2024 National Conference Notes

[UWONGO2]

I'm here at the conference and hanging around the command council meeting. Here are some notes from today, please keep in mind I was jotting down stuff as quickly as I could I wasn't worried about grammar and spelling:

Col John Longley - BOG
Brief overview what the BOG is up to, specifically cadet protection and a new dashboard that has been developed. Strategic planning process, back in June spent an entire day on it, have formed a specific steering group with a charter. Aim is to improve solvency of the organization and achieve stability. Implementing a DEI program, which also includes a new dashboard. To maintain credibility, need to focus on DEI. Revising constitution and bylaws, cooperative working group meets weekly, presented recommendations to the BOG which discussed the changes this week. CAP terms to be changed to 4 years without possibility for extensions. Appreciates the support from Gen Phelka, Gen Aye, and Mr. Desmarias. Always welcome to discuss the BOG, stop him to chat any time.  Added General Anderson as advisor member of the BOG.

Maj Gen Edward Phelka CEO
Seven years of these meetings, plus national board meetings as a wing/cc (and even the NEC). Acknowledged national staff, BOG, leaders, plus the audience members who are interested in what CAP is doing. Trying to find a balance between what wing/region commanders need to know and hearing from you on your issues and questions. Thanked everyone and ackowledged it's his last command council meeting.

Mr. John Desmarais - COO
Thanked Gen Phelka, really enjoyed working with him. Today, let's all be sure to learn from each other. Paid/vol national staff here, fellow leaders. Let's have a good time and respectively discuss some tough topics. Recognized national staff.

Col Aaron Reid - CAP-USAF
Second command council, has been traveling the country meeting leaders. Former cadet himself, TNWG, earned a flight scholarship, left as a C/Lt Col. 22.5 years in USAF, thrilled to be back working with CAP. CAP-USAF is your program manager and is here to ensure CAP is successful. Finally able to add a few bodies to CAP-USAF in the past few weeks. Added three O-6 members. CD, IMA, & special projects. Normally bring 20-30 people to the conference, brought 60 people this year.

Mr. Ron Olienyk - DO
Showed employee staff org chart, recently added senior program manager for emergency services - recruitment starts soon. NOC is short staffed, please be patient. 80 vol staff members in operations, appreciates their service.

Flying hours - set a o-ride record last year, gonna be about 3% more this year. Good problem of more cadets joining, but need to maintain funding to get them flown - gonna need to make some budgetary trade-offs to make it happen.

Talked about Waldo, limited number of them. Working through STC issue with FAA. Stationed in FL, LA, other locations where they'll get used the most (hurricanes). Stepping up to meet FEMA requests to incude tornadoes.

FLIR - never really had a fully featured FLIR solution in the past. Excited about the 8 systems out there now, some hiccups so far, but working through it. Waiting on some cabling, will be used with Aeronet (which are delayed). Want to deploy them as complete systems, so waiting on issues to get resolved before roll-out.

Talked a little more AERONet system. Three of them in Puerto Rico, will solve issues for them during hurricane response.

RPA Escort - growing mission, but we need to move carefully. Extended support in Ellington, Syracuse (fallen off), California. Getting one-off support requests, but we don't have a good training program. Staff putting together a task syllabus that will require MP/MO to complete certain tasks prior to doing the one-off escort.

sUAS - Growing list of things CAP can do with these. Updating X2D with X10D. Restricted to purchasing only "blue" airframes which drives up cost about 10X. Limited inventory, will take some tiem to replace a broken airframe. Each region getting 1 Wingtra 1 Gen 2. 35K-70K per system. Goals: Wingtra 2 per region, X10 1 per wing, Skydio 1 per ICP. Red Cell aircraft are controlled by NHQ and assigned as needed. 2 Wingtra systems - require SME support from NHQ. Legacy aircraft can continue to fly until they fail.

Geospatial - again showed the picture of President Biden reviewing a product that was produced by CAP GIS team. Supported 36 missions since 2019. 276 qualified analysts so far. Open to everyone, cadet & senior, and overseas members. SQTRs coming soon.

Rated Preparation Program - Great program that supports USAF directly. Asking wing commanders to be accommodating for this and other national activities when it comes to moving aircraft. Getting more expensive and trend has been moving aircraft from further away

Ops Eval - bit of a hiccup in 2023, but it's going well. Ops eval now looks at what wings actually do.

