Should CAP Even Consider Encouraging Healthy Habits for Seniors?

[ProdigalJim]

^^^ this.

While I'd agree this thread has probably gone well past its original intent, I've got to point out that GT is more than 20 pounds on your back for a few miles, at least where I am. My example earlier in this thread, rope-hoisting a Stokes basket with a heavy patient and then caterpiller-ing the whole package out to the road, was not made up...and I saw several members get the huffy-puffies while doing it.

I don't think anybody was *requiring* anything, but merely *encouraging* it. As has been pointed out, the genuinely out of shape self-select into other, equally valuable, mission areas.

[Eclipse]

We don't do that or train for it, that is not part of the national curriculum.

[Cool Mace]

We don't do that or train for it, that is not part of the national curriculum.

Then why did they? Maybe they did their own training. If it helped saved the victims life, then why not?

[Eclipse]

I've got to point out that GT is more than 20 pounds on your back for a few miles, at least where I am.

Actually, according to the national curriculum, GT work is exactly that and little more.

We don't do that or train for it, that is not part of the national curriculum.

Then why did they? Maybe they did their own training. If it helped saved the victims life, then why not?

"Why" they did is irrelevant.  There are things we "do", and things we don't. What we "do" is in the GT book and
reference text, everything else we do not "do".

If individual members or units want to learn things outside the national curriculum, or need to add specialized skills or equipment, so be it - but you don't start changing the national requirements because one unit did things out of the norm and their people got tired.

We don't do ropes, provide medical treatment beyond first aid / buddy care, water rescues, vehicular extractions,
fire fighting, so we don't need the gear, training, or conditioning that these capabilities require.

[Cool Mace]

I never said to change the national reg. But I don't see why encouraging members to live a healthy life style is a bad thing. When it comes to ES, it's a major factor for GTs, even if people don't want to admit it.

We teach cadets, and encourage them to live a healthy life style. Why should it be any different for seniors?

[Eclipse]

But I don't see why encouraging members to live a healthy life style is a bad thing.

It's not.

It's also not something CAP should spend much time on, because they don't have the authority of purpose in this regard.

[RiverAux]

I think that "obtuse" was correctly thrown down earlier in the thread.

[Eclipse]

I think that "obtuse" was correctly thrown down earlier in the thread.

On the macro level, we need members to be alive, so encouraging them to be healthy helps that.

However the reality is that we can't just send an email that's says "stop eating" and expect to have any impact whatsoever - therefore,
at a minimum it requires a "campaign" - those take time and money, neither of which we have in extra quantities, especially when you look
at all the seemingly simple things that have been left 1/2 done and undone for the last decade.

A "campaign" isn't going to matter, either.  The average member has a doctor, employer, and family, all of whom likely encourage a healthy(er)
lifestyle.  If those aren't having an impact, CAP adding to the background noise won't - so we're left with the smoke of a fire no one cares
about, and time and effort better spent elsewhere.

The only way to impact this, and it would be minimal anyway, is through financial or practical incentives which would never be put in place because
of the reluctance towards uncomfortable conversations and attrition.

Practical testing?  OK - but that won't get you where you want to be because the majority of the membership, in their current configuration, will
pass with flying colors.  You'd shed maybe 10%?  And then you risk those people quitting because they can't play anymore. If that's acceptable,
OK by me, but CAP has shown historically that it doesn't like to do that.

Try this:

Enforce the regs on the books - start weigh-ins for anyone wearing blue. Put a scale at the front door of every meeting and activity and
change the numbers in people's profiles, then take the steps necessary to make them change the uniform they are wearing.

See where that would get you - and those are rules everyone is fully aware of.

[Cool Mace]

You can make it very cheap. Write a pamphlet on a healthy life style that encourages all members to do so. And try something along the lines of 25-50% a YMCA membership.

Short, sweet and to the point. Just add flare!   

[Eclipse]

Write a pamphlet on a healthy life style that encourages all members to do so. And try something along the lines of 25-50% a YMCA membership.

Thank you for making my point.

Who writes it?

Who approves it? 

Why is the YMCA chosen instead of 100 other worthy organizations who would benefit from the eyeshare of 60k members?

Who pays for the printing?

Seen 39-1 lately?  Last update was 2005.  How does this become a priority in front of that?

Printing 60000 full-color pamphlets with mailing would cost somewhere between $5-7000, ultimately wasted on a pamphlet that will go right into the recycle bin for 99% of the members, assuming they read it at all.

That which appears "cheap and easy", becomes expensive from a time and dollar standpoint quickly, and ultimately it's your dollars.

[Cool Mace]

Not sure how I proved you point.

