I need help from anybody who meets on Saturdays for their regulay meeting. Especially every other Saturday. I'm looking for schedule format ideas.
How long do you meet for? How is you Cadre? Is your squadron top or bottom heavy?
I am going to assume that since you meet every other Saturday you are drawing a lot of cadets from far away and are trying to limit the amount they have to drive. You have a daunting task ahead of you, you will have to work extra hard to keep them and their parents interested in the program so they keep coming.
Griffin cadet squadron in GAWG holds their meetings on the first 3 Saturday mornings of each month.
Here's their webpage, which includes contact info for their sqdn commander: Griffin Cadet (http://www.gawg.cap.gov/GA014/)
I don't do planning FWIW, but I can only input from what I hear from the deputy commander for cadets.
At least in our areas: Tuesday, Friday and Saturdays are really the worst times to do cadet activites/meetings because cadets are also involved in after school extracurricular activities besides CAP, namely sports activities and we have lost several cadets for this reason as they are not able to juggle CAP and sports when there is a collision on their schedule.
We have proposed doing Thursday night or Monday night cadets meet only then Tuesday nights the senior members will continue to meet as usual. Right now we cannot have Thursday nights because our tenant uses our facilities on Thursday nights so that day is out the window.
If Saturday works for your community/cadets/parents then that in my opinion is better, it allows cadets to get all their school work done during the week and not have to worry about CAP commitments during the week and personally I like daytime rather than night time FWIW as well.
Our squadron meets once every 2nd Saturday of each month for a cleanup day, sometimes the cadets do a little something when we finish up early or they are going on an activity other than that thats it.
One issue to look at with every other Saturday meetings is custody arrangement. Some cadets spend every other weekend with one parent or the other and this could possibly knock some cadets out. I know we have one cadet that is often not available on the weekends he goes to visit his mom because she's too busy to bring him to the activities. Not saying it will be a huge issue, just something to be aware of before deciding to make the switch.
Saturday meetings give you a wider latitude of options for Cadets activities. I agree with BlackKnight, you need to contact the Griffin Cadet Squadron to get copies of their newsletters which can provide you with many ideas for Saturday activities.
We don't really have much trouble with split-custody Cadets. The only problem comes during a sports season for one or two Cadets who have events every Saturday for a month or so (such as Wrestling or Track season). They will miss a whole month's worth of meetings, but when the season is over they are right back in the groove at the Squadron. This usually is not a problem as we have time for the Cadet to prepare for their short absence. Email Newsletters keep them up-to-date with anything they are missing.
The good thing is that if we have a four-hour event, it can be done in one meeting.
Our members and cadets don't have a problem with the day. We have parent supprt. Wing activities do mess things up now and then but we accept that. The problem is we are struggling on how best to set an agenda, and looking for examples, that complete the cadet program element as well as the senior side.
Two full Sats (8hrs) a month is more than any tuesday night Sq meets, and not only that, you don't waste as much time on preliminaries & transitions. You get a whole tn more done in the same number of hours by just blocking them together.
Pegasus in Austin is a good one to look at... http://www.pegasuscap.org/ (http://www.pegasuscap.org/squadron_information/sierra_flight/)
Quote from: GoofyOne on February 28, 2008, 01:45:07 PM
Our members and cadets don't have a problem with the day. We have parent supprt. Wing activities do mess things up now and then but we accept that. The problem is we are struggling on how best to set an agenda, and looking for examples, that complete the cadet program element as well as the senior side.
You might wanna contact any Sea Cadet units around you. I know they normally met on saturdays.
When I was a squadron commander, there was agitation for meeting on every other Saturday. While I thought that there was merit in it, I knew that cadets need continuity - you need to keep their minds on the task at hand and that comes from meeting EVERY week. The other problem was the conflict with wing events, some ES and some were cadet. That further complicated the situation - I had higher headquarters stealing a great deal of my training time.
When I took over the group, one of my squadrons insisted on moving to this schedule. I objected but told the commander it was his squadron and it was his decision. Within 6 months, all of his cadets were gone with the initial impact being felt immediately.
While YMMV, I am against Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays for unit meetings. Saturdays for the reasons above and the possible exclusion of Jewish cadets for their Sabbath (not that we have many anyway); Sunday because of the exclusion of Christian cadets whose denomination prescribes a more faithful observance of the Sabbath; and (depending on your locality) Mondays because of the exclusion of LDS cadets due to family night (they won't show up on Sunday, either): we had a reasonably large LDS population.
Bottom line: create a matrix of pros and cons, assign values to them (positive and negative) and see what the score turns out to be. Be careful. Your unit could vanish or possibly be much smaller.
GC
or you can have a hundred folks like the unit I just listed. Jr High football is usually on Tuesday nights around here. We lose a lot of cadets for the whole season because of that. Then you get baseball in the summer. And every other extracurricular activity kids do these days.
Yeah it'd be difficult to move from one schedule to the other, outside events are always going to be on wknds, and you're going to have to do a little extra logistics, but...
You really can't comprehend how much more you get done when you have that much time to work with. It's 16hrs a month versus 12.5 avg, and you only waste 60min/mo on opening/closing/etc rather than 125mins/mo on a weekly format. You can actually get both your staff work & trng done & not feel undermanned all the time. It's absolutely amazing when you get it up to speed.
Now yes, you may lose some people changing formats. You're also going to gain access to a whole lot of new people. You're going to have to make sure your recruiting is up to speed when you shift.
On the adult side, I already mentioned how much more you can get done. Let me also say it's HIGHLY effective for ES trng. You can run an aircrew section that briefs out & actually flies that wknd, in addition to recurring & new trng. It's really good stuff.