CFI Development - 19 participants, 2 dropped. 14 done, 3 in progress. 28 powered / 2 glider with 3 in progress

29 saves is a historical low, mission count is lower than in the past. Cell and Radar teams still pretty busy. Talked a bit about AFRCC tasking, they work with SAR coordinators in each state. So we can inform the AFRCC about ELTs we hear or other searches that we want to be involved in, but the AFRCC has to work through their process.

Talked a little about unpublished SQTRs that are being worked on and may be required by DO after a risk assessment (didn't elaborate).

FEMA MA Tasking - requires 1AF and Air Force Grants Officer requirement. Asking to help FEMA understand the process can take some time (no idea what a MA is, obviously some sort of agreement).

Utilization rates - can remove an aircraft that has been down for a long time from stats, request from NOC. May stop doing this since all wings end up with aircraft that has extended downtime.

Engine break in, seeing some engine failures. LG is developing mission profile & funding for engine break in.

Someone asked about CAP better advertising sUAS to public sector, recently worked a mission outside of CAP that had a ton of sUAS resources, none of which were CAP. Also commented our response times and approval proess generally prevents our participation. ROn said public sector has caught up with and surpassed CAP with sUAS but we will be doing more to advertise our capabilities.

Someone asked about NESA graduates came back all fired up with new terminology stating it's all official and done. Ron said NESA is their test bed, like what they're seeing, working on new SQTRs to match what NESA is doing, but no, nothing that was done at NESA is a done deal.

Question about sUAS wings or badges or something that I missed (lost interest about bling).

Mike Valdez & Rico Vazquez - Logistics
Logistics Reimagined - all new org chart, added people, changed roles. Logstics split into two - aviation management and mission resources (Rico). Trying to add strategic planning on top of tactical, previously so busy just putting out fires, no long term planning.

Aircraft management & maint, transportation operations, supply and real property, facilities & mail operations.

Moving some LG functions from NTC to reduce redundancy. NTC understaffed, overwhelmed, 60 hour work weeks. Moving program support, warehouse management, lifecycle management, shipping & receiving, & electronics maintenance. About 3 months to plan, about 3 months to hire people, about 2-3 months to train new folks.

Vehicle procurement - All funds 21/22/23 have been used, should use all for 24. Don't want to give money back. Previously relied solely on volunteers to handle disposition of vehicles, often having to drive 10-12 hours to drop off location. Partnered with CARS who take the old vehicles from wherever they are, process them, and auction them. CAP has earned 91K on 33 vehicles sold. Website with vehicle due-in list has been published.

Aircraft procurement - 556 planes, 17 pending retirement. 51 gliders, 12 pending retirement. 2 balloons, 0 pending retirement. Trying to sustain 540, currently evaluating what the appropriate size of the fleet should be. Aircraft readiness, average 77.8% mission capable nationwide. Better MC rate than most military aviation units. Very good given the geographical disbursement and airframe types.

FY22 buy 36 aircraft (2-T206, 4-T182T, 9-182T, 21-172S) , 3 left to be delivered next month. FY23 15 aircraft (14-172S, 1-182T), 3 refurb (why some many 172s? It's what Cessna had available). FY24 15 aircraft (9-182T, 3-T182T, 3-T206). Aim to purchase 15 a year.

Thanks to Col Martha Morris, SWR, NCR, KSWG and others, we now test drive planes before accepting them. Issues get resolve before the plane leaves the factory.

Aircraft distribution - use PowerBI to pull data from AMRAD, WMIRS, ORMS, after a "donkulation" a recommendation is created. Then goes to CSAG to take recommendations and compare against institutional knowledge, upcoming mission changes, etc. Utilization is the highest rated factor (22%), then 30+ year old aircraft (18%) and Over 6K hours (18%).

Been uneven delivery of new aircraft because certain regions had really old planes. Should all even out in a couple of years.

CAP-USAF sent non-compliance letter. Compliance Action Team formed to tackle the discrepancies. Created about 200 solutions that boiled down to 20 actionable items. Worked 8 months. Maintenance Improvement Team now working the systemic issues the CAT identified. Inadequate governance, inadequate training, requirement for improved maintenance information system (AMRAD needs to be replaced or highly modified), ineffective processes, no internal control system. Can't overhaul the entire maint program in one swoop. Taking on 7 issues for first iteration. Governance, internal controls, MIS (buy or udate), AMO training, FRO training, post maint acceptance, ownership/culture training.

