promotion requirement " to participate actively "

[Turtle1]

I was wondering what other squadrons used as a benchmark for the promotion requirement of  " participate actively".  Do you require an outside the unit activity for each new achievement or do you consider attendance at the regular meeting a fulfillment of that particular requirement? 
Thank you in advance for your input.

[Eclipse]

Regular meetings would be the minimum.

Staff work and outside activities help, or could offset the regular meetings if the member is unable to attend because of work, etc.

[Spike]

Agree with Eclipse.  Flying, recruiting and fundraisers all can be considered "participating actively"

[lordmonar]

It it depends.

If your unit only has weekly meetings then you can't require outside involvement.

We have lots of stuff going on all month long.  We usually require the cadets to attend at least one of these non meeting activities between promotions.

We do give waivers to this requirement based on specific situations (school involvment, conflicting appointments, after school work, etc).

The spirit of the rule is that there is more to CAP than Tuesday 1830-2100.....get out and do something.

[Walkman]

We do give waivers to this requirement based on specific situations (school involvment, conflicting appointments, after school work, etc).

We had a cadet that was extremely active most of the year (Wing Drill Team, CG, comes to every meeting, etc), but this cadet was unable to attend for about 3 months during marching band season. In order for the cadet to promote, we gave them an "at home" assignment: they were to collect all the info on upcoming meetings and activities and makes sure that info made it through the SQDN. This was they were still making a contribution to the unit even when the was a time conflict. Once band season was over, band cadet was back to every meeting, just as they had for several years.

[capchiro]

Walkman, I think your squadron may have overstepped it's boundries.  CAPR52-16 clearly states:

1-5. Unit Meetings. Most squadrons meet weekly for 2 1/2 hours. The cadet staff, with senior member guidance, plans the program.
a. Quarterly Schedule. Units should organize their weekly meetings around a master schedule based on a 13-week quarter. This system ensures the unit fulfills the minimum training requirements, and allows ample time for other special training opportunities. See Figure 1-1.
b. Attendance. Cadets are required to participate actively in their local unit if they are to progress in the Cadet Program. Excessive, unexcused absences may be cause for termination from CAP (see CAPR 35-3, Membership Termination). Any school-related activity is considered an excused absence. Cadets are responsible for notifying the unit about school activities in advance. School-related absences do not excuse cadets from the pre-requisites needed to earn promotions.

Note wherein is says all school-related activities are considered an excused absence??  That means you excuse them from CAP activites and you can not require them to "make up" absences by doing other activities.  I think attending meetings regularly and participating in same is all that's required to fulfill the minumum requirements.  You can't go around adding to CAP Reg's.. I hate it when people overstep their authority..  Pet Peeve..

[Eclipse]

Note wherein is says all school-related activities are considered an excused absence??  That means you excuse them from CAP activites and you can not require them to "make up" absences by doing other activities.  I think attending meetings regularly and participating in same is all that's required to fulfill the minumum requirements.  You can't go around adding to CAP Reg's.. I hate it when people overstep their authority..  Pet Peeve..

CAP is not a correspondence program, it requires active, in-face participation.  School activities are considered excused abcences (with proper notice), but they don't give you credit towards  being there, either.  You won't be on the 000 list, but you won't be progressing either, because you're not there.

Any unit commander who can be creative and flexible to try and help the cadet is doing his job.

[Walkman]

Walkman, I think your squadron may have overstepped it's boundries.

Point taken. I'll run this by our CC (who was the one that came up with the idea) for future reference. CC wasn't trying to be overly authoritarian, he was just trying to provide the cadet a way to keep promoting and still be considered "active". It was done with the interests of the cadet in mind.

[RiverAux]

Why would we consider marching band a good reason to not come to CAP meetings?  This is an extracurricular activity (meaning outside the school curriculum) in most places (at least it was when I was in it).  The cadet is under no more obligation to go to marching band than they are to go to CAP and they should make a choice. 

I'm not saying that it isn't a school-related activity (since after all it is sponsored by the school itself) and that it shouldn't be an excused absence under this regulation, but why would we want it to be? 

In this case, the cadet certainly can choose to participate in marching band, but they should know that this means that they are not actively participating in CAP and won't be able to promote until such time as they are. 

