Do you give your seniors Orientation rides and show your facilities?
Orientation rides? As in orientation flights? Um, no. As a senior, they can enlist into aircrew training tracks where they can fly as much as they want pending availability of training and aircraft. It may also help if your unit is an aircraft, ours does not.
Impressing a visitor or new member. Its a problem, yes. At least in my Squadron. Our typical Senior meetings are not much more than a business meeting with status reports from various people, with a safety briefing mixed in. So when new Seniors come to visit for 2 or 3 meetings, thats all they see. They don't see us actually "doing" anything. And if someone doesn't latch onto them as a mentor and start helping them quickly to determine their interests, they may fade away.
I had someone last year, who had been a member for about 4 months, ask me about seeing our airplane. He had been coming to meetings all that time and listing to aircrews talk about flying, but he had never actually seen the plane. That got me thinking, for sure.
The Seniors only meet twice a month, so I'm talking with folks about meeting another two meetings a month, and make those meetings strictly for training. I did that first of the year, training a few for Mission Scanner. Then took them for their two sorties. For any new Senior that wants a taste of what ES is about, this can get them going quickly. Three 2 hour meetings you can go over the MS Task Guide. So the ideal would be having a new member actually flying their sorties the second month they join.
Maybe I'm off topic, but your post made me think of this.
When someone is visiting a squadron for the first time, I make sure that I greet them and take them on a tour of the facility and discuss the program with them. If they bring potential cadets with them, I get the cadet staff to take the potential cadet off to be worked over by other cadets. The worst thing to do is let them wander around aimlessly and ignored!
I do not know if that's what you meant by giving them an orientation ride, and certainly we do not put them in an airplane and take them for a flight, but if the plane is in the hangar, i would get them in the cockpit and show them around!!!
Pay attention to them right away. Show the around and explain the program. Answer their questions. Invite them back. And start analyzing who and what they are is the whole point of that initial meeting. Hey, you may be recruiting a future mate, Squadron Commander or National Commander!!!
I've been toying with the idea of trying a senior cohort like we do cadet cohorts.
Quote from: Spaceman3750 on September 25, 2019, 12:34:17 AM
I've been toying with the idea of trying a senior cohort like we do cadet cohorts.
That is sorta what I discussed above, when I did Mission Scanner Training earlier this year. It was four newish members that had joined within a couple months of each other. So I setup a schedule of working thru the MS Task Guide together as a group, and then the sorties.
Quote from: Spaceman3750 on September 25, 2019, 12:34:17 AM
I've been toying with the idea of trying a senior cohort like we do cadet cohorts.
Just don't add a bunch of extra stuff. The first unit I visited (senior) had a mandatory (claimed National required it of all seniors) 10 week new member training program that met every Sat for 10 weeks for 6 hours per day. it covered Level I orientation, CPPT, B-CUT, A-CUT, GES, MS, ICS 100 & 200. They wouldn't even talk to me about what I was interested in until after the program. Needless to say, I didn't join that unit.
^ Holy Smokes! 60 hours? Did include a college credit?
The above should take an adult 2-3 hours tops, I'll give 1/2 a day for newbs.
What the heck did they do the other 9 weeks?
In that amount of time you could literally finish Scanner, Observer, and GTM.
Quote from: arajca on September 25, 2019, 01:27:34 AM
Quote from: Spaceman3750 on September 25, 2019, 12:34:17 AM
I've been toying with the idea of trying a senior cohort like we do cadet cohorts.
Just don't add a bunch of extra stuff. The first unit I visited (senior) had a mandatory (claimed National required it of all seniors) 10 week new member training program that met every Sat for 10 weeks for 6 hours per day. it covered Level I orientation, CPPT, B-CUT, A-CUT, GES, MS, ICS 100 & 200. They wouldn't even talk to me about what I was interested in until after the program. Needless to say, I didn't join that unit.
Talk about overkill.
Quote from: Eclipse on September 25, 2019, 01:35:11 AM
The above should take an adult 2-3 hours tops, I'll give 1/2 a day for newbs.
What the heck did they do the other 9 weeks?
I'd guess the other 9 weeks were discussing uniform details, and daily uniform inspections. Sounds like "that" kind of squadron. LOL
Any visitor seeing that would assume all squadrons do like wise. >:(
Actually the unit REQUIRED every member to be a scanner and radio operator BEFORE they'd even ask what the member was interested in.
The unit I did join had the mandatory 3 hour orientation and CPPT, conducted with VHS tapes (it's been a while), followed by a discussion lunch (Subway). After that, they talked about what we (there were 4 or 5 folks in the class) were interested in.
Quote from: arajca on September 25, 2019, 03:30:36 PM
Actually the unit REQUIRED every member to be a scanner and radio operator BEFORE they'd even ask what the member was interested in.
Some folks are afraid to fly, yet would be great at many other things. To tell someone they MUST be a Mission Scanner which requires two sorties ... is just wrong.
I hope that is all history now. Hopefully there isn't a current Squadron this screwed up.
As far as I know, that program is long gone.