Hours per year for CAP

[Eclipse]

I started a spreadsheet to keep track of all of my major CAP activities - SAREX's, meetings, encampments, etc.  Nothing fancy, just a when/where/how long/ mission #/ribbon/ and some free form notes.

These are "activities" (i.e. left home, dedicated to CAP, stayed overnight, etc.).  There's literally no way to ever calculate the hundreds of hours
commanders and involved staff spend supporting a squadron, but the high points are easier to find, can be objectively supported, and would be when you're missing something at home.

Since most of the "big stuff" involves driving a fair piece, I rounded up for transport time, but I promise I'm still being conservative and missing stuff. My staff only meets once a month, but does unit visits other weeks when we can - so less meetings than most units, but more activities.

Figuring a unit meeting is 3 hours a week, plus an hour roundtrip, that's ~200 hours a year for most members.

My number is ~587 hours for 2009.

What's your number?

Edit: Found stuff I missed...

[heliodoc]

Not to mention the long hours Operations Officers, FRO's, Aerospace Education Officers, Emergency Services Officers, MP/ MS/ MO's and other staff positions that put in just as  many hours or LONGER than some Squadron Commanders do in the prep for presentations in and OUT of CAP doing the external thing for CAP in front of emergency managers...

Some of us just do not advertise the fact of how many hours the PREP go into each gig that some Sqdn CC do not even begin to realize

That is probably why a number of folks do not want Sqdn CC....they got enough on their CAP plate

I am sure there are folks out there in excess of 500 hours......  but who's keeping track??

[lordmonar]

I'm running somewhere between 900-1000 hours this year.

[bosshawk]

For the three years that I was the CDO for CAWG, I ran between 500 and 700 hours a year on CD alone and then attended meetings almost weekly.  For example, last year I drove about 6000 miles for CAP.

[SarDragon]

2009 was a light year for me. I spent about 200 hours doing stuff outside the house, and probably another 100 or so at home shuffling paper and doing training materials., So about 300 altogether. It's a SWAG.

[RiverAux]

I've got to admit that my CAP hours have declined substantially over the last year.  Getting sort of burned out on my current job with no apparent qualified successor on the horizon.  Besides declining motivation on my part, mission activity has almost disappeared in my area (not an ELT issue - we never really had too many of them), which has accounted for a large share of my CAP time in the past. 

Never kept track of the exact hours. 

[IceNine]

I have to be close to that 580 plus some additional drive time.

But if you count the number of hours spent simply doing CAP stuff, I'm sure it's over 1000.

[dwb]

2009 was a pretty light year for me.  I'll put in more hours in 2010, for encampment if nothing else.

When I was a squadron commander, I did something CAP-related almost every day, even if it was just replying to E-mail.  I don't miss that.

[NIN]

I never tracked it, but between about 1999 & 2004, while I was a squadron commander, encampment commander, etc, etc, I probably had about 250 hrs a year of "in uniform, in person" CAP time, and another 500-750 hrs of "on the side" stuff (at the time, work was slow.. it was not unusual for me to do 2-3 hrs of CAP stuff on a really slow day at work..)

Which resulted in 3 squadron of merit and one squadron of distinction award, among other things.

[addo1]

Lets see... I spent 750 hours planning ONE activity last year... besides that, I do not even want to know the hours.

[Spike]

Lets see... I spent 750 hours planning ONE activity last year... besides that, I do not even want to know the hours.

Are you telling us you spent almost 11% of your year planning ONE activity??

That is 18 (almost 19) fulltime workweeks. 

May I ask what that was?

[RADIOMAN015]

Roughly about 400 "volunteer, uncompensated" hours per year.  I have not counted my time on "CAPTalk.net". 

I recently volunteered to become my unit's PAO, so, there's some additional hours that will have to be spent to get the program running at an acceptable level.   I will retain communications and also assist in ES.

I think it is a good idea to keep track of the time one spends in any volunteer activity.  I think CAP in some of its' past reports to Congress has indicated the amount of time spent on Mission by CAP personnel.

RM 

[addo1]

Lets see... I spent 750 hours planning ONE activity last year... besides that, I do not even want to know the hours.

Are you telling us you spent almost 11% of your year planning ONE activity??

That is 18 (almost 19) fulltime workweeks. 

May I ask what that was?

Well, I should probably specify that it was not all in a year... It was over a year... The activity was a gigantic event that is called Field Leadership Training School... Between my staff and I, we put together a huge curriculum and stuff to be used later on.

[Gunner C]

As a commander I was averaging about 20 hours a week with ease.  Some weeks were less.  Some, with SAREXs, schools, commanders' call, etc were more.  I wouldn't think that 1000 hours/year for those 4 years would be out of the ballpark.  But for an accurate count, you'd have to ask my wife - I think she kept a pretty good count. 

[NIN]

But for an accurate count, you'd have to ask my wife - I think she kept a pretty good count. 

Yeah, you'd have to ask my ex-wife..

[Chappie]

The number of hours that I contributed to CAP this past year totalled 2,384. 

[Spike]

Well, I should probably specify that it was not all in a year... It was over a year... The activity was a gigantic event that is called Field Leadership Training School... Between my staff and I, we put together a huge curriculum and stuff to be used later on.

That makes sense now.  I was hung up on the "in a year" part of the question.  Silly me. 

Of hand.....is this an ongoing activity?  Is there a link?  It sounds interesting.  When thinking about Field Leadership, ROTC summer camps come to mind. 

[addo1]

Well, I should probably specify that it was not all in a year... It was over a year... The activity was a gigantic event that is called Field Leadership Training School... Between my staff and I, we put together a huge curriculum and stuff to be used later on.

That makes sense now.  I was hung up on the "in a year" part of the question.  Silly me. 

Of hand.....is this an ongoing activity?  Is there a link?  It sounds interesting.  When thinking about Field Leadership, ROTC summer camps come to mind.

There is not a link at this time... There WAS when the activity was in full swing... Because of my CAC duties, I have stepped down from running the comittee that was responsible for it. At this time, I have another C/Officer working with the current comittee to get an activity up for this summer. If/when they release a webpage for it, I will let you know. In the Texas Wing, we have the CTEP program (Cadet Training and Education Program). This activity focuses completely on leadership. We worked this activity into both a basic and an advanced school, where each respective school learned leadership in the field. If you are interested, I might be able to find some of the stuff I used for it...

[Spike]

^ Very interested.  I just glanced at the txwg cadet website.  Cool stuff going on down there!

[addo1]

^ Very interested.  I just glanced at the txwg cadet website.  Cool stuff going on down there!

Glad you think so. The "TexasCadet.org" website is slightly out of date currently. I am to be the new cadet webmaster in a short time. My goal is to make it very accessible and easily used as a resource by cadets in and out of the Texas Wing.