Why does "active" membership matter?

[RiverAux]

Does it really matter how many "active" members CAP has?  If there were truly accurate information on exactly how many senior members (which I think is what we're really talking about since inactive cadets usually get weeded out quickly) are doing something for the benefit of CAP in some sort of role, just what good does that information do for CAP? 

In the only area where such numbers really matter, ES, we already know the number of qualified people in each role and can look it up if we need to for some reason.  Yeah, there will be a few people that are still technically qualified but have become inactive, but they drop out as their quals expire. 

Is there any real need to know the number of CAP members helping out in other ways? 

If total CAP membership (however defined) is X and "active" membership (however defined) is some percentage of X, does that tell us anything more than what X did in the first place? 

What we all know without having the need for any specific numbers is that almost all squadrons are dependent on a couple of people to get most of the administrative work done that keeps the squadron going. Larger squadrons might have a few more people willing to do the non-fun work.

It doesn't take a genius to know that any squadron that has a membership anywhere near the minimum number to maintain a unit is going to be barely functional by CAP standards.  Would the regs change if we knew real active membership and for example require 15 "active" members to maintain a unit?  If so, we'd lose a decent percentage of units.  Would that be worth it?  Do we believe a unit that really only has 5 active members out of 15 is providing no service to CAP or the community? 

WIWASC I had a guy that almost never attended meetings, wasn't ES qualified and didn't work with the cadets.  He was a CPA and all he did for CAP was handle our bank account.  By pretty much any likely standard he would have been considered inactive, but he did more of the squadron's grunt work than almost all those that joined up and were very active in ES.  And I was glad to have him. 

The CG Aux has a system for tracking every 15 minutes of time I spend on Aux actions of any type and should anyone care you can very quickly find out who is active (or at least goes to the trouble to report their activity) and inactive.  It doesn't do us a bit of good to know that info.  The only thing it is good for is handing out activity-based awards and giving us a number to show the CG how many hours the Aux worked to support them so that hopefully they will keep us around.  I really don't understand why some here think it is worth the time to try to do it in CAP. 

[etodd]

Thanks RiverAux.  Very well said.

[Eclipse]

At the highest level is this question...

What successful organization, military, FD, LEA, corporate, or volunteer
doesn't know how many active members it has?

Does it really matter how many "active" members CAP has?

Yes.

In the only area where such numbers really matter, ES, we already know the number of qualified people in each role and can look it up if we need to for some reason.  Yeah, there will be a few people that are still technically qualified but have become inactive, but they drop out as their quals expire.

Your assertion that status is only relevent to ES is simply not correct, but regardless...

The raw numbers are useless as is proven out time and again.

First, there are a lot of members that go through the qualification process for the life experience
and never come back.

Second, there are a lot of members who perform jobs without qualification due to CAPs general
lack of enforcement of standards and requirements in "emergencies" for expediency.

Third, there are a lot of members whose qualifications fall off due to life circumstances but
are magically "lit up" in "emergencies" for expediency.

Fourth, there is no guarantee that fully qualified active members will respond to a given
incident to to life circumstances.

I'd love to sit in on a Commission meeting where the above was presented
as the basis for providing Fire or Police protection, or for that matter even
as a discussion point during the negotiations for CAP to provide support
to these agencies.

"How many people could you provide for an incident?"

"Well..."

Reports that provide meaningless data, but that might support an incorrect
assertion of readiness are worse then no report at all.

(...cadets usually get weeded out quickly)

This is demonstrably untrue, especially in the last 3-5 years.

WIWASC I had a guy that almost never attended meetings, wasn't ES qualified and didn't work with the cadets.  He was a CPA and all he did for CAP was handle our bank account.  By pretty much any likely standard he would have been considered inactive, but he did more of the squadron's grunt work than almost all those that joined up and were very active in ES.  And I was glad to have him.

A proper assessment standard would take into account his efforts and report them properly in a meaningful
way. Lack of proper status reporting also allows many members who do put forth a big effort to remain
unheralded for lack of awareness.

