Saturday Activities

[DCCLUKE]

I am recently appointed DCC. After diving into the regs, I noticed that CAP encourage a Saturday Activity a month. What do you guys do on Saturdays? Our weekly meeting place is on an Air Force Installation. We have the resources, but I want to get off base and in the eye of the public. I am looking for activities that will knock the socks off my cadets and have them begging for more! Any ideas?

--  Luke  --

[A.Member]

I am recently appointed DCC. After diving into the regs, I noticed that CAP encourage a Saturday Activity a month.

In which regulation specifically did you find this?  I've never heard of such a thing.  It's not in 52-16.

That said, there are many, many CAP activities that take place over the course of a month, many on weekends.  I don't think there is a shortage of options.

[NC Hokie]

I am recently appointed DCC. After diving into the regs, I noticed that CAP encourage a Saturday Activity a month. What do you guys do on Saturdays? Our weekly meeting place is on an Air Force Installation. We have the resources, but I want to get off base and in the eye of the public. I am looking for activities that will knock the socks off my cadets and have them begging for more! Any ideas?

Well, I don't know what will knock your cadets socks off, but here's what my squadron has done during my tenure:

orientation flights
model rocketry
emergency services training
aviation museum trips
airshows
visit to a local R/C club to fly their planes
basic airman training based on Great Start
assisting with EAA Young Eagles activities
assisting with the annual Aviation Fun Day at our home airport

Your "ops tempo" will depend greatly on the amount of help you have, especially if you have a family of your own.  IMHO, it is very difficult to "knock the socks off" of your cadets every month if you don't have a lot of help from other senior members.  Since I don't, I try to set the schedule up so that there's one "desocker" (large activity or trip out of our immediate area), one local activity, and one activity at our squadron headquarters each quarter.  The desockers generally require the involvement of two or more senior members, but the others can be (and frequently are) staffed by one senior member for the entire day or a group of senior members that split the day into shifts.

[DCCLUKE]

 NC Hokie

I really appreciate your insight. We have a strong core of SM that help with the cadets, so that usually isn't a problem. I will push you ideas to the SM that help me with the Cadet program and go from there. Thanks again!

[jimmydeanno]

Luke,

Congratulations on your appointment.  I hope it is very rewarding for you and beneficial to your cadets.

I am of the philosophy that the more activities we can provide for our cadets, the more excited they are about the program.  I'm glad to hear that you want to provide quality activities for your cadets to participate in.

One of the things that I like to do is poll the cadets and get some ideas of what they would like to do. 

Does your area have things that would be exciting to cadets?

If you are located on a military base, you have some great resources.  My last unit was on the base and we had Saturday activities that included the firing range, KC-135 simulator, KC-135 flights, firehouse tour, security forces demo, K-9 unit demo, logistics readiness tour, etc.  I wouldn't do the same one repeatedly because you don't want to wear out your welcome.  Also, be sure to go through the right channels.  If you're unsure of the channels, your state director can be of assistance.

In our local area we used to hold bivouacs (camping trips), local SAREXs, hiking, museums, nearby coast guard station (ship tours, etc), indoor rock climbing, (one unit in our area did indoor skydiving), etc.

There is also the orientation flights, glider program, model rocketry, sports days, sponsor a squadron 5K, community service projects (habitat for humanity, etc), etc.


At least twice per year, I'd take the cadets on an "out of state" activity.  We'd go on a hike out of state, or to a bigger museum, etc.  Also, I always tried to add more activities to the line-up than just the obligatory one per month.

Really, the possibilities are endless.  Keep them busy and excited about the program and you'll be successful.  Encourage them to be open and honest about the stuff you do.  If you keep doing something because you think they like it, and they don't, there's no point in continuing to do it. 

Thanks for helping cadets.

[coudano]

Doesn't just have to be on Saturday...  we call a "squadron activity" anything that happens at a time that is NOT a weekly tuesday night meeting.

One a month is a good target to aim for, but that's a "pretty" quick ops tempo.
My squadron has busy months (like May) where there is something or the other going on pretty much every weekend in the month.  Then we have mostly dead months, like January, where we have basically nothing.  And others that fall in-between.  We average about 12 a year or so.

