CAP Talk

I was wondering... regarding time for drill... How much is too much? 

I noticed when I was a cadet (after talking with cadets from other squadrons) that some units focus way too much on drill.

30 minutes?  45 minutes?  Longer?  I personally think it should be 30 minutes tops, but that's just me.

What do you think?

I think the issue might be how often drill is performed, not how long the individual session lasts.

Don't have a real plan? Drill.

It's important to remember that drill is not the most important aspect of a cadet's activities at a squadron meeting. 

That's not to say it's not important, just that the academic aspects of cadet training should come first.  (Including in-ranks inspections, where cadets should be asked to recite more than just "standard" memory work items [i.e. memory work should include aerospace questions, leadership exam questions according to the cadets' level of experience, etc.]).   

Sometimes I wonder if CAP squadrons spend more time on drill than military units do.  If my guess is correct, then less time should be spent on drill.  Besides, there's only so much that can be learned from each session... Then it just gets dull and boring.   

Personally, I try to limit it to 1 hour per month in 15 minute intervals each meeting.

All of our meetings have the general layout of:

1830-1835 : Opening Formation
1835-1845 : Inspection (Usually a little less time is used)
1845-1900 : Drill
1900-1950 : Instructional Block 1
1950-2000 : Administrative Break
2000-2050 : Instructional Block 2
2050-2100 : Closing Formation & Cleanup

Any more drill than that and I think we end up failing to provide a quality program.

My preference is to actually leave how much drill occurs up to the cadet flight commanders. They are provided with two hours per month of 'flight time', which they can use for whatever purpose they desire, within reason. This usually means drill or an informal class. It works well for us, the cadets aren't overloaded with drill, and it gives the flight commanders some direct control over the schedule for their flight each month.

my squadron does 30 minutes of drill on the 3 non-pt meetings
that 30 minutes includes the opening formation and inspection

they drill only during those 30 minutes.  they are not *ALLOWED* to go to drill to fill dead space.

It depends.  There have been many meetings where the training schedule just has not had the time in it for any drill.  Therefore, the cadets could go over a month with no drill, but then do catch-up with a couple of meetings with an hour of drill each night.

My opinion is that if drill is done every week, the max time alloted should be 30 minutes.  Also, I don't have a problem with unexpected time being used for drill IF they are not drilling every week.  And it should not be the automatic default.  If unexpected time occurrs, it should be filled with extra instruction in whatever the current training focus is or AE training (where a lot of cadets fail their tests).

There are several factors involved in deciding how much drill to incorporate into the Cadet Program.
What phase are the cadets in?  Drill movements are a part of Phase 1 and leading a formation is part of the curricula for NCO's and Officers.
Weather Do you drill in an environment that is extremely hot or cold? If you postpone due to weather constraints, do you reschedule for a later meeting?
Do you have a Drill or Color Guard team? New members must known how to drill, if they're going to join the team.

My method of attack (or, at least was, until the new DCoC decided that the system was "broken") is this:

We teach all new members pretty much every drill movement that they will know for Cadet Programs during their time in the Basic Instruction Flight.

After that, drill was only done after PT and Testing, while waiting for those testing to finish.

The Color Guard does pretty much drill during all the "fun" activities, (while ES/Comm and IT cadet personnel did their maintenance / inspections).

No drill was done during nights when required instruction/activities were conducted.

Under the new system, all cadets drill 45 minutes a night. Lots of leaving / Senior Member transfers happened afterwords (except for the Color Guard).