Cadet Bonding?

[ThirdGenCapGirl]

My squadron never had bonding issues until about, a year ago next month. I've been in Civil Air Patrol for almost four years. I'm a third generation cadet, third female. As a little girl I grew up listening to CAP stories about how they had soo much fun in the cadet program with their friends. I understood everything they used to talk about after about a year of participating in the cadet program. I'm a C/CMSgt, working towards my C/CMSgt Sustained, and my squadron seems to be having issues. For about 70 percent of my time in CAP I was the only female in my squadron, and we always practiced the trickle-in method for recruiting. Being where we are located and the speed of the city we are located in it is the most ideal scenario.

Now that you have a little background, on with the questions.

My squadron is having trouble with retention, I feel this is because we are not bonding like we used to/my family's stories. What are some activities we can do in civi's other than:

• Lasertag
• Air Museums
• Bowling

I don't really understand how the other squadrons in my area can be so tight knit, while we're falling apart. We're getting to the point three of the senior cadets are thinking about leaving us behind and transferring. What can I plan to help this?

[a2capt]

Activities are pretty much limited .. and unlimited, by the local/extended area, imagination and willingness to participate.

R/C aircraft, find a club, get some cadets interested.
Clean a public park area as a unit activity
Movie nights, though in theory those are illegal due to what the FBI warning on most DVD's says.
Everyone go to a movie...
Unit color guard at a baseball game, and unit members attend as a group.

[Eclipse]

Are your cadets progressing?

Are they participating in activities outside the squadron such as encampments, bivouacs, and AE activities?

Are they active in ES?

Is your unit large enough to provide leadership and follower-ship opportunities?

I'm a C/CMSgt, working towards my C/CMSgt Sustained,

Your what?  Chief is Chief.  Armstrong doesn't make your a Chief+.

[ThirdGenCapGirl]

Are your cadets progressing?

Are they participating in activities outside the squadron such as encampments, bivouacs, and AE activities?

Are they active in ES?

Is your unit large enough to provide leadership and follower-ship opportunities?

I'm a C/CMSgt, working towards my C/CMSgt Sustained,

Your what?  Chief is Chief.  Armstrong doesn't make your a Chief+.

Yes, they are progressing.

Other than encampment and two December activities, not really.

Four are, myself included.

Not anymore, we have fourteen cadets. There are a few that don't show up, and are quiting.

I've got my Goddard.

[ThirdGenCapGirl]

I like the park clean up idea!
I'd like to have a color guard, but the Chief in charge of organizing a color guard has his head up in the clouds some where, we have a hard time getting him to attend the month CAC conference calls he volunteered for.

[Eclipse]

Then I would say the answers are in that response. 

Rather than social activities, you should be looking to promote CAP activities which add value to the cadets membership.  They can play lasertag and go bowling anytime they want with their friends and save the dues. 

You also need to move away from the trickle and into the a recruiting push.  It is very common for older cadets to move on with their lives, especially if they aren't doing anything but showing up for meetings.

Summer is the time when the majority of your cadets should be doing all sorts of "charge-up" activities that are the pay-off for the work they do during the other months.  NESA, Encampments, O-Rides, Rocket Launches, bivouacs, etc. Those activities will bring out the teamwork and esprit-de-corps you're looking for, and a wave a new cadets will bring a sense of urgency and mission back to the unit.

You might consider working with your unit leadership on a pipelined recruiting drive tat gets names on the page to start moving in the early Fall.

[lordmonar]

Your what?  Chief is Chief.  Armstrong doesn't make your a Chief+.

You say it your way......other's say it differently.

[Eclipse]

Your what?  Chief is Chief.  Armstrong doesn't make your a Chief+.

You say it your way......other's say it differently.

Why?  It's not "my way" it's the proper grade designation.

Are we going to start calling Lt Cols with LV, Lt Col (Sustained)?

[ThirdGenCapGirl]

Sustained- 9. To keep up (a joke or assumed role, for example) competently.

Dictionary^, I just said Chief Sustained so you understood I wasn't quite working toward my Mitchell just yet.