Asked commanders for help. We're breaking a lot of stuff. Lots of pictures of broken planes and vehicles. Can't easily replace stuff - supply chain issues, increasing replacement and repair costs, not to mention staff time. Break a vehicle and it will take over a year to replace.

Upcoming - ROS training/Guide, Real Property Guide, Regulations, Maintenance Improvement Team. Giong to ask for some maint inspections. Going to ask for testing of new MIS.

Cadet Protection Update - Brig Gen Regena Aye, Mr. Michael Nunemaker, Ms. Katie Thurson
Third party study said we have a good protection program, but some improvements can be made. Focus area from BOG to newest cadet.

Added Ms. Thurson as Youth Protection Program Manager. She said our Cadet Protection Program is not good enough. Covered some of the scandels of the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts, but also items she's been personally been told in her short time in CAP. According to the CDC, 25% of all females and 5% of all boys experience sexual abuse before they turn 18. Talked about the commercials from the 80s that warned children about strangers in trenchcoats being bad guys was actually harmful because offenders actually tend to be known to children. Discussed civil payouts for abuse cases.

30+ "notable" incidents from past year
28% - Progressive Discipline not applied correctly or where a cadet doesn't understand progressive discipline and thinks it's hazing
10% - sexual assault (100% occurred external to CAP, but occurred due to prior relationships within CAP)
20% - safety & injury. Parents failing to disclose medical conditions, cadets not being supervised during "transitional times" like shower time, helment usage, suicidal ideation.
90% - internal context means the setting of the incident occured during a CAP activity like meetings, encampments, and NCSAs
28% - parent contact - anonymous facebook posts by parents, parents calling NHQ saying they don't know who to call

42% of notable incidents were cadet to cadet

Gen Phelka - we do have a robust program that continues to improve over the last 30 years. Didn't have this when he was a cadet. External study that used over 260 different criteria. We did really, really well. Identified a few criteria where we can improve and CAP leadership is laser focused on improving the program.

Questions from the floor
Someone said they found a gap with CPP and 18 year olds (didn't understand what the issue was). Thurson was surprised about cadets being over 18, not someting she'd seen before with the camps she worked with. How do we deal with 18 year olds, where do they sleep, who supervises them, things of that nature.

Mentioned about cadets over 18 or cadets that need accommodations, (didn't quite catch a question or issue). Thurson talked about reaching out to others to see who had dealt with this issue previously, partnering with parents. Gen Phelka said CAP wants to accomodate cadets to the best of our ability, but to accomodate them we need to know about them and sometimes parents are hesitant to share because they're worried their cadet will excluded. We need to make sure parents are educated that we will make every reasonable accommodation that we can.

Someone said leaders are scared to make decisions about accommodations out of fear of reprisal - can we get better training that is scenario heavy. Thurson talked about having legal officers briefing commanders and activity directors to ensure compliance, updating RST with scenarios.

Question about conflict resolution training - answer was around providing scenarios about conflict resolution or how to call parents to say your kid is going home early.

Reimaginging National Headquarters - Mr. Desmaraias
To modernize and optimize our corporate structure. Ensuring volunteers and employees can do their job while sustaining their work life values and goals.

Risks of not changing - saying yes to everything can negatively impact quality. Continuing an unsustainable corporate operations tempo; delaying our ability to achieve strategic and program goals. Volunteer and employee stress burnout. [other bullet points I missed]

As of January 2024 a new org chart that incorporates phase 1. Phase 2 starts with a chief people officer. Phase 1 included hiring about 30 people (about 7 done so far). Pretty much every OPR is adding personnel. Hires are to be long term and they've worked the budget to account for these positions.

Aerospace Curricula Modernization - Dr. Shayla Freeman (Director of AE) & Ms. Gina Zoller (Curriculum Manager)
Showed a video that highlighted all the wonderful things the Aerospace Program has done, including ACE, ACE plus, high altitude balloon challenge, thousands of STEM kits handed out. Lots of great wins.

Analyzed 239 AE assets and looked at the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. Surveyed 523 AE members, 25% use AE resources at least twice a month. Survey results for what new resources would people like include updated curriculum, technology standars, improved facilitator instructions, [plus some more stuff that I didn't catch]

For 2025-2026 AE will revise and enhance current curriculum assets and high usage rates, develop new instructional resources alongside the education team, create eLearning resources and digital supplementary materials, improve curriculum accessibility and impact.