You could also make the argument that someone who isn't otherwise active, should not be granted such an
important job, as these types of members are not mentoring their replacements, nor even their assistants,
and tend to leave on a whim if someone takes issue with their process or understanding of regs and polices,
leaving the unit with no one to do the job.

ϕ

NHQ reports member strength to Congress, as well as in marketing collateral
and other arenas as justification of its existence, indication of a "ready force",
and clearly with the intent to promulgate its viability, when the reality is
that the raw numbers are essentially meaningless.

Many unit and wing commanders use the raw numbers as comfort for their lack
of R&R work, or validation of their programs, while knowingly collecting
empty shirts towards some magic "number".

Wings often use empty shirts as chess pieces, transferring them around the wing
to shore up charters that would otherwise be retired due to lack of required membership.

Empty shirts still require non-trivial administrative burden on Unit staff in regards
to record retention and other outdated CAP policies and regs.

CAP presents blanket awards and decorations to the entire membership roster despite only a small
portion of the membership being deserving, this cheapens the awards themselves, and
calls into question awards and decorations that active members receive.

The same goes for promotions, many of which can be attained with little to no meaningful
participation, especially in the last 3-4 years, further undermining the efforts of
those who are actually doing the work, but receive the same promotion as those who just wrote
a check and fulfilled some ridiculous manning requirement.

Improper status reporting makes it difficult to properly scale activities and programs
due to not knowing "how many people we actually have", resulting in either under or over planned
situations (no one is here vs. we can't handle the turnout).

Further to this - there are many, many members, perhaps far too many, who are "once a year"
members, participating in only one or a handful of specific activities like encampments, NCSAs,
NBB, NESA, HMRS, etc., who fall off the radar when these activities stop or disappear.
(To be clear, these activities are important, and tracked hours for the staff of many of these
would exceed those of "once a week" regular members, no question, but are these actually
"members" in the sense Congress and others would consider if they never attend a meeting,
participate in PD ET, or otherwise play in the pool with everyone else? I would argue "no",
especially for those pilots that have zero interest in anything but an occasional academy or glider day,
and I type this knowing I have fallen into that category for the last several years).

Lack of status reporting makes it difficult to judge the actual investiture and capabilities
of members who have been on the rosters for years but rarely participate - this is true for
both cadets and seniors - and often results in people randomly appearing on staff rosters
to (again) fulfill some manning requirement, and then failing hard to due to lack of currency.

Inactive and rarely active members cause constant issues with higher HQ mandates around safety
training, CPPT updates, etc., often making it impossible to attain the goals set forth by
Command without adding asterisks to every report.

Inactive and rarely active cadets can make it difficult, and sometimes impossible to attain
QCUA due to the percentages involved in the various points.

Inactive and rarely active members generally serve zero positive purpose to a local
unit, with any financial advantage going to the Wing or higher.

ϕ

CAP presents itself internally, externally, and to Congress, as a ready force of professionalized
volunteers that adhere to a paramilitary model, and that it generally "has its act together" over
similar and competing organizations, with much of that presentation being supported
by member numbers, yet it actually has no idea, at any level, how many members ever even show
up, let alone could be considered assets in times of crisis, advocates for general aviation, science
and technology, or resources for training and mentoring youth as tomorrow's leaders.

How many people would actually join, and how much money would Congress appropriate, if this
indisputable fact was generally known?

[N6RVT]

At the highest level is this question...

What successful organization, military, FD, LEA, corporate, or volunteerdoesn't know how many active members it has?

Does it really matter how many "active" members CAP has?

Yes.

ϕ

CAP presents itself internally, externally, and to Congress, as a ready force of professionalized volunteers that adhere to a paramilitary model, and that it generally "has its act together" over similar and competing organizations, with much of that presentation being supported by member numbers, yet it actually has no idea, at any level, how many members ever even show up, let alone could be considered assets in times of crisis, advocates for general aviation, science and technology, or resources for training and mentoring youth as tomorrow's leaders.

How many people would actually join, and how much money would Congress appropriate, if this indisputable fact was generally known?

I have nowhere near either the eloquence it takes to write like this, nor the motivation to put that kind of effort into this forum, but I agree with every word of this.

