Keeping New Senior Members

[Holding Pattern]

But I can't fly to 1000 squadrons and fix their lack of mentorship or an inability to delegate.

Can we find 1000 of these through DRMO?



(This is a joke.)

[indiaXray]

Be honest and don't sell people a bridge. A lot of folks think they are going to put on a zoom bag and hang out at the O club and sing "You've lost that luv-ing feeling"

Show them your unit in action, not a fantasy!

Exactly.  When I first visited my now squadron as a potential senior member, the squadron commander and his deputy were welcoming and friendly, genuinely interested in what I could offer the unit.  They explained things simply and frankly, and the steps and procedures necessary to becoming fully involved.  They also allowed me to observe typical squadron activities and see if I was comfortable.  Successful Senior retention starts from day one.

[NIN]

This thought popped in my head along these lines..

In a lot of units, you're understaffed. Desperately understaffed. So understaffed that a warm body walks in the door feigning the least bit of interest, you're on him or her like a monkey on a cupcake.

So you give them the 90-second (more like 90-minute) recruiting spiel, glossing over things because you know if that if you say "CAP costs money" or "You actually have to do things" they *might* turn around and walk out the door.  Please, please, please, don't go!



My unit has 31 seniors right now. Some are pilots and don't show up to the cadet meetings, some are active, some aren't.

But when a potential senior walks in the door, we're like Mike Damone.



Like Mike Damone, you never let on how much you want a senior member to join....

"Oh, Debbie. Hi."

Smooth. 

Second,  you always call the shots. "You should turn in your paperwork next week. You won't regret it."


Third, act like wherever you are, that's the place to be. "Isn't this drafty National Guard armory great?"

Fourth, when ordering food, you find out what they want, then order for the both of you. It's a classy move.  "Now, the gentleman will have the everything bagel with cream cheese, and a large regular with extra cream."

And five, now this is the most important. When it comes down to scoring the recruiting deal, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.

Er, wait...

[Garibaldi]

I really want some of whatever NIN is smoking right now.

[Pace]

Thanks everyone for replying. My main problem (and that of most of my SMs) is time commitment. I was able to talk one of my newer members from leaving (he's a freakin rock star with PR). I did get some clarity in what you all have said. I think I am going to call on group to help me train newer officers when my efforts are commited elsewhere in the squadron. Thanks again, everyone!

[etodd]

My unit has 31 seniors right now. Some are pilots and don't show up to the cadet meetings, some are active, some aren't.

^^ Emphasis mine. Made me wonder about your Senior meetings being different than Cadet ones, time wise? Our Senior meetings are running in one room while the Cadets are meeting in another. Some times if there is a special program, we combine. But most of the time we are split. Which is the norm with most Composite Squadrons?

[Holding Pattern]

And five, now this is the most important. When it comes down to scoring the recruiting deal, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.

Er, wait...

That's not how I remember it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYE3nm9voUk

[NIN]

^^ Emphasis mine. Made me wonder about your Senior meetings being different than Cadet ones, time wise? Our Senior meetings are running in one room while the Cadets are meeting in another. Some times if there is a special program, we combine. But most of the time we are split. Which is the norm with most Composite Squadrons?

Some are composite in name only, wearing the mantle while being "big" cadet squadrons. Others are more like two separately operating flights with full ops sides of the house, etc. My sq leans toward the former, but we're still kind of ops-heavy.

Tonight we had 20 of 31 at the meeting. Two had to leave early due to schedule. The ops folks were doing training, new SMs were doing PD, etc. busy

[stillamarine]

Thanks everyone for replying. My main problem (and that of most of my SMs) is time commitment. I was able to talk one of my newer members from leaving (he's a freakin rock star with PR). I did get some clarity in what you all have said. I think I am going to call on group to help me train newer officers when my efforts are commited elsewhere in the squadron. Thanks again, everyone!

I say this, take what you can if it helps. Personally for me because of my on-call schedule and other things I'm currently only able to attend actual meetings every other week. I am able to perform a lot of my duties by email. So I'm still contributing to the squadron just not making every meeting. I hate that because of this my step-son is only making every other meeting but hopefully we will be able to fix it soon.

[NIN]

^^ Emphasis mine. Made me wonder about your Senior meetings being different than Cadet ones, time wise? Our Senior meetings are running in one room while the Cadets are meeting in another. Some times if there is a special program, we combine. But most of the time we are split. Which is the norm with most Composite Squadrons?

Let me expand on this a little now that I'm at a keyboard.

So not everybody in the squadron has a "duty" that needs to be done every week at the unit.

So some of our seniors (our safety officer, for example) are only there 1-3 meetings a month, not all 4.

But, while there are shenanigans occurring in the drill hall  (last night was a *zoo*.. We only have the drill hall really, so imagine 60+ cadets in 4 flights plus the cadet staff doing D&C plus classroom training in one big room.. it makes me crazy from essentially mid-October to mid-April when we can finally do D&C outdoors and not on top of one another) the seniors are in the DFAC doing pilot stuff in one corner, PD training in another corner, admin work in the middle, etc.

We could benefit from the use of the full armory like we had circa 1999-2000.  Then we had an office we shared with the Sea Cadets, supply was in one of the little huts out back, we had at least 2 classrooms to use plus the drill hall. But things have changed with the config of the armory, the classrooms are cubicle farms now, they've shoehorned more units in there, the range was converted to the DFAC, now we've got a more restrictive MOU with the Guard, etc.  I expect in the next MOU round we'll get told that we can't use the bathrooms anymore or something. *sigh*

Our aircrews have a once a month meeting where they go over aircrew-ish things, safety, etc.  We have a senior planning meeting quarterly where we get the seniors and the cadet commander in the room and hash out the next quarter and then following 9 months, etc. 

Last night was weird for seniors, we had a bunch more there than kind of normal, and we were still missing 2-3 people who often come.



(yes, for some crazy reason the seniors all fell in as a column formation. Then some more seniors showed up and made it a line formation. )