FY24 Safety Trends Mr. Michael Nunemaker & Mr. Mark Dulaney
Proficiency flying is slightly down, proficiency flying with an instructor or check pilot onboard is way up. Big issues: Prop damage (which includes engine inspection) & nose wheel struts. Ground handling incidents way down, 19 (2021), 26 (2022), 19 (2023), and 6 for 2024. Col Martha Morris credited with digging into this and contributing to the much lower number for this year.

Glider damage rate per 1K, 5.7 (2022), 3.5 (2023), 4.7 (2024). One incident injured the cadet and senior member on board. Glider rater is 4x higher than the powered flight ratio.

Vehicles - reckless driving videos have been submitted to NHQ by the public.

Bone fracture injuries have gone up (due to sport activities). Other injuries seem below average.

The belief is SSOs aren't being reported, need all the data.

Ongoing emphasis
Aircraft - pilot, instructor proficiency, check pilot interventions
Vehicle - backing
Injury/illness - slips trips and falls; high-impact sports activities
Heat related illness
Allergies, pre-existing conditions

Communicating and Leading Change - Grig Gen Regna Aye, Mr. Michael Nunemaker, Col Andrea Van Buren
How well are doing planning and preparing for change in CAP. Finding out that you're not doing something properly per regulation and that regulation changed three years ago.

Role of leadership: Know your ABCs, Be Active and Visible, Build a Coalition, Communicate

Get ready for change - Awareness (why is change necessary), Desire (what are the benefits and consequences), Knowledge (what do I need to know to support change), Ability (What do I need to be able to do), Reinforcement (How will I be supported through the process).

Some changes coming: Cadet protection, CAP Health (part of registration zone), Emergency Contact (who commanders call for what consolidated into one email that automatically gets routed to all the right people), Citizen Waiver process, Regulation Tracking System (and overall publications management)

Have to be careful not to roll out too many changes at once. Monitor changes, see if people are implementing the changes and did the changes do what was intended.

Questions from the field: Mr. Joseph Hall, Mr. Michael Nunemaker, Ms. Kristina Jones, Mr. Mike Valdez
Encampment with 300 people had 600 "patient contacts" within the first few days. Wants to know about MSO minimum staffing. Also looking for guidance about what parents should be notified. - Nunemaker: HSOs very interested in being more involved in encampment, but there are limitations to the number of personnel they have.

Expand maint officer track to include vehicles? - Valdez: New training coming with new reg, transportation officer track will include some of that as well

If someone is removed or leaves CAP, they can no longer be located in eServices. Hall: You can request through the Helpdesk for access to view information that you need.

Advice on units/wings that are going out and getting support from their communities. Jones: Added to the development team who is helping. Development team is for all of CAP. 60% of funds in CAP foundation have geographic restrictions. They don't compete with units/wings. Handout for all attendees on fundraising ideas, employee matching, all wing pages now have a donate button and that button goes directly to the unit (does not stop at NHQ).

Supplying vehicles and aircraft to national activities-transporting those assets to/from the activities don't include fuel budget.

Lack of common communication platform for the entire organization - Hall: Looking to build out one cloud environment for the organization at a cost of $3 million.

How about one common project management platform to build on all the change management discussion - Hall: That would be a part of the Office 365 environment.

D2R platform seemed to imply an end-date for CAPWATCH, is there one? - Hall: D2R is still in motion, volunteer development team means a little slower. No sunset date picked at all for CAPWATCH. When CAPWATCH will be sunsetted it won't be a sudden change, there will be plenty of leadtime and coordination.

Encampment locations are a struggle for a lot of wings and increasing costs of food, is there a long term strategy for wings to host encampments - LaFond: Do a lot more joint encampments, had encampments that were cancelled this year but there was excess capacity at other encampments were able to pick up the slack. $260 is the average for a week's long encampment, $500-$600 average cost for a day camp, $1,000-$1,5000 for a week camp. We need to be charging a lot more for encampment. Encampment assistance program is there to help pick up the slack for the most needy cadets. Said during encampment vists NHQ is seeing cadets not getting enough to eat due to limited dining budget. Air Force doesn't have the bases they used to have, need to start using more college campuses with field trips to local Air Force installations. New NHQ paid employee dedicated to encampment is starting soon, will be looking in curriculum, sharing best practices, etc. Col Reid: Lean on your CAP-USAF folks to help with finding locations and work through issues that arise.

