scanner) and then if there was any spots left would more or less work through a rotation and the first person I could get in touch with who was willing to go, got that slot. 

The fact is that you can develop all sorts of crazy alert call-out schemes, but they ALL will fail. 

The best advice is to be fair and make sure everybody more or less gets an equal chance throughout the year. 

You get a lot of good will from the members by just calling and asking them, even if they can't go that particular night.  It motivates them to stay active knowing that they are needed.

Now, if you get in a situation where you've called a particular guy 6 times in 3 months for missions and he has turned them all down, its time to have a talk with him about his dedication to the ES program. 

cap235629

we came up with a VERY easy method.

We have an account with Onecall Now messaging service.

For $3.00 a year per member we are able to alert the entire squadron with just 1 phone call.  The commander or designated representative calls in and records a message (in our case it is only used for actual missions, but can also be used for any message that you choose to forward).  Each member provides up to 5 numbers that they wish to be reached on and the service calls them ALL.  It even has an option for polling so you can say things like "press 1 if you can respond".  You can also set up subgroups (we have one for aircrew, ground team, command staff and all members).

The service offers UNLIMITED calls for the entire year.

For more information check out www.onecallnow.com

The $3.00 per member rate is not published.  You must specifically ask for the "Military" rate.  The direct contact for this rate is Ms. April Beckner, senior account manager.  Her direct email is april.beckner@onecallnow.com

If you have any questions please feel free to email me or send me a PM
Bill Hobbs, Major, CAP
Arkansas Certified Emergency Manager
Tabhair 'om póg, is Éireannach mé

maverik

Sqn72DO, I was saying that if I have members that are qualified MRO's then how would I go about getting them on mission base support staff?
KC9SFU
Fresh from the Mint C/LT
"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking." Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

N Harmon

Quote from: cap235629 on December 31, 2008, 12:31:26 AM
We have an account with Onecall Now messaging service.

We use a similar service (www.call-em-all.com).
NATHAN A. HARMON, Capt, CAP
Monroe Composite Squadron