[Ned]

I am a little confused here.

It sounds like we agree that we don't have a useful definition of what an "active member" is.  Or should be.

And RiverAux described that tracking "time actually devoted to performing organizational duties" was not particularly helpful.  We acknowledge that CPAs who rarely physically appear can be very useful to the organization.  And "encampment-only" members may actually contribute more hours than members who show up regularly.

And yet there appears to be a great deal of angst that we are not measuring and reporting the very thing we cannot define or measure.

But I guess that's what we do on CAPTalk.

If it helps, as a military unit commander, I could certainly tell you how many people were present or accounted for on any particular day.  Mostly because I had to pay them and maintain accountability for the payroll records.

But having x number of people getting paid was not a very good measure of anything, including my ability to accomplish my mission.  At any one time, a surprising number of my soldiers were on leave, in the process of transferring in or out, sick, pregnant, on profile, at lengthy schools, TDY someplace far away, or not yet MOS-qualified.

And the Army is intensely numbers-driven.  I had to track 15-20 different stats   (# assigned, % deployable, # at schools, # non-deployable for weight or medical issues, AWOLs, and many, many more than I cared to remember.  And I had several full-time folks devoted to the task, including company clerks and a Personnel Officer.

But if you were to ask me: "If the balloon went up tonight, how many soldiers who are trained and fit for service could muster with their gear by 1700 tomorrow?"  I would certainly have a good guess.  But it would only have been a guess.

So be careful what you wish for. . .

But if the group collectively wants to try and reach consensus on a definition of "active member," I will certainly try to help.

[Eclipse]

This group reaching a consensus on anything when NHQ is WHOLLY DISINTERESTED in even
acknowledging the issue, let alone addressing it serves no purpose towards fixing the issue.

But you can start with.

All patrons removed from unit and wing rosters and transferred to 996, and NEVER included
in any reports of member strength except as "financial supporters".

All members assigned to 000 units for more then 60 days - Inactive.

Any member who has not attended a meeting or activity in the last calendar year - Inactive.
Activities may include staff service and staff meetings.

Any adult member who has not completed Level one and / or is not current for CPT with 6 months - inactive.

Any cadet who has not progressed in two calendar years - Inactive.
(I would argue it should be one year, but start at two).

After these simple, CAP will have been reduced by at least 30% of the total membership.

From there work can begin on defining "active" at a more micro level, which would include
mandatory attendance tracking partnered with associated definitions for members who
don't participate in meetings but are genuinely active in other ways.

[RiverAux]

So, Eclipse, you seem to have two basic arguments:

1.  Total membership numbers do not represent the number of CAP members that might be able to respond in an emergency (said in several different ways throughout your post).
2.  Improper status reporting makes it difficult to properly scale activities and programs
due to not knowing "how many people we actually have", resulting in either under or over planned
situations (no one is here vs. we can't handle the turnout).

The first was dealt with in the original post.  We know exactly how many people are qualified in every specialty at any given time.  Yes, this does overestimate the number of potential respondents because there is some number of people that remain members and remain qualified but have stopped participating.  Their quals will eventually expire and they won't be counted anymore. 

What percentage of people with a given qual have essentially dropped out of active participation?  My guess is probably somewhere around 10-20% at any given time.  That is probably more slop than I would like to have in the system, but frankly at the local level the people that need to know already know that SM Snuffy isn't participating any more and should have that factored into their plans.  Does it make any real difference at the national level that we have 2800 MPs and not 3000?  Not really. 

If your complaint is that NHQ and others use the total numbers to reflect ES capabilities, that is a problem with NHQ or whoever else is doing it. They should know better.  I doubt that jumping through 15 hoops to have an "active membership" number is going to change what they are doing. 

As to your second argument about scaling plans and programs.  There is some limited merit to that, but at the local level where most such activities take place they already know how many people are actively in the squadron and might show up for a Christmas dinner.  I don't see how National knowing how many people are actively participating is going to help them make their plans when any particular program is probably only going to be of interest to a small percentage anyway.   