Looking for a standard of a "hard landing" since it's subjective, such as using shock sensors - Nunemaker: Any landing that includes multiple landings in short succession should be considered a hard landing. Will do a cost/benefit analysis on shock measuring systems.

~~ Sorry for any typos or abuses of the English language ~~

[arajca]

Thank you for the lengthy post. It contains so much more information than National puts out to us unwashed masses.

[ZigZag911]

Thanks for doing this!

[UWONGO2]

Questions from the field: Mr. Joseph Hall, Mr. Michael Nunemaker, Ms. Kristina Jones, Mr. Mike Valdez
Encampment with 300 people had 600 "patient contacts" within the first few days. Wants to know about MSO minimum staffing. Also looking for guidance about what parents should be notified. - Nunemaker: HSOs very interested in being more involved in encampment, but there are limitations to the number of personnel they have.

Sorry folks, screwed this up. It should be the person with the question asked about HSO minimum staffing, not MSO.

[RiverAux]

Thank you for the report.  Although I wasn't looking to get reactivated with CAP (still a patron, barely), I didn't see anything that excited me about doing so.  But, I'm one of those ES-focused types...

[TheSkyHornet]

Excellent summarization!

Glad to hear that they're doing a much more thorough review of our Cadet Protection Program than I previously had heard. It makes a lot of sense, and I've been saying for years that we need to figure out how to better accommodate our cadets who are over the age of 18 and better train them to our program standards.

As someone who isn't really involved much in the Operations sphere, I'm curious as to the reduction of missions. Are we receiving less calls at a response effort provider? Are there less search-and-rescue opportunities (i.e., less missing persons)? Are there faster avenues to resolving/finding missing persons before CAP gets the call? This seems like it needs a lot of context and statistical explanation to clearly identify what the problem is...if there is one.

[UWONGO2]

As someone who isn't really involved much in the Operations sphere, I'm curious as to the reduction of missions. Are we receiving less calls at a response effort provider? Are there less search-and-rescue opportunities (i.e., less missing persons)? Are there faster avenues to resolving/finding missing persons before CAP gets the call? This seems like it needs a lot of context and statistical explanation to clearly identify what the problem is...if there is one.

The drop in saves is due to the Cell Team seeing a drop in saves (although I have no explanation for that). It's been awhile since I looked, but the RADAR and Cell Teams accounted for over 85% of the finds and saves the AFRCC credited CAP the year I ran stats on. I don't think that changes much year-to-year.

I don't think the wings have seen a reduction in REDCAP SAR missions as they weren't getting called for the most part anyway and haven't been for quite some time. The "why" for that is quite complicated, boils down to politics, capability, and dependability.

[TheSkyHornet]

I think an important point to make here is this:

It is a good thing to have, overall, less search and rescue missions (assigned to any SAR service provider). Hopefully, it means that technology has advanced people's ability to navigate unfamiliar landscapes, monitor weather, and communicate with outsiders.

So if the Cell Forensics Team is searching for less missing persons, I would hope that it's due to these technological innovations which have improved wilderness exploration. Frankly, if another organization can get there faster and more effectively and efficiently, that's also a positive when we're talking about saving a human life, whether they're a partner of "the competition." It's a plus.

The world we live in is changing. It doesn't mean the old world is gone, but we need to adapt to the new world and the services appropriate for the new era.

Interesting series of factoids:
According to the National Park Service, more than 325 million people visit an NPS-managed site in 2023 (which includes National Parks, National Monuments, National Registered Historic Places, National Heritage Sites, etc.); this includes multiple visits and regular explorers (I myself have lost count, but I'm somewhere around 15 visits to NPS locations this year). Approximately 236 people go missing each year (something like .000073%). The number of annual hikers is significantly increasing, up some 89% over the last 25 years.

[UWONGO2]

So if the Cell Forensics Team is searching for less missing persons, I would hope that it's due to these technological innovations which have improved wilderness exploration. 

I suspect it's due to more agencies gaining similar capabilities. Darn near every investigator in a law enforcement agency knows how to deal with cell phones for criminal investigations and are learning how to use similar techniques for SAR puruposes.

So it's not that there are less missing people, there are just more agencies who no longer need CAP's help. It's the same reason why CAP rarely is involved in most SAR missions, the local agencies already have ground teams, aircraft (usually the more useful rotary), and drones in-house. They don't need CAP.