[Майор Хаткевич]

Sustained- 9. To keep up (a joke or assumed role, for example) competently.

Dictionary^, I just said Chief Sustained so you understood I wasn't quite working toward my Mitchell just yet.

Granted, but not necessary. You could have just said that you are working towards your Armstrong Achievement.

[Extremepredjudice]

The subject of this thread made me lol.

Definitely try to recruit more.

As for retention, call up the former members and ask why they left, and how you can improve the program.

Remenber, you aren't going to be friends with everyone.

[Eclipse]

Sustained- 9. To keep up (a joke or assumed role, for example) competently.

Dictionary^, I just said Chief Sustained so you understood I wasn't quite working toward my Mitchell just yet.

I have a better one, how about "upper half" and "lower half" like admirals?

You might have been joking, but I have seen cadets refer to themselves in that way, including using it in signature lines.

[lordmonar]

Sustained- 9. To keep up (a joke or assumed role, for example) competently.

Dictionary^, I just said Chief Sustained so you understood I wasn't quite working toward my Mitchell just yet.

Granted, but not necessary. You could have just said that you are working towards your Armstrong Achievement.

That is true for all acheivments or milestones.....it just depenends on how you "count" your progress in the cadet program.

Are you a "I count promotions" sort of person or are you a "I count acheivments" sort of person?

[Major Lord]

Thirdgencapgirl paints a picture that many of us have seen in the Cadet Program. A few individuals who are goal driven, and progress, and the rest stagnant. In a way, her ideas about activities are poignant, but miss the mark by a hair. In any organization, people coalesce into a team typically in one of to ways; 1) One, they find a common enemy, and work together under the lash to find freedom. This would not be a good model. The second, is that they find a common goal, such as defeating another squadron in a competition. Your lack of bonding stems from the fact that you are not training and fighting (metaphorically) as a single group, and remain a cluster of individuals, instead of a team, burnished with each others sweat and blood in the fight against mediocrity. Fundamentally, this is a failure of leadership. I suggest asking your deputy commander for a private conference and seeing if he/she can kick your Cadet Officer's into high gear. You will build a team by finding  challenges and attacking them head on, it cannot be done passively.

Major Lord

p.s. Eclipse, I suggest "Lt Col, Lower half", and "Lt. Col. Upper half"!

[CamoMan]

At my unit we used to have 5th Monday get-togethers instead of a meeting, more recently CG cadets & any other cadets who want to get together for PT, we'll occasionally get together outside of CAP just to chill.

[lordmonar]

I find Super Glue works good for bonding cadets.....but it leaves a hard residue. 

[Extremepredjudice]

I find Super Glue works good for bonding cadets.....but it leaves a hard residue. 

I was going to say something, but no. Not even gunna go there.


Can someone please change the name of this thread?

[ol'fido]

I find Super Glue works good for bonding cadets.....but it leaves a hard residue. 

I would think that someone who is associated with CAP and the RM would go with Velcro as the first option.

[lordmonar]

I find Super Glue works good for bonding cadets.....but it leaves a hard residue. 

I would think that someone who is associated with CAP and the RM would go with Velcro as the first option.

No......Velcro is too temporary.......I like permanant bonds! 

[Phil Hirons, Jr.]

I think we've established duct taping cadets is verboten. I would imagine that would apply to Velcro, Super Glue and all other commercial adhesives.

Once others started I could not resist 

[arajca]

I think we've established duct taping cadets is verboten. I would imagine that would apply to Velcro, Super Glue and all other commercial adhesives.

Once others started I could not resist 

Spoil Sport.

[LCG8928]

Thirdgencapgirl paints a picture that many of us have seen in the Cadet Program. A few individuals who are goal driven, and progress, and the rest stagnant. In a way, her ideas about activities are poignant, but miss the mark by a hair. In any organization, people coalesce into a team typically in one of to ways; 1) One, they find a common enemy, and work together under the lash to find freedom. This would not be a good model. The second, is that they find a common goal, such as defeating another squadron in a competition. Your lack of bonding stems from the fact that you are not training and fighting (metaphorically) as a single group, and remain a cluster of individuals, instead of a team, burnished with each others sweat and blood in the fight against mediocrity. Fundamentally, this is a failure of leadership. I suggest asking your deputy commander for a private conference and seeing if he/she can kick your Cadet Officer's into high gear. You will build a team by finding  challenges and attacking them head on, it cannot be done passively.