[SarDragon]

In my high school, band gets the same number of credits as regular academic courses. The amount of in-class time is the same, and the "homework" takes as long, or longer than that of those academic courses. In addition, participation in performance events is expected, and is a factor in your overall grade.

[EMT-83]

Walkman, I think your squadron may have overstepped it's boundries.  CAPR52-16 clearly states:

1-5. Unit Meetings. Most squadrons meet weekly for 2 1/2 hours. The cadet staff, with senior member guidance, plans the program.
a. Quarterly Schedule. Units should organize their weekly meetings around a master schedule based on a 13-week quarter. This system ensures the unit fulfills the minimum training requirements, and allows ample time for other special training opportunities. See Figure 1-1.
b. Attendance. Cadets are required to participate actively in their local unit if they are to progress in the Cadet Program. Excessive, unexcused absences may be cause for termination from CAP (see CAPR 35-3, Membership Termination). Any school-related activity is considered an excused absence. Cadets are responsible for notifying the unit about school activities in advance. School-related absences do not excuse cadets from the pre-requisites needed to earn promotions.

Note wherein is says all school-related activities are considered an excused absence??  That means you excuse them from CAP activites and you can not require them to "make up" absences by doing other activities.  I think attending meetings regularly and participating in same is all that's required to fulfill the minumum requirements.  You can't go around adding to CAP Reg's.. I hate it when people overstep their authority..  Pet Peeve..

I don't see anything in the regulation to support that view.

52-16 "clearly states" participate actively. It does not define participation or mandate meeting attendance.

It's a fact that students need to be involved in activities outside the classroom to improve the odds when applying for college. A squadron commander who recognizes sports, band, etc. play an important role in the cadets' life, and makes allowances, is doing his job properly.

Now, a slacker looking for excuses to blow off meetings is an entirely different story. But that's not what we're talking about here.

A side note: my son just took his mid-term exams. Apparently math and history were a breeze compared to band.

[Pingree1492]

[snip]  they should make a choice.  [snip]

This statement is one of my biggest pet-peeves in CAP.  Just because you and others have "made the choice" to make CAP your entire outside life, doesn't mean that every cadet should as well.  We can't and won't bend over backward to accommodate cadets with extra-curricular activities, but I'm also not going to bar them from participating in CAP by saying "make a choice."  Saying this is the height of arrogance.  Making reasonable accommodations for the cadet to still meet the "participate actively" requirement, such as Walkman's squadron has done is a good thing.

Walkman, I think your squadron may have overstepped it's boundries.  CAPR52-16 clearly states:

1-5. Unit Meetings. Most squadrons meet weekly for 2 1/2 hours. The cadet staff, with senior member guidance, plans the program.
a. Quarterly Schedule. Units should organize their weekly meetings around a master schedule based on a 13-week quarter. This system ensures the unit fulfills the minimum training requirements, and allows ample time for other special training opportunities. See Figure 1-1.
b. Attendance. Cadets are required to participate actively in their local unit if they are to progress in the Cadet Program. Excessive, unexcused absences may be cause for termination from CAP (see CAPR 35-3, Membership Termination). Any school-related activity is considered an excused absence. Cadets are responsible for notifying the unit about school activities in advance. School-related absences do not excuse cadets from the pre-requisites needed to earn promotions.

Note wherein is says all school-related activities are considered an excused absence??  That means you excuse them from CAP activites and you can not require them to "make up" absences by doing other activities.  I think attending meetings regularly and participating in same is all that's required to fulfill the minumum requirements.  You can't go around adding to CAP Reg's.. I hate it when people overstep their authority..  Pet Peeve..

I don't agree with this either.  You're correct in that extracurricular activities are excused absences, that's not in dispute.  But here's the key sentence: "School-related absences do not excuse cadets from the pre-requisistes needed to earn promotions"  If the cadet still wants to promote, then he/she needs to 'participate actively.'  This was a way for the cadet to still participate actively in the squadron to meet this requirement.

If the cadet wants to keep his/her promotion cycle up during marching band season, but can't attend meetings, then the solution worked out by Walkman's squadron fits just fine, especially if that's a Phase II or higher cadet.  It's also great leadership/management practice.


Now having made the case above, if the cadet didn't want to remain active in the promotion cycle (as in, earn promotions while absent, or immediately after his/her absence), then assigning this requirement is unwarranted, as their absence from the squadron is excused.  He/she would just come back after marching band exactly where he/she left off in the promotion cycle, and wait out the two months of 'active participation' as required.