Some of your statements about the problems associated with inactive members are certainly true, but unless you are proposing to kick out inactive members then it doesn't matter a lick if we know how many there are or not. 

[Eclipse]

So, Eclipse, you seem to have two basic arguments:

No, what I'm actually saying is that no organization of consequence can
be successful if they don't even know who the actual members are.

The ancillary of this is the disingenuous way the numbers are reported to
Congress and used in marketing.

You chose to parse it, and I responded to the parsed question, but I generally
don't separate "ES" from "all else", because the hard reality is in most wings
it's the same 30% of members doing everything.

The first was dealt with in the original post.  We know exactly how many people are qualified in every specialty at any given time.  Yes, this does overestimate the number of potential respondents because there is some number of people that remain members and remain qualified but have stopped participating.  Their quals will eventually expire and they won't be counted anymore.

You can't say "we know how many are qual'ed, but we overestimate response, and they will drop off someday anyway..."
as justification in a discussion where that is literally the contention.

What percentage of people with a given qual have essentially dropped out of active participation?  My guess is probably somewhere around 10-20% at any given time.

No way - much higher, and of course, again, there's is no way to actually know.

If your complaint is that NHQ and others use the total numbers to reflect ES capabilities,

That's exactly what I am saying, which in turn is used to justify funding, etc.

As to your second argument about scaling plans and programs.  There is some limited merit to that, but at the local level where most such activities take place they already know how many people are actively in the squadron and might show up for a Christmas dinner.  I don't see how National knowing how many people are actively participating is going to help them make their plans when any particular program is probably only going to be of interest to a small percentage anyway.

Sure, you can ask around as to who will show up at the annual BBQ.  Real activities happen outside
the squadron at the Wing, Region, and National level with absolutely no idea year over year how many
people will show up, resulting in the inability to plan and scale things properly, resulting in the
"feast or famine" cycles the organizaiton sees now.
 

Some of your statements about the problems associated with inactive members are certainly true, but unless you are proposing to kick out inactive members then it doesn't matter a lick if we know how many there are or not. 

Who said anything about kicking them out? 

You properly characterize everyone, starting with the legit empty shirts no one has seen
for a decade, and the cadets who went to college with moms who keep writing checks.

There's more work beyond that, but that's where you start - big-to-small. 

However everyone reading this knows NHQ is terrified of that idea because the numbers removed
from active rosters would rival the Covid loss.

[Ned]

But you can start with.

All patrons removed from unit and wing rosters and transferred to 996, and NEVER included
in any reports of member strength except as "financial supporters".

All members assigned to 000 units for more then 60 days - Inactive.

Bob, I understand that these members are not physically attending meetings or activities.  Perhaps because a conflict has arisen with a new job, or maybe they have move moved to an area with no nearby unit.  Could also be a deployed service member.  But especially during pandemic times these members can be doing CAP PD courses and/or FEMA training to prepare themselves to return to unit meetings. Which is more than some members assigned to local units are currently able to accomplish given restrictions.  This alone, coupled with the ability to transfer these members to local units instantly suggests that this particular line in the sand seems unhelpful in distinguishing "active membership."

Any member who has not attended a meeting or activity in the last calendar year - Inactive.
Activities may include staff service and staff meetings.

I think I would agree on this one, provided you include virtual meetings and activities, as well as completing Volunteer University courses or other CAP-related training.

Any adult member who has not completed Level one and / or is not current for CPT with 6 months - inactive.

This one seems odd.  I fully understand that members need training in order to effectively engage in their assigned duties, but it seems odd to pronounce a member who has been showing up regularly to unit meetings and may be performing virtual duties assigned by their supervisor as "inactive" rather than a more descriptive term such as "untrained" (but active.)

Any cadet who has not progressed in two calendar years - Inactive.
(I would argue it should be one year, but start at two).

This one is just silly.  We certainly have issues with cadets who do not progress in the program, but it seems odd to deem a cadet who has attended 50 meetings, an encampment, and was a star member of the cyber patriot team as "inactive." This just suggests that we cannot agree what the word "active" means.  Again, I absolutely believe that the unit leadership needs to redirect a non-promoting cadet to reengage with the structured parts of the program leading to promotion and success.  A stalled cadet is nowhere near the same thing as an inactive member.