Quote from: DNall on February 28, 2008, 05:18:45 PM
Two full Sats (8hrs) a month is more than any tuesday night Sq meets
We meet weekly on Tuesday nights for 2.5hrs. So for a regular 4 week month we get 10hrs of meeting time.
You can't satisfy everyone all the time. You have to pick a night or day and roll with it. Every unit has a few cadets that are involved in sports, and will end up missing some meetings due to a conflict. You accept it and drive on. Hopefully you will build your cadet program to the point that the cadets miss attending the meetings because of the sports and choose CAP instead. If not, continue to recruit and before long you will have a good group of cadets that do not participate in sports because they would rather attend the meetings.
Roger that. The numbers I cited were based on one night a week for three hours, 30min total for open/close/etc combined per mtg, 50wks divided by 12mos per year... versus... two Sats, 8hrs each (so 16hrs total), same 30min open/close/etc but only once a day versus once every three hours.
I would hope that my cadets do participate in sports, church or whatever other moral influence in their lives, are involved in school, and outside community service as well. We're just one component of that well-rounded person we're trying to turn over to the world.
I agree though that you have to set a time & stick with it. You will lose if you change, and you will gain back new faces that can make the new time - never be scared of change, just have a plan & drive on.
I will tell you though from experience that the Sat format works extremely well once you get it operational. Much better than the traditional weeknight format. It does mean conflicts with Gp/Wg events from time to time & more logistics as far as meals, but it pays off, I'm telling you.
I have 11 Squadrons in my Group and over 250 cadets. No Squadron meets on a Saturday. Most popular is Monday night (5), then Thursday night (4) , then Tuesday (2).
They all meet for 2 hrs each week. Meetings go similar to this: 1st meeting night is Leadership, 2nd is Aerospace, 3rd is PT, 4th is Testing and if a 5 occurs, it's pizza or something fun.
We save Saturdays for trips to DC or other museums, Air Shows, SAREX's, glider or O rides, etc.
Gene
Every format comes with pros & cons. The standard wk night format is fine, but comes with some serious limitations on time & good use of it. The Saturday format conflicts with outside events & may be problematic depending on the dynamic in your community & membership base. But, once operating, it comes with some serious upside in terms of available time & best use of it. If you've never seen a successful unit on this format, seeing one will really open your eyes. It's not for every unit/location, but don't slight it w/o having seen it work.
My unit meets every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month. We meet from 10:30am to 3:00pm and it's enough to get the bare essentials out of the way. It's a bit difficult, especially because we're a rebuilding composite squadron, but we're making it work. Very repetetive though. With only two meetings, we have to do the same things all the time. AE and Leadership every meeting. Safety and ML alternate. PT and ES classes alternate as well.
I think with this type of schedule you'll eventually have to find external activities for at least another Saturday of each month just to keep everyone fresh and interested. AE projects, bivouacs, ES training, field trips, etc.
Also having meetings on Saturdays also seems like a good day to get some squadron admin work done or getting help doing it/learning it, whatever. I would actually like to see more daytime meetings at my squadron.
We meet every Tuesday nights except the 5th Tues, and once a month on a 2nd Saturday of each month from 9-1pm but that Saturday is just a clean up day and sometimes the cadets do alittle something (yes I mentioned this before)
There is no perfect solution really... although some staff have talked about having two meetings each week, one for cadets and one for seniors and seniors would still be welcome to the cadet meeting night (and encouraged, to help the cadets).
There are some problems with doing two meetings a week though, if no cadets show up on the senior meeting nights (and in theory they would not be required to show up) then there is no opening and closing, that would only occour on the cadet meeting nights and several folks at my squadron don't like that which is perfectly understandable however our DCC feels that there isn't enough time to do it all in one night even if its just AE or Leadership or a combination of the two along with PRB her problem is that she needs to break up cadets according to their levels so that they do not have to deal with the repetition of the same materials and be able to learn something new.
If they actually had a meeting on Saturday there would be more room for such. Activities would ultimately conflict, I think I would do better during the daytime though but we all have a life outside of CAP... that isn't always possible.
Quote from: afgeo4 on February 29, 2008, 07:28:43 AM
My unit meets every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month. We meet from 10:30am to 3:00pm and it's enough to get the bare essentials out of the way. It's a bit difficult, especially because we're a rebuilding composite squadron, but we're making it work. Very repetetive though. With only two meetings, we have to do the same things all the time. AE and Leadership every meeting. Safety and ML alternate. PT and ES classes alternate as well.
I think with this type of schedule you'll eventually have to find external activities for at least another Saturday of each month just to keep everyone fresh and interested. AE projects, bivouacs, ES training, field trips, etc.
Why are you burning a Sat & then meeting for a half day? Why are you doing AE & LLab on both Sats? For that matter, why are yall teaching form the book? That's not what the program is about. Those things are self-study for testing purposes. You may want to conduct a review session prior to testing, but don't teach that stuff. That's insane. Use that time to teach actual worth while AE or Ldrshp material.
We had a system where cadets came in through a set of schools by quarter (so 6 x Sat at 8hrs ea). They did cadet basic trng first, new basic flt every quarter, come in the middle you have to wait for the next class; then progressed on to ALS, then a spec school (drill team, comm, GT, rocketry, etc), or vice versa on the order; then could do a staff asst position, instruct, or other spec schools (dif ones each quarter). NCOA when they're ready, which was a small group Socratic method kind of thing heavy on OJT as they are eval'd/mentored as instructors for the lower courses &/or in staff positions. We had SNCOA & OTS as well, but they were more individually based. Now the state has a Wg level pgm where they run all those professional development pgms. We had showers on site, so PT started every mtg. ML happened once a month with everyone & was also incorporated into other trng (core values aspects anyway). That worked very very well.