Assign someone to write it. Maybe someone who falls under this category? Maybe even Ned since he's the one that brought it up? (You know you want to Ned!).

Normal approval, just like anything else.

YMCA was an example, and yes, I see what you're saying. I don't believe members are going to be THAT choosy when it comes to this, as long as it's a nation wide gym. Granted, some members will always complain. But the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.

The legend says 39-1 is going to be updated (believe it when I see it). Short, simple, to the point pamphlet that someone can write in one, maybe two days for the draft.

Who said anything about printing? This is the 21st century after all. Why not just post it to our handy-dandy website like all the other pamphlets?


:EDIT: Grammar

[BigShu]

I think that "obtuse" was correctly thrown down earlier in the thread.

Try this:

Enforce the regs on the books - start weigh-ins for anyone wearing blue. Put a scale at the front door of every meeting and activity and
change the numbers in people's profiles, then take the steps necessary to make them change the uniform they are wearing.

See where that would get you - and those are rules everyone is fully aware of.

Ok, so now we've argued ourselves to the point where we aren't talking about new ideas, we can't even enforce long standing, foundational regs because of the implication above. "See where that would get you" obviously means people will leave in droves if we try to prevent them from breaking regulations. If the organization can only keep numbers by letting people pretty much do what they want, as long as they aren't too obvious, or tiptoeing around really nice people who pay their dues on time, but haven't been a mission asset for a couple of decades, what does that say about us as a group? Sounds kind of lame to me. Is this as good as it gets? Sure, we're volunteers, but other volunteer groups expect their rules to be followed. At least the BSA has the stones to toss members who won't get with the program.

[Eclipse]

Ok, so now we've argued ourselves to the point where we aren't talking about new ideas, we can't even enforce long standing, foundational regs because of the implication above. "See where that would get you" obviously means people will leave in droves if we try to prevent them from breaking regulations. If the organization can only keep numbers by letting people pretty much do what they want, as long as they aren't too obvious, or tiptoeing around really nice people who pay their dues on time, but haven't been a mission asset for a couple of decades, what does that say about us as a group?

It says we are an all-too-typical volunteer organization, doing the best we can, but allowing our paramilitary heritage and expectations to
shrink away in a thousand cuts of relativism, checkboxes, and "You can't, I won't, you can't make me..."

I have been a vocal proponent of a full-on program reboot where members are held accountable for regs and behavior, and people
treat CAP as a volunteer vocation, not a rec center, but that takes the fortitude to hack a lot of people off, and cannot be done piecemeal.

[BigShu]

All the talk of attrition if we try to do anything beyond "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law", makes me wonder if there has ever been any study of critical mass for the organization. If push came to shove and resources were really scarce, just how many members does it take to field an aircraft, or a ground team? Not just the flight crew, and the actual ground team and backups, but the whole mechanism of standing up a response. There must be a minimum. We seem to be able to fulfill enough missions with 60K members, but there's almost certainly a lot of ghost members in that number. Or people who aren't interested in anything beyond AE, or cadet programs. Just how many folks would it take to be ES mission capable in depth, in all the wings?
We're so terrifed of actually enforcing our rules, or trying to polish up the image of the organization, because it will lead to a huge drain of our best members. Would it really? Would the people most committed to the missions, the true believers, the core go to people leave if we said, hey, we're worried about your health, and you're out of regs on H/W, want to do some pt and improve your chances of watching the grandkids grow up? I just don't see it. Granted, I'm late to the party by a couple of decades, and I haven't done anything to brag about as far as mission activities go. But even as a brand new SMWOG, I wouldn't walk away from this because someone thinks I'd be more healthy, happy and effective if I got down to the H/W standard. I already bought a polo shirt AND the minimum basic corporate uniform, for crying out loud!

[SarDragon]

As an aside:

Donuts are basically hips in the larvae stage.

[Eclipse]

Would the people most committed to the missions, the true believers, the core go to people leave if we said, hey, we're worried about your health, and you're out of regs on H/W, want to do some pt and improve your chances of watching the grandkids grow up?

No, but the "true believers" are not your issue.  In most wings, less then 1/2 the membership, by my estimate about 25%, do all the heavy lifting,
and the rest are transient - either showing up so irregularly as to not be a factor, or picking and choosing activities and training to the same effect.

As you get more experience, and if you're active outside your unit, what you'll notice is the same couple hundred people doing everything, literally.
The same people are the commanders, staff, operators, and participants at everything - they change hats, sometimes they lead, sometimes they follow, and the pool flows in and out depending on what the activity is, but the core is the same folks.