After these simple, CAP will have been reduced by at least 30% of the total membership.

As you are fond of saying, "cite, please."  While we can undoubtedly come up with numbers for the number of members assigned to the 996 and 000 units, and we can probably identify cadets who have not promoted, the other suggested criteria are not going to be easily teased out of our tracked data.  My WAG would be considerably lower than your WAG, but there does not appear to be any way to decide if you are close to correct.

From there work can begin on defining "active" at a more micro level, which would include
mandatory attendance tracking partnered with associated definitions for members who
don't participate in meetings but are genuinely active in other ways.

Most members participating here seem to favor reduced administrative requirements rather than new burdensome taskings from NHQ.  And particularly when there doesn't seem to be any value added to the units for the time and treasure expended in some mandatory tracking scheme.  As others have noted, units already know who is attending meetings and performing useful work without some HQ-directed detailed tracking system mandate.

I guess it just gets back to the threshold issue of whether this kind of tracking is useful in the first place.  Restated, this appears to be a (rather tedious) solution in search of a problem.

But we can continue to see if we can arrive at a consensus on the criteria for "active members" should be . . .

This group reaching a consensus on anything when NHQ is WHOLLY DISINTERESTED in even
acknowledging the issue, let alone addressing it serves no purpose towards fixing the issue.

As we have discussed in the past in other contexts, NHQ can only "acknowledge" an issue, if there is indeed a genuine issue to acknowledge in the first place.  Which requires some sort of problem statement and a definition of what active membership might be.  Neither of which has been established.

Please tell us what the problem is, and how defining and measuring "active membership" solves the problem (without creating other problems.)

[Eclipse]

This isn't a new problem, and it isn't a "pandemic" problem, it's an endemic issue
with the organizaiton, one that has existed for decades, as a part of the winding down of the
organization.

I've laid it out in detail here at least twice, and in any number of other threads as well.

At some point, constant denial and deflection is just more of the same problem.

Pick one - core values, malfeasance, FWA or simple negligence and poor leadership.

They all fit, and they all are the reason CAP is likely looking at its last decade.

[N6RVT]

This isn't a new problem, and it isn't a "pandemic" problem, it's an endemic issue with the organizaiton, one that has existed for decades, as a part of the winding down of the organization. CAP is likely looking at its last decade.

2010 308 million people in the US, and  202,000 pilots
2020 331 million people (23 million more) and 160,000 pilots (20% decrease)

I could show more figures but that trend has been consistent at least since 1985.

Nobody is building new GA airports, but they close on a regular basis and every one I have been to looks like a 1960 time capsule.

The number of commercial pilots is soon going to exceed the number of private pilots for the first time in history.

General Aviation is beyond the price range of even the middle class.  Its now a hobby for the rich and a few die-hards flying half century or older aircraft.  With it goes the main reason CAP exists.  General Aviation will never go away completely, but it will drop to numbers that make CAP aviation unsustainable.  You don't need to go on an internal witch hunt.

The Organization is attempting to rebrand itself as a general purpose activity with the "Citizens Serving Communities" thing, but the aviation aspect of CAP was what made people join and there is a lot of competition among groups that do not have that specialty.

Nobody failed.  This is just the effects of time.

[Shuman 14]

I'd to point out the Military has it's own version of Patron Members, it is call the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR).

The IRR is counted towards military end strength and, like CAP, readiness in the IRR is hit or miss.

Some people go into the IRR and do nothing, some people go there and stay proactive, they attend PME and even get promoted, all while in the IRR.

If the balloon goes up and they activate the IRR, how many are actually ready to go to war? I wouldn't want to venture a guess.

So we complain that we have Patron Members, and/or semi-active members that show up, out of the blue, once or twice a year, so what's the answer?

Get rid of them all? I don't think that's smart even if the sole reason was to get their check every year, that alone contributes to CAP's readiness.