[Pingree1492]

I was wondering what other squadrons used as a benchmark for the promotion requirement of  " participate actively".  Do you require an outside the unit activity for each new achievement or do you consider attendance at the regular meeting a fulfillment of that particular requirement? 
Thank you in advance for your input.

CAPR 52-16 just states that a cadet has to "participate actively in unit activities" but doesn't do anything else to clarify what this means.  Which leaves everything open to wide degrees of interpretation.  I've assumed that the writer of the reg was including both regular weekly meetings, and weekend activities in the "unit activities". 

Our squadron requires cadets to participate in about half of the activities that we offer.  We don't make a distinction between weekly meetings, weekend activities, and other evening activities. 

If you're wanting to make a squadron policy requiring cadets participate in an outside activity once per promotion I would recommend against that.  You'll end up having to either hold otherwise active and motivated cadets back in their promotion cycles, or issue a lot of 'waivers' if you enforce that, but don't offer many activities (i.e. more than one a month).  In three years of being DCC I've never had to hold a cadet back because they weren't participating actively.  You'll probably find that your cadets that are motivated and promoting through the program are the ones who are participating in most of your squadron's activities.  It's the one's that are so gung-ho about the program, and getting promoted that I've noticed don't really participate outside of the weekly meetings.  We currently have 80 cadets, so we have a decent sample size to draw conclusions from.

[RiverAux]

[snip]  they should make a choice.  [snip]

This statement is one of my biggest pet-peeves in CAP.  Just because you and others have "made the choice" to make CAP your entire outside life, doesn't mean that every cadet should as well.  We can't and won't bend over backward to accommodate cadets with extra-curricular activities, but I'm also not going to bar them from participating in CAP by saying "make a choice."  Saying this is the height of arrogance.  Making reasonable accommodations for the cadet to still meet the "participate actively" requirement, such as Walkman's squadron has done is a good thing.

Well, I am actually active in quite a few other organizations, but when situations come up where activities for several of them come in conflict, I've got to make a choice about which one I think is more important. 

Part of being an adult, and yes part of being a cadet, is being able to balance competing priorities in your schedule.  If I've got three different meetings scheduled for the same evening, 2 are going to lose out and I've got to be willing to take the consequences from those organizations for missing the other two meetings.   If it is just an ocassional thing, that can be worked around and its probably no big deal. 

But, if activities from two different organizations are going to be in conflict for a long time, thats another story.  In this case, if the cadet chooses band, he should expect consequences in CAP.  In this case, waiting a few extra months for band season to be over before getting back active in CAP so that they can promote is not that big a deal. 

[DC]

I don't know the SOP in my new unit yet, my old squadron required 75% attendance and participation in at least one additional, non-meeting activity on any level within the promotion period.

[Nick]

52-16 “clearly states” participate actively. It does not define participation or mandate meeting attendance.

It’s a fact that students need to be involved in activities outside the classroom to improve the odds when applying for college. A squadron commander who recognizes sports, band, etc. play an important role in the cadets’ life, and makes allowances, is doing his job properly.

Agreed.  When I do my spiel at cadets who express an interest in applying to USAFA (and prospective cadets that want to join CAP to improve their chances of being accepted), I explain how CAP looks nice 'n all on a resume, but USAFA (among the other academies and respected colleges) is looking for students that have a well-rounded school experience, to include student government, school organizations, sports, band, ROTC, CAP, etc.  If we (the cadet program community) expect cadets to be present every week at CAP for four years of school, you're not only limiting their opportunities for other school activities but are also damaging future opportunities as well.

I believe active participation to mean show up enough to meet your personal requirements (testing, moral leadership, CPFT) to progress within the program, DO progress within the program (ideally, at least one achievement every 2-4 months-ish), and make a contribution to the squadron (mentoring other cadets, serving in a leadership role -- if you can't be there every week then fill a leadership position that doesn't require it, and leaving the place better than how you found it).  If they are showing up to enough meetings to test, attend moral leadership, and take the CPFT and are completing achievements within 2-4 months, then they're attending at least >50% of the meetings.

I have a very hard time punishing a cadet, withholding their progression in the program, or even transferring them out to -000 because they are being a well-rounded student if they are upholding their end of the deal (see the last paragraph).

[Ned]

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Word!