My unit has a practice of requiring cadets to participate in a squadron "Cadet Activity" in order to promote.
The philosophy behind the idea is that a monthly activity is organized, planned and lead by the cadet staff as a leadership exercise. The activity can be almost anything - a camp out, air show attendance, volunteer opportunity, bowling night, etc. But it must be separate form normal meetings and all cadets are expected to attend an activity once a promotion cycle in order to advance.
However, upon review of our promotion procedure I can't seem to find any such requirement or policy in 52-16 or the Cadet Staff Handbook. I think the genesis originated through the use SIMS to monitor and check eligibility. I'm thinking that this may be a case of "We always did it this way" and become squadron policy by default.
The closes thing I can find in the CAP publications is a requirement to "participate actively". However, that is not really defined.
Does anyone else follow this practice? Any reference to the appropriate the reg or manual would be appreciated.
Captain,
We tallked a little bit about this in this thread (http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=12145.0).
The Cadet Oath is also a good reference ("participate actively in unit activities . . .")
Ned Lee
It used to be in the reg.
But it was dropped several years ago.
We still generally enforce it, but it's not held against the cadet if for some reason the squadron doesn't offer an activity during the promotion cycle.
Comes from the line in the cadet oath 'participate actively in unit activities'
Beyond the oath Ned quoted, entirely subjective, but still a good idea. Cadets should not have the expectation that they can
just randomly show up and expect to do well in CAP.
You should, however, make sure the expectations are clear and made available - no double-secret stuff.
As an example, if your unit hosts some activity that is open to the rest of the group / wing, it should be a given that your cadets
participate, etc.