It seems doubtful that will ever happen to the NRAT folks. Although ADSB makes it easy for anyone to track aircraft, there are still a lot of times that it's RADAR data that gets the SAR team to the crash site. I can't think of other agency that participates in SAR that has the RADAR/ADSB access the NRAT folks have.

[TheSkyHornet]

So if the Cell Forensics Team is searching for less missing persons, I would hope that it's due to these technological innovations which have improved wilderness exploration. 

it's not that there are less missing people, there are just more agencies who no longer need CAP's help. It's the same reason why CAP rarely is involved in most SAR missions, the local agencies already have ground teams, aircraft (usually the more useful rotary), and drones in-house. They don't need CAP.

On that point, then, consider that paid and/or local- and state-funded agencies are spending on salaries, benefits, pensions, equipment, facilities, and programming rather than soliciting a zero-cost (at least at the municipal and usually state level) organization...i.e., CAP.

That's an indicator that we cannot keep up with what full-time SAR employees can provide, and it's not cost effective enough to utilize CAP in lieu of other agencies.

We've said for a long time that "CAP has an identity problem." It's not really just an identity issue, it's a programming issue. We struggle to provide the services that we are advertising to our volunteer corps. We do a lot of recruiting with barely any actual, relevant mission focus at most units.

I think people with a real background in these areas struggle when they join CAP because they oftentimes don't see an actual program structure for missions. They see a lot of skeleton projects that are sort of ad hoc put together over a training weekend often supported or staffed by individuals who are barely involved in the actual mission on a regular basis.

If anyone has stats, I'm curious:

• How many units have sUAS capability?
• How many units with sUAS capability are operationally capable 24/7?
• Is there a breakdown of wing capability and number of qualified personnel in each wing?

All of the above said, I'm a lowly member who barely has any experience in CAP's ES programs. I've attended a half-dozen training exercises in my decade in CAP. It's just not been my vibe, and I personally haven't really found it to be a welcoming experience. Then again, Cadet Programs probably has the largest "Hey, we need help over here!" attitude, and they're willing to take just anyone...even me. So don't take my commentary as a major critique but a vast lack of knowledge on what CAP is doing with its ES mission these days. It just doesn't seem to make sense in the modern world of SAR.

[TheSkyHornet]

Encampment locations are a struggle for a lot of wings and increasing costs of food, is there a long term strategy for wings to host encampments - LaFond: Do a lot more joint encampments, had encampments that were cancelled this year but there was excess capacity at other encampments were able to pick up the slack. $260 is the average for a week's long encampment, $500-$600 average cost for a day camp, $1,000-$1,5000 for a week camp. We need to be charging a lot more for encampment. Encampment assistance program is there to help pick up the slack for the most needy cadets. Said during encampment vists NHQ is seeing cadets not getting enough to eat due to limited dining budget. Air Force doesn't have the bases they used to have, need to start using more college campuses with field trips to local Air Force installations.

I wanted to make a separate comment to this. I think I skipped over it in my previous rounds of reading.

I find this to be an extremely interesting topic and piece of commentary. Our Encampment this past year was $325. I was told by higher powers that this number was way too high and that Encampment should not be any more than $250, considering that we have one of the most expensive if not the most within our region.

My remembrance is that Encampment was around $35,000 circa 2016 when we hosted it at a college with day trips to the Air Force base and using the DFAC for chow. The meals we were getting during the day were not nutritious, and we had a lot of exhaustion-related injuries (or at least suspected as the culprit). In 2024, we're getting close to $50,000, and food is definitely taking the biggest chunk out of the budget. This was using a military facility with absolutely no associated cost.

Finding an available location is our biggest challenge, and using that location to its advantages is an even greater struggle when it comes to the planning process and getting innovative. After all, everyone wants to try to produce a "military-style" Encampment...military flights, marksmanship, base tours, etc. But we're short on military facilities that can offer those things let alone housing. So the college approach seems to be the most function, but it's also the definitively most expensive.

To backtrack that:
In 2016, it was around $200 for students for the week, free for cadet and senior staff, with a budget of around $35,000, a mixture of dorms and food.
In 2024, it was $325 for students, $150 (?) for the cadet staff, and free for seniors, with a budget nearing $50,000, almost entirely food.

For you math folks, that's a 143% increase in expenses with a 163% increase in student fees.

Just looking at inflation, average prices have increase by 131% from 2016 to 2024. Gas prices were, on average, $2.14/gallon in 2016; in 2024 they're $3.40, a 169% increase. The old Encampment cost just can't exist anymore. It just can't. It's gone.

