Senior Member Activities

[TheSkyHornet]

Well, we saw the post down in the Cadet Programs sections about how to get cadets involved more. How about Seniors?

My squadron is a composite squadron, but it's very heavily cadet oriented. All of the activities we do are to incorporate training and fundraising via the cadets, from aerospace education to emergency services to squadron open houses and parking lot duty (harrumph). But we really don't have a Senior component in regard to Senior member training aside from Professional Development weekends (vary rare) and the eServices goodies. I've been hanging around another local squadron to start CAP pilot training, which is a composite squadron as well, but they're Senior component is exceptionally independent of the cadet side, with a continuously-running comms station set up and regular flight operations (although having an aircraft makes that a lot easier I suppose).

Right now, we're about 15 active cadets in our squadron and 6 Senior members, which include Commander, AE, ES, PA, Chaplain/Safety, and myself taking on the cadet leadership role(s).

I'm just looking to get some insight as to how some of the other squadrons, small or big, act as composite squadrons and not so much cadet squadrons. I love working with my cadets, for sure, but I'd also like to see a lot more senior activity as well, especially considering that we're supposed to operate as a composite, not just a cadet squadron.

Thoughts?

[catrulz]

In my opinion, you best serve the the unit, your cadets, and yourself by performing the Professional Development required to become a well rounded CAP officer.  After Level I, get into your specialty track.  If the unit didn't assign you a mentor, make sure you find someone that can answer your questions concerning your specialty and the specialty track pamphlet.

Then get enrolled in the next available Squadron Leadership Course.  If you are a cadet programs officer, find a Training Leaders of Cadets course and enroll in that.  Attend your wing conference and participate in seminars that interest you.

Unfortunately, many cadet focused units, overly focus on cadets, and ignore senior member development.  Eventually this catches up with individuals and units.  I believe we serve the organization, the cadets and our fellow senior members best by being as prepared and competent as we can make ourselves. 

There are other activities as well such as host IACE cadets from other countries, do an ES camp out, have a SM unit night at a diner to discuss unit activities and issues. 

[A.Member]

Simple...and this applies to both seniors and cadets:

Ensure we are doing things that meaningful and don't waste our volunteers time

As an organization, we seemingly forget this on a constant basis, as evidenced by our overabundance of regulations and skewed focus/attention to SUIs.  Some of this is nothing more than "busy work" for the sake of saying we did something - it's not value added.  And if it's not value added, we shouldn't do it.  This requires a change to our culture from the top down (note: recent changes in re: Safety, even as slight as they are, provide a slight ray of hope).

[AirAux]

It seems that with so much of CAP being on line now that we have lost the mentor phase some what and expect our senior members to get on line and do the program.  That seems to work with some, but not all.  Some people are just not incentivized by following prompts on a screen or attempting to discover "What's next".  This, in my eyes, is very unfortunate as we are losing some of our potentially best people because they are not motivated to respond to computers.  I prefer a pat on the back and a joke once in a while to keep me moving.  My computer lacks in those skills.  We must remember that some people are joining for social reasons and do not know how or necessarily want to know how to jump through all of the hoops by themselves on a computer.  I personally miss the camaraderie of our classes working on various skills and levels.  The new orientation online is a turn off for me.  We used to do a slide strip or VHR on Saturday with coffee and donuts and discussion.  A newby felt like they were part of the team immediately.  JMHO.   

[vorteks]

I prefer a pat on the back and a joke once in a while to keep me moving.  My computer lacks in those skills.

Time to upgrade. 

[TheSkyHornet]

In my opinion, you best serve the the unit, your cadets, and yourself by performing the Professional Development required to become a well rounded CAP officer.  After Level I, get into your specialty track.  If the unit didn't assign you a mentor, make sure you find someone that can answer your questions concerning your specialty and the specialty track pamphlet.

Then get enrolled in the next available Squadron Leadership Course.  If you are a cadet programs officer, find a Training Leaders of Cadets course and enroll in that.  Attend your wing conference and participate in seminars that interest you.

Unfortunately, many cadet focused units, overly focus on cadets, and ignore senior member development.  Eventually this catches up with individuals and units.  I believe we serve the organization, the cadets and our fellow senior members best by being as prepared and competent as we can make ourselves. 

There are other activities as well such as host IACE cadets from other countries, do an ES camp out, have a SM unit night at a diner to discuss unit activities and issues.

However, again, this seems very Cadet-oriented. I'm not opposed to serving the cadet corps whatsoever, and that's exactly why I joined this particular squadron. But there's more to a composite squadron than just the cadet component, otherwise it would be a cadet squadron (which is structured to have Senior Member oversight anyway).

