Only 6 cadets show up to squadron meetings. I am in distress and need your input

[Cadet Mac]

**Before reading please keep in mind that I'm only a 13 year old C/SSgt.

This will be the third post on my squadron's size, activities, and what to do in my position. I am now convinced my squadron's chain of command truly does not care about this problem. "6 cadets present sir," says my cadet commander most of the meetings. Sometimes, at least once every month, we have to be dismissed because 4 people showed. Tonight it was a whopping 7. Throughout the school year I have really advocated for recruiting. I have tried myself. I did a presentation to a class at school, talked with people at lunch, no one became a member, much less stayed longer than one meeting.

As far as activities, I have been in for more than a year and have not been on a single O-Flight. That is not okay at all. My flight err...element sergeant has been in for 3 years and has only had one chance to go on an O-Flight. Plus, meeting activities are repetitive, because we never have an agenda. Only when it's AE, do we have a real meeting. Squadron level activities are just parking cars. Thats all I ever done in the squadron. Thats all anyone who remains has ever done.

I tried bringing up to my flight(who is a chief, just to let you know) commander to say if we are doing anything about this membership problem, then he asks if I have. That infuriated me, because I have. I said we could place an ad in the newspaper to get people in. Then the other flight commander (also a chief) said, "who reads the paper? That is why we aren't doing it". I given up.

My father(a former C/LtCol in the 80s and 1st Lt in 90s) wrote a letter to the sq. commander FOUR months ago, explaining stuff we can do. If anything the problem has gotten worse. I have consulted senior members during my most recent promotion boards about my feelings and what we can do. Never have they tried, and I asked the DCC herself, "Have we made progress? It's been about three months", and it seemed like she forgot about. Now, she hasn't showed up in a month and a half.

Just what do I do? I want to fix this, but at the same time I want to leave the squadron, which my dad says to be apart of the solution not the problem, which in turn makes want to leave CAP in general. I have not got anything out of the program, nothing exciting, nothing useful. I have no idea what to do and I need any and all advice you have to give. Thanks.

[lordmonar]

How many cadets are in your squadron?

Beyond bringing it to the attention of you squadron commander there is very little you can do unless you are in a position to get things done.

[NC Hokie]

Sometimes, at least once every month, we have to be dismissed because 4 people showed.

Why are you dismissed because only four people (cadets, I presume) show up?

My father(a former C/LtCol in the 80s and 1st Lt in 90s) wrote a letter to the sq. commander FOUR months ago, explaining stuff we can do.

Have you spoken with your father about rejoining so that he can be a part of the change that you would both like to see?  I'm not saying that he should try to come in and take over the cadet program, but I'd be very surprised if squadron leadership stood in his way if he were to arrange some interesting trips or overnight activities.

Just what do