The proposal (or expectation) for our Encampment in 2025: Lower the student cost, decrease the food cost, and find a dormitory-style location (probably one that has to be paid for).

The problem with this past year was that the voices agreed that raising the cost to $325 (it was $285 the previous year) was preferred because there needed to be a great amount of income due to budget exceedances last year. The issue was that there wasn't really a budget yet, and it was sort of ad hoc decided to go with $325 as a Goldie Locks approach of "not too high, not too low...just right." And there was almost no budget remaining.

I've heard the "weeklong summer camps cost $1,000" thing. I've done a bit of research and found that to be mostly true with some variances. Sports camps are insane when it comes to their cost, and other simple youth camp environments seem to be a bit more reasonable (or lets say "affordable").

I don't think most of CAP could stomach a $1,000 encampment (especially because we mandate it within the first 18 months of joining...if the cadet promotes on-track). We kind of have this culture of trying to provide everything to everyone at the lowest cost possible. To say "Encampment should be $500" comes with a lot of pushback.

I'm not a finance person. I don't know numbers enough. I know a little bit about budgeting, and I know how to put together activities that are affordable as well as costly.

Encampment tends to be a costly activity. We're going to need to pay for it. And I don't think we'll see student numbers suffer by increasing the price. But we have to do so with support from both higher and lower echelons, parents, and attendees...and that means if you offer a $60,000 encampment, it better be worth $60,000. It's going to be more expensive next year, and the year after that, and that $500 will start to become $525, and then $550.

[PHall]

In California at least, the County Sheriff SAR teams are Volunteer Reserve Deputies who get paid $1 a year.
The department and the teams themselves fund their equipment and training.
To CalOES and the Sheriff Department they are known quantities. They know how they are trained and equipped.
CAP on the other hand is an unknown quantity. Our training and how we are equipped are unknown to them.
About the only skill set we do better then them is electronic search.

[Holding Pattern]

FEMA MA Tasking - requires 1AF and Air Force Grants Officer requirement. Asking to help FEMA understand the process can take some time (no idea what a MA is, obviously some sort of agreement).

FEMA MA - Mission Assignment Overview

[THRAWN]

Encampment locations are a struggle for a lot of wings and increasing costs of food, is there a long term strategy for wings to host encampments - LaFond: Do a lot more joint encampments, had encampments that were cancelled this year but there was excess capacity at other encampments were able to pick up the slack. $260 is the average for a week's long encampment, $500-$600 average cost for a day camp, $1,000-$1,5000 for a week camp. We need to be charging a lot more for encampment. Encampment assistance program is there to help pick up the slack for the most needy cadets. Said during encampment vists NHQ is seeing cadets not getting enough to eat due to limited dining budget. Air Force doesn't have the bases they used to have, need to start using more college campuses with field trips to local Air Force installations.

I wanted to make a separate comment to this. I think I skipped over it in my previous rounds of reading.

I find this to be an extremely interesting topic and piece of commentary. Our Encampment this past year was $325. I was told by higher powers that this number was way too high and that Encampment should not be any more than $250, considering that we have one of the most expensive if not the most within our region.

My remembrance is that Encampment was around $35,000 circa 2016 when we hosted it at a college with day trips to the Air Force base and using the DFAC for chow. The meals we were getting during the day were not nutritious, and we had a lot of exhaustion-related injuries (or at least suspected as the culprit). In 2024, we're getting close to $50,000, and food is definitely taking the biggest chunk out of the budget. This was using a military facility with absolutely no associated cost.

Finding an available location is our biggest challenge, and using that location to its advantages is an even greater struggle when it comes to the planning process and getting innovative. After all, everyone wants to try to produce a "military-style" Encampment...military flights, marksmanship, base tours, etc. But we're short on military facilities that can offer those things let alone housing. So the college approach seems to be the most function, but it's also the definitively most expensive.

To backtrack that:
In 2016, it was around $200 for students for the week, free for cadet and senior staff, with a budget of around $35,000, a mixture of dorms and food.
In 2024, it was $325 for students, $150 (?) for the cadet staff, and free for seniors, with a budget nearing $50,000, almost entirely food.

For you math folks, that's a 143% increase in expenses with a 163% increase in student fees.