Major Lord

p.s. Eclipse, I suggest "Lt Col, Lower half", and "Lt. Col. Upper half"!

I think a lot of the time ignorance is the reason for cadets being stagnant. You have to make sure they know what they should do for promotion and that they visit CAP websites often. Something my squadron does is have our Cadet Chief send us emails as soon as we join that includes guides and links to everything we need to know about CAP.

[AngelWings]

My squadron never had bonding issues until about, a year ago next month. I've been in Civil Air Patrol for almost four years. I'm a third generation cadet, third female. As a little girl I grew up listening to CAP stories about how they had soo much fun in the cadet program with their friends. I understood everything they used to talk about after about a year of participating in the cadet program. I'm a C/CMSgt, working towards my C/CMSgt Sustained, and my squadron seems to be having issues. For about 70 percent of my time in CAP I was the only female in my squadron, and we always practiced the trickle-in method for recruiting. Being where we are located and the speed of the city we are located in it is the most ideal scenario.

Now that you have a little background, on with the questions.

My squadron is having trouble with retention, I feel this is because we are not bonding like we used to/my family's stories. What are some activities we can do in civi's other than:

• Lasertag
• Air Museums
• Bowling

I don't really understand how the other squadrons in my area can be so tight knit, while we're falling apart. We're getting to the point three of the senior cadets are thinking about leaving us behind and transferring. What can I plan to help this?

You have to motivate them! Cheer them on, make them belong to their flight and just not on paper! To explain a few helpful things that quite frankly turned my flight into a true motivated and dedicated team:

Make them have a flight motto: This is oddly one of the best ways to make them loud and proud to be in a flight. Make the other flights "enemies", as in paint them as competitors. Give them an "attaboy" for when they are louded and fire them up with some practice when they aren't louder.

Make them compete with the other flights in general: There is no need for us to put people in flights if they are not going to function as a flight. That term flight is the make or break for making people a team. You should make your flight or flights (depending on what position you have) compete, even if it is over stupid things. Like one PT meeting that got rained out, we had all of the cadets compete, and then we had the flights compete and the loser (which sadly was me) had to do so many pushups in cadence counting off as (one, whatever flight, two, whatever flight, etc.)

Make the flights think the other flights just flat out suck compared to theirs: Pride and even ignorance can boost morale, 'nuff said.

Reward your flight or the best flight (you need to tell me your position, or if I missed it than I feel dumb): Give them things periodically. Like if you have cool military recruiting materials, food, drink, t-shirts, some form of a record success, first on o-flights (which can be tricky, so make sure you make the point that cadets who have not had o-flights still get their o-flights first, then do the flight system).

Make the standards more challenging without going overboard: With my flight, I've made a system where cadets who showed up with poor uniforms got bad marks and were not only challenged about it in a review board for when they went for promotions, but also when they applied for positions. Needless to say, my flights uniform standards have risen and we are getting better.

If you have a higher position than flight sgt., tell your flight sgts. to do these things. If it doesn't work, which I'd be surprised if it didn't, than no harm no foul, you at least tried something. If you are a flight commander, than you can still do anything I said a flight sgt. could do. If you are a first shirt, than make your flight commanders or sgts. do these things. If you hold any higher position, than address both the flight commanders or sgts., and then address all of the flights. Showing some "from the front" leadership is crucial if you want respect and followership from your lowest airman to the person just below you.

Lastly, make a cadet competition that is either quarterly, monthly, on going, annually, or whatever interval you feel is right. Do things like PT, map courses, drill competions, color guard competions, best uniforms, who is louder/more motivated competions, and whatever is available to you to use. My squadron meets on an Air Guard/Army Guard/Coast Guard base rolled into one, so we have many available resources that we can and have used for training and fun, like the LRC, obstacle course, numerous fields, etc.