It seems like every time we discuss activities, it's about how we can get the cadets to participate in an activity, or how to get the Seniors to work better with the cadets (usually, they get intertwined). Our squadron has a pilot, who I will not acknowledge as active since he doesn't show face at our meetings, ever. The only time he shows up is to conduct the O-Flights, and that's it, and he has to borrow the aircraft from another squadron anyway since we don't have a plane. It doesn't seem like our Senior component has a significant role in the volunteer service area or aerospace education outside of the cadet program. Everything we do revolves around that. It's a great way to recruit more cadets, but not Senior Members. All of our Seniors were either once a cadet or have kids in the program.

I was working on arranging a leadership exercise on an obstacle course at the local university. This was something I did back when I was in ROTC. The school was hesitant about accepting people under the age of 14 due to their concerns over maturity, but they agreed to offer us a slot on their schedule at a monetary cost, not a huge deal. I even suggested it as a sole-Senior activity to keep the cost down and benefit the teamwork between Senior Members and improve the cohesion among us. It was heavily shot down by the commander as non-beneficial to the entire squadron. I even offered to pay for everyone out of my own pocket ($200 for the entire squadron, or like $100 for the Seniors). Our PAO, soon-to-be commander in February, agreed with me and thought it would be a great activity.

I'm not looking for agreement on every suggestion. That's the whole point of discussing it, but it seems like we have zero Senior-based operations unless we have to include the cadets in everything, even if it's a meeting to talk about the cadet program's activities.

We're starting to see some Seniors break out and do some training on their own accord, such as myself. When I first joined the squadron, before I even had my membership sent out, my commander said she would talk to the flying squadron to get me some contacts and help scheduling my training. I had to just get out there and do it myself. A couple of us wanted to give Flight Line Marshall training a go, and we've come to the point where we're just going to go to another unit on our own one of these days and do it ourselves, rather than leaving the option open for the entire squadron.

We've consistently come to the conclusion, at staff meetings, that "we have too much going on" to schedule additional activities. It's really frustrating when this stubborn leadership coming right out of the people who are supposed to be the guidance for the Seniors, and even the cadets pick up on it.

This may be more of a rant than anything at this point, and we might just have to hurry up and standby for the Change of Command come 2016.

Some of this is nothing more than "busy work" for the sake of saying we did something - it's not value added.  And if it's not value added, we shouldn't do it.

I absolutely agree with and love this statement. The busy work not only wastes time and equipment resources, but money and morale.

[Holding Pattern]

I'm just looking to get some insight as to how some of the other squadrons, small or big, act as composite squadrons and not so much cadet squadrons. I love working with my cadets, for sure, but I'd also like to see a lot more senior activity as well, especially considering that we're supposed to operate as a composite, not just a cadet squadron.

Thoughts?

One thing our squadron did for a bit (15 senior members at the time) is go over each block of the OBC with the person teaching being rotated each week. We had a short period where senior attendance got low due to summer, and now with the ramp up the three things we are pushing are the AE ribbon, CyberPatriot (Seniors teaching cadets, but the material is diverse and useful enough to engage SMs as well), and PD in the form of FEMA/AED/Radio courses.

[THRAWN]

There's lots to do....

-AEPSM
-FEMA IS 100, 200, 700, 800
-Leadership labs (guest speakers on military and civic leadership and management topics)
-Small unit SAREX (L/MPS, ELT DF, Land nav, basic survival)
-FAA WINGS courses and discussions
-Discussions about and enrollment in USAF AU DL courses (enroll everybody at once and have weekly "study sessions"
-Intro to drill (and do it right...nothing like having 3 guys teaching drill and getting 3 different ways to do a left face...have somebody that knows what they're doing teach it...)

That's in addition to specialty track mentoring sessions with group and wing staffers, stuff at group, stuff at wing, etc.

One things that I did when I was a squadron commander was a "book of the month" club, so to speak. It was something that I had taken part in when I was in management at UPS. We picked a book on leadership or management (something inexpensive, but valuable...) and discussed the content chapter by chapter. It was a good way to reinforce some of the concepts that we learned in training and seminars and kept the management team all on the same sheet of music. Some of books sounded stupid at first (Managing from the Heart comes to mind...yeeech!) but turned out that they laid the groundwork for methods that I still use nearly 20 years later. There's a lot of sources these days (halfpricedbooks.com, Amazon, eBay) and you can get the titles for under a buck. I used halfpriced for a course that I just wrapped up and the cost for all 4 required books was under $20. Use your imagination.