[FlyingPig]

I can maybe chime in on inactive members since I have been one on occasion.  From very active mission pilot/Sq Commander to inactive member almost over night.  I was pretty burnt out after a 4 year stint as the Sq Commander and very VERY active CD pilot in CA.  When I passed the torch, I basically stopped going.  I honestly couldn't tell you why.  I still stayed informed, I was here on CAPTalk fairly regularly.  I even renewed my membership one more time before I let it lapse.  Perhaps "inactive" is a case by case basis based on past performance.   I was I inactive?  Absolutely.  Do I think I earned the right to just fade out and keep my membership dues paid up?   Yes.   I would have been a little peeved if I had received a letter or some email saying I was being dropped from my Sq or placed in some other status other than a full fledged member.  At any time, and there were several times, I told my wife "Im going to drop by the Sq tonight and see what everyone is doing" but never did.  It never had anything to do with not wanting to go but there was a several year period with my job that I barely had a free minute.  In my case I never intended on not staying current on my dues.  It was one of those dates that came and went and then one day I realized that "day" was 7 years ago. 

In my case, I probably should have been more proactive after 15 years in CAP to insure my status was changed to something like a Patron to at least keep my name on the list but I didn't.  Here in the end I paid for it in the sense that my CAP file that dates back to 1986 was shredded a couple years back.  Honestly that was a pretty big blow.  More for sentimental reasons.  There are names and signatures in that file who were pretty significant people in my life growing up who are no longer with us.  During my absence from CAP, I didn't know CAP had started shredding files.   Im pretty easy to find on social media, and through people still in CAP.  I think something like a phone call or an email would have been appropriate given the fact that my file was about 3 inches thick and I still have the same personal email!!!   

Oh well... rant over

[Eclipse]

Let's not try to minimize or deflect the issue by making it about people who
occasionally actually show up.  They are an issue, but not the primary problem.

There are a significant number of both adults and cadets on the roster who
have not had any contact in a decade (if ever), have never met anyone in the squadron,
and serve no purpose except a check.

These members should be Patronized (at a minimum), and Patrons should never be included
in readiness or member strength.

One issue is that you can't put cadets in Patron, so your only choice is termination.

[Eclipse]

Do I think I earned the right to just fade out and keep my membership dues paid up?  Yes.  I would have been a little peeved if I had received a letter or some email saying I was being dropped from my Sq or placed in some other status other than a full fledged member. 

And?

You're not serving any purpose for the unit, the organizaiton, or yourself, and there are membership
categories which preserve your grade while taking you off the players roster.

I fail to understand why a Unit CC would be concerned that someone who never shows up is "peeved" that
he did his job in normalizing the roster.

CAP membership is not an end in itself, it's intended to serve a purpose.

Squadron staff and members make all these excuses and rationalizations, but the bottom line
is you're either there or you aren't, nothing else makes any difference when activities
are looking for staff, or incidents are looking for operators and no one shows.

[TheSkyHornet]

I fail to understand why a Unit CC would be concerned that someone who never shows up is "peeved" that
he did his job in normalizing the roster.

CAP membership is not an end in itself, it's intended to serve a purpose.

Squadron staff and members make all these excuses and rationalizations, but the bottom line
is you're either there or you aren't, nothing else makes any difference when activities
are looking for staff, or incidents are looking for operators and no one shows.

I'm with this 100%.

I can't count the number of activities that I've hosted, helped to plan, or been consulted on where the topic was How many cadets do we have who are (whatever status/category)? Numerous times during the "COVID era" was I asked to provide metrics on how many cadets needed an Encampment, and how many I could expect to show up so that we could consider a budget, roster size, supplies, etc. There isn't an answer. Okay, fine, there are 67 C/CMSgts on the roster. But 33 of them haven't promoted in over a year. Is that really someone I can consider as a "potential" show-up candidate? If I do include them, I'm overestimating; if I don't, I'm being exclusive.

And someone previously pointed out a great point about units even entering attendance into eServices at all. I just looked at a unit's roster the other day. Not one person in the squadron indicates that they attended any activity since May 2021. Problem?