You have already keyed up on the bang:buck ratio.  Make the activities rock!
Activities are also leadership laboratory, just like meetings are.
We say that the weekly meetings are sort of the mundane 'grind' of routine.  The activities are the FUN part.
--though we try to keep the meetings upbeat and interesting too
Have your cadet officers schedule, plan, and execute these activities.  it's good for them.

You also may need to do fund raisers for your squadron, each of those would be a squadron activity also
color guard performances in the community
even things like hikes or bike rides are cadet program related (physical fitness)
community service (ask your dav or vfw if there are things you can help with), ARC, local charities that need manpower

[jimmydeanno]

One a month is a good target to aim for, but that's a "pretty" quick ops tempo.

This is the type of thing where opinions are going to differ greatly.  I feel like I am cheating my cadets if I only have one outside activity per month and it would worsen if it was every other...  I don't expect all of them to go to every one, but I offer them. 

Breaking up the schedule can help too.

For example.  Consider wanting to get your cadets ground team qualified.  You could take the group that wanted to do that and have them meet twice per month on a Saturday.  You could just run a 6 month cycle.  That takes up two weekends each month.  Since the cadets that don't have interest in ES stuff don't go, you plan some other stuff, like hiking one weekend.  Last summer, I planned a series of progressively harder hikes (6), culminating with hiking the highest peak in the Northeast.  We did one hike per month May-Oct.

Sprinkle in some tour type AE activities, model rocketry, etc and voila you're up in the 25+ activities a year, easy.  Then put in the wing SAREXs, encampments, etc and you can easily fill every weekend throughout the year.  I would never expect a cadet to attend them all, but there are some that you will see at 90% of them.

It doesn't mean that one person needs to do them all.  More than likely, the AE officer can do the model rocketry program or something, the ES guy can handle the GT training, a leadership officer or DCC type can split up some of the tour type things, the pilots can handle the o-flights, etc.

A team effort can make your normal ops tempo into every weekend, minus holidays without much effort.

Just remember that success breeds success. 

[coudano]

Considering that there are units that do --literally-- zero to 1 or 2 in a YEAR.
I think of 12 as "active" tempo
25+ including group and wing stuff is "fast" tempo, maybe insane.  Definitely insane if you don't use a team to pull it off!  I couldn't get away with that, with my wife

If you are starting from 0-2, 12 might be a good first step.
And once you are running consistently there, you can look at taking it up if you want.


In my 12, I was counting things that "most or all" of the cadets participate in.
Only about 20% of my cadets are into the GT thing, so I don't count exercises and actuals.
Only 4-5 cadets participate in any one of our community color guards, so I don't count those either.
Although, those things *are* important things for the cadets that do participate in them.


Also, we do GTM3 in one Friday Night through Sunday Afternoon weekend.
Everything but first aid and the 2 exercises.  By the book:  taught, practiced, and task evaluated.  Just like NESA.
*ooh, except BCOT, we do that on a Tuesday.
That's 32 training hours to finish something like 36 tasks.  If it takes any longer than that, you're wasting time


Which reminds me...  First Aid/CPR/AED is a *GREAT* Saturday activity for any squadron.

[DCCLUKE]

Thank you all for your much needed help!!!! One big barrier that we are running into is funding. It seems like we don't have enough money to do anything. We don't even have a van to shuttle the kids around so we end up taking several POV's. Any advice on getting more money from the state or if we are "allowed" any kind of fundraising or anything like that!?

Once again, THANKS!!!

[NC Hokie]

Any advice on getting more money from the state or if we are "allowed" any kind of fundraising or anything like that!?

Here's the easiest fundraising you'll ever do: http://walmartstores.com/CommunityGiving/238.aspx

[coudano]

Thank you all for your much needed help!!!! One big barrier that we are running into is funding. It seems like we don't have enough money to do anything. We don't even have a van to shuttle the kids around so we end up taking several POV's. Any advice on getting more money from the state or if we are "allowed" any kind of fundraising or anything like that!?

Once again, THANKS!!!

You basically are on your own dime for local activities.

You can either charge the attendees to participate, to offset costs.
Or you can work/fundraise to raise money to the bank account, to offset the costs.

[Spaceman3750]

Any advice on getting more money from the state or if we are "allowed" any kind of fundraising or anything like that!?

Here's the easiest fundraising you'll ever do: http://walmartstores.com/CommunityGiving/238.aspx

This is a great opportunity if you have anyone willing to write a grant proposal. I might talk to my squadron and see if we can put something together.

Thanks