[TheSkyHornet]

I'm just looking to get some insight as to how some of the other squadrons, small or big, act as composite squadrons and not so much cadet squadrons. I love working with my cadets, for sure, but I'd also like to see a lot more senior activity as well, especially considering that we're supposed to operate as a composite, not just a cadet squadron.

Thoughts?

One thing our squadron did for a bit (15 senior members at the time) is go over each block of the OBC with the person teaching being rotated each week. We had a short period where senior attendance got low due to summer, and now with the ramp up the three things we are pushing are the AE ribbon, CyberPatriot (Seniors teaching cadets, but the material is diverse and useful enough to engage SMs as well), and PD in the form of FEMA/AED/Radio courses.

We have 6 Seniors that regularly attend meetings. By "regularly" I mean at least once or twice a month...

Lately, we've had 4 Seniors at each meeting. Summer doesn't usually help so much with the weather being nice and people trying to use this time for family events, vaca, etc. A lot of cadets end up at the will of their parents, especially when they can't yet drive themselves. We have about 15 active cadets right now, probably 9 showing up regularly in the past month.

Our squadron meetings are Sunday afternoons. I'm not sure where this time came from. I know of a squadron that has their meetings every Tuesday at 7pm and they go until 10pm during the summer, with 40+ people showing up.

The overall participation in our squadron is on the low side lately, but the Senior-specific activity is non-existent outside of staff meetings, held an hour before the squadron meeting once a month.

All our Senior Membership does at this point is work to serve the cadet program, with no direction to serving the Senior component of the squadron. And we really don't have the mentor thing going. Obviously this comes from a leadership problem in which someone higher up than those with a grievance does not accept feedback very well. If it wasn't for their kids in the squadron, I think the other Seniors would just drop off the roster. I guess I'm the anomaly with no personal investment in the unit in respect to not having been a prior cadet in our squadron nor having a child in the cadet program. 

[THRAWN]

I'm just looking to get some insight as to how some of the other squadrons, small or big, act as composite squadrons and not so much cadet squadrons. I love working with my cadets, for sure, but I'd also like to see a lot more senior activity as well, especially considering that we're supposed to operate as a composite, not just a cadet squadron.

Thoughts?

One thing our squadron did for a bit (15 senior members at the time) is go over each block of the OBC with the person teaching being rotated each week. We had a short period where senior attendance got low due to summer, and now with the ramp up the three things we are pushing are the AE ribbon, CyberPatriot (Seniors teaching cadets, but the material is diverse and useful enough to engage SMs as well), and PD in the form of FEMA/AED/Radio courses.

We have 6 Seniors that regularly attend meetings. By "regularly" I mean at least once or twice a month...

Lately, we've had 4 Seniors at each meeting. Summer doesn't usually help so much with the weather being nice and people trying to use this time for family events, vaca, etc. A lot of cadets end up at the will of their parents, especially when they can't yet drive themselves. We have about 15 active cadets right now, probably 9 showing up regularly in the past month.

Our squadron meetings are Sunday afternoons. I'm not sure where this time came from. I know of a squadron that has their meetings every Tuesday at 7pm and they go until 10pm during the summer, with 40+ people showing up.

The overall participation in our squadron is on the low side lately, but the Senior-specific activity is non-existent outside of staff meetings, held an hour before the squadron meeting once a month.

All our Senior Membership does at this point is work to serve the cadet program, with no direction to serving the Senior component of the squadron. And we really don't have the mentor thing going. Obviously this comes from a leadership problem in which someone higher up than those with a grievance does not accept feedback very well. If it wasn't for their kids in the squadron, I think the other Seniors would just drop off the roster. I guess I'm the anomaly with no personal investment in the unit in respect to not having been a prior cadet in our squadron nor having a child in the cadet program.

Give people something worthwhile to do and they will come.

[A.Member]

Our squadron meetings are Sunday afternoons.

That's a pretty crappy meeting time.  I'd look to change that ASAP.

[THRAWN]

Our squadron meetings are Sunday afternoons.

That's a pretty crappy meeting time.  I'd look to change that ASAP.

I wish that we were able to have a weekend time. Leaving work, getting to the squadron, skipping third mess all to meet an 1800 start time on a week night was terrible.

[TheSkyHornet]

That's a pretty crappy meeting time.  I'd look to change that ASAP.

Personally, I agree because it's inconvenient for people who have weekend plans, and if we want to have an event on Sunday, we lose the meeting to actually discuss things. I'm not a fan of a 3:00-5:30pm meeting on Sunday.

I guess the logic was "My kid has to be in school the next day, so we can't do it on a weekday evening." I think we'd see a bigger turnout and a better chance to plan events around weekends rather than plan around the meeting schedule.