Just looking at inflation, average prices have increase by 131% from 2016 to 2024. Gas prices were, on average, $2.14/gallon in 2016; in 2024 they're $3.40, a 169% increase. The old Encampment cost just can't exist anymore. It just can't. It's gone.

The proposal (or expectation) for our Encampment in 2025: Lower the student cost, decrease the food cost, and find a dormitory-style location (probably one that has to be paid for).

The problem with this past year was that the voices agreed that raising the cost to $325 (it was $285 the previous year) was preferred because there needed to be a great amount of income due to budget exceedances last year. The issue was that there wasn't really a budget yet, and it was sort of ad hoc decided to go with $325 as a Goldie Locks approach of "not too high, not too low...just right." And there was almost no budget remaining.

I've heard the "weeklong summer camps cost $1,000" thing. I've done a bit of research and found that to be mostly true with some variances. Sports camps are insane when it comes to their cost, and other simple youth camp environments seem to be a bit more reasonable (or lets say "affordable").

I don't think most of CAP could stomach a $1,000 encampment (especially because we mandate it within the first 18 months of joining...if the cadet promotes on-track). We kind of have this culture of trying to provide everything to everyone at the lowest cost possible. To say "Encampment should be $500" comes with a lot of pushback.

I'm not a finance person. I don't know numbers enough. I know a little bit about budgeting, and I know how to put together activities that are affordable as well as costly.

Encampment tends to be a costly activity. We're going to need to pay for it. And I don't think we'll see student numbers suffer by increasing the price. But we have to do so with support from both higher and lower echelons, parents, and attendees...and that means if you offer a $60,000 encampment, it better be worth $60,000. It's going to be more expensive next year, and the year after that, and that $500 will start to become $525, and then $550.

Check your math. Your point is valid and has been made since the mid 90s, but the numbers are hinky.

[NIN]

Let me piggy-back on what SkyHornet is saying..

Background: As DCP & Encampment Commander back in 2000, I raised encampment price from $90 to $95 to ensure we were covering our costs. I was nearly lynched by the squadron commanders. "Nobody can afford that!" This was at a National Guard facility where the Air Guard did the cooking for us.  (aka: food cost was fairly minimal, as was facilities). FFWD a bunch of years and our encampment was one of the highest, if not the highest, cost encampment in the country. Depending on the program, it was between $375 and $425 per person. This was at a college campus with their dining facility prices. And the college was giving us a healthy discount over what they gave other organizations for weeklong camps.

Encampment is, for most if not all wings, the biggest "muscle movement" the wing does both in terms of effort & costs. 

In 2023 our encampment was at a military facility, but the DFAC told us there was "no room at the inn" so our costs for food were nearly identical to that of the college dining facility. $33/day/person just for food. CAP-USAF and the DFAC folks finally got things sorted for this year, so it was more like $13.50/day/person for food.

We fall into this trap that "encampment should be the cheapest thing out there."  But really, that answer should be a qualified "maybe."  There are myriad costs besides food (billeting, transportation, administrative supplies, other supplies, cost defrayment for staff, etc), but really, food is probably your biggest one. One size does not fit all.

Encampment should be *affordable* to the membership, even when factoring in CEAP. But affordable in 2024 isn't the same as affordable in 2016, or 2001. Things cost money.

We fall in to this trap where we base things on the CEAP reimbursement amounts and the concept of "free encampment" for those who qualify.  CEAP should *assist* cadets who otherwise could not afford to go, but it shouldn't necessarily make encampment entirely free.  On the other hand, nobody should be "not going to encampment because it cost too much." There should be a happy medium there.  There should be a nominal fee for your staff members (cover the billeting or food cost) to gain a little buy in, and even your CEAP participants should have some skin in the game.

Honestly, with costs skyrocketing, we should be seriously considering consolidating encampments into "super encampments" where it makes sense to combine 4-5 wings (ie. up in my neck of the woods) at military facilities that can support us. I know so far we've had a great relationship with Fort Devens down in Mass and they could, in theory, support several hundred CAP folks in barracks and in the DFAC. Running an encampment for (thin air number) 350-400 cadets across 5 wings buys you economies of scale. Trying to staff and run an encampment for 75-90 cadets at a for-profit college runs your costs up, and also you're at the whim of your host. We've seen more than one wing lose their encampment site for one reason or another at the last minute, and thats not something you want to deal with.

There's an answer there someplace, but what works up here in NER might not work in SWR. But maybe its time to attack the encampment paradigm and change how we look at what encampment is and how its run.