And that fact hinders growth in all phases and corners, whether its different missions, more missions, or trying to upscale membership numbers,
because in the end, the "more" generally equals "more work for the same people", and people don't scale.

As a tangential example, every wing has a handful of units, sometimes whole groups, that are constantly on the edge of losing their charter -
the only way to fix these units is replace the leadership with knowledgeable commanders who have the fire to make radical change, but because
of the state of the unit / group, there's no one to take those jobs.  So what's left is the decision to either let the units just coast on the rails
and hope for lightening, or shut them down and close the opportunities altogether. Etc., etc., etc.

But even as a brand new SMWOG, I wouldn't walk away from this because someone thinks I'd be more healthy, happy and effective if I got down to the H/W standard. I already bought a polo shirt AND the minimum basic corporate uniform, for crying out loud!

What if they said you can't do the thing you joined to do until you get down to "x" weight?  Because that's the only way you'll ever see any real change.  You can show up to meetings, do all sorts of adminsitrivia, but don't look at a plane or think about ES until you're back in the zone.

[Stonewall]

On July 4, 1993 I was on a huge REDCAP for a missing plane somewhere in southern Virginia.  In addition to the regular CAP crowd of seniors and cadets, there was this odd group of CAP fellows who called themselves "CAP Rangers".  Not Hawk Ranger types, but a special group of VA Wing "Rangers".  They wore the WWII era blue and gold RANGER triangle, as in Darby's Rangers triangle thing.  Add on a few volunteer SAR groups that were also involved in the search.

The heat and humidity of Virginia on July 4th was rough.  This was my first "real" SAR mission as a senior member, at the ripe old age of 21.  A good 75% of these people (Rangers and VSAR guys) were out of shape and borderline obese.  Within 2 hours of our arrival from DCWG (northern Virginia), 2 CAP senior members and 2 VSAR guys had to be taken out via ambulance due to heat exhaustion. 

Our ground teams, totaling about 20 cadets and 5 seniors, were good to go.  Not a single one of our seniors was even close to being overweight and all the cadets were in tip-top shape.  No casualties from DCWG those couple of days.  But a handful of those "Rangers" and granola eating volunteers were biting the dust left and right.

[Private Investigator]

I never said to change the national reg. But I don't see why encouraging members to live a healthy life style is a bad thing. When it comes to ES, it's a major factor for GTs, even if people don't want to admit it.

We teach cadets, and encourage them to live a healthy life style. Why should it be any different for seniors?

I concur   :clap:

[Private Investigator]

On July 4, 1993 I was on a huge REDCAP for a missing plane somewhere in southern Virginia.  In addition to the regular CAP crowd of seniors and cadets, there was this odd group of CAP fellows who called themselves "CAP Rangers".  Not Hawk Ranger types, but a special group of VA Wing "Rangers".  They wore the WWII era blue and gold RANGER triangle, as in Darby's Rangers triangle thing.  Add on a few volunteer SAR groups that were also involved in the search.

The heat and humidity of Virginia on July 4th was rough.  This was my first "real" SAR mission as a senior member, at the ripe old age of 21.  A good 75% of these people (Rangers and VSAR guys) were out of shape and borderline obese.  Within 2 hours of our arrival from DCWG (northern Virginia), 2 CAP senior members and 2 VSAR guys had to be taken out via ambulance due to heat exhaustion. 

Our ground teams, totaling about 20 cadets and 5 seniors, were good to go.  Not a single one of our seniors was even close to being overweight and all the cadets were in tip-top shape.  No casualties from DCWG those couple of days.  But a handful of those "Rangers" and granola eating volunteers were biting the dust left and right.

I enjoyed your story. 4th of July is always hot and every other year or so a REDCAP is in progress   

[BigShu]

But even as a brand new SMWOG, I wouldn't walk away from this because someone thinks I'd be more healthy, happy and effective if I got down to the H/W standard. I already bought a polo shirt AND the minimum basic corporate uniform, for crying out loud!

What if they said you can't do the thing you joined to do until you get down to "x" weight?  Because that's the only way you'll ever see any real change.  You can show up to meetings, do all sorts of adminsitrivia, but don't look at a plane or think about ES until you're back in the zone.

As long as the guys laying down the law were walking the talk, I'd have to accept it. You have to pay your dues to join any group worth joining. Besides, you have to jump through a lot of training hoops before you get to do what you joined to do. I've got the checkoff sheets printed out, waiting to start filling in to prove it. How different is it to say you can't do ES until you get trained up and you can't do ES until you get slimmed down? Why does everyone knock the administrative tasks? It's no different than playing basketball in college. I had to run a jillion line drills to get my occasional minutes on court. You take the boring with the thrilling.