I wish that we were able to have a weekend time. Leaving work, getting to the squadron, skipping third mess all to meet an 1800 start time on a week night was terrible.

The squadron where I'm doing my flight training at meets Tuesday at 7pm until 9:30 on school days and 10:00 during the summer. It's a bit late for us working folk when I have a half-hour drive, but it's actually a very nice meeting time and the turnout is ridiculously heavy.

[Holding Pattern]

I'll throw out there that the FEMA Professional Development series is a rather useful item to throw on the agenda for SMs.

http://training.fema.gov/is/searchis.aspx?search=pds

I personally think CAP should incorporate these courses into the ES track.

[Paul Creed III]

Ohio Wing will hosting the Fall 2015 Great Lakes Region Training Weekend in October.

https://goo.gl/6hvBeK

The training weekend draws at least 100 people and I have seen training weekends pushing 175 or more people.

[EMT-83]

Our squadron has a pilot, who I will not acknowledge as active since he doesn't show face at our meetings, ever. The only time he shows up is to conduct the O-Flights, and that's it, and he has to borrow the aircraft from another squadron anyway since we don't have a plane.

Don't be so short-sighted. There are many cadets who have never seen a CAP aircraft, never mind flying in one. Your one pilot has to schedule and retrieve a plane from another unit and fly your O-flights. He might not be Member of the Year material, but he has to jump through hoops to make that happen.

[THRAWN]

I'll throw out there that the FEMA Professional Development series is a rather useful item to throw on the agenda for SMs.

http://training.fema.gov/is/searchis.aspx?search=pds

I personally think CAP should incorporate these courses into the ES track.

Ditto. This is a great block that takes very little time to do and is valuable.

[Alaric]

I'll throw out there that the FEMA Professional Development series is a rather useful item to throw on the agenda for SMs.

http://training.fema.gov/is/searchis.aspx?search=pds

I personally think CAP should incorporate these courses into the ES track.

Ditto. This is a great block that takes very little time to do and is valuable.

I've completed those and think they're great, but not as a group activity. 

[TheSkyHornet]

I'll throw out there that the FEMA Professional Development series is a rather useful item to throw on the agenda for SMs.

http://training.fema.gov/is/searchis.aspx?search=pds

I personally think CAP should incorporate these courses into the ES track.

That's actually really interesting. I might take a look into that.
I'm not our squadron's ES Officer, but it's definitely something to read up on and see what we can make of it.

Ohio Wing will hosting the Fall 2015 Great Lakes Region Training Weekend in October.

https://goo.gl/6hvBeK

The training weekend draws at least 100 people and I have seen training weekends pushing 175 or more people.

At the moment, I do plan on this; however, I'm not sure some if the other Seniors will be attending from our squadron. I think I'm the only one my commander requested to attend. I might be traveling for work around then, so I need to hold off on my registration until later in September.

Don't be so short-sighted. There are many cadets who have never seen a CAP aircraft, never mind flying in one. Your one pilot has to schedule and retrieve a plane from another unit and fly your O-flights. He might not be Member of the Year material, but he has to jump through hoops to make that happen.

I wasn't being "short-sighted" on this. I was just saying we have an additional Senior in our unit who isn't really an active member in regard to the Senior component for the squadron. He's closer with the cadet side in a sense of providing them with their O-Flights; although, he's not the only one we use. Like most people, he has a full-time job elsewhere and can't always dedicate his free time to CAP, which is very understandable as I have that situation myself, especially with my paying job.

What I'd like to see are more Senior Member training events like those listed above, but perhaps something we can incorporate at the squadron level, not necessarily a travel-to activity only when Wing is hosting it.

I've completed those and think they're great, but not as a group activity.

That's more what I'm getting at: a group activity/training event.


I think our squadron is in a creative fix right now, and we don't have a lot of dieas being thrown around lately. In fact, some of the cadets stopped offering suggesting because they felt that they weren't being heard on the cadet side. Since then, we've changed leadership up a bit, including the Deputy Commander for Cadets, and I'm working on bettering the cadet program, but that takes time.

[THRAWN]

I'll throw out there that the FEMA Professional Development series is a rather useful item to throw on the agenda for SMs.

http://training.fema.gov/is/searchis.aspx?search=pds

I personally think CAP should incorporate these courses into the ES track.

Ditto. This is a great block that takes very little time to do and is valuable.

I've completed those and think they're great, but not as a group activity.

Why? Take them chapter by chapter. It beats self study CBT. You get a lot of practical discussion on the topics that reinforce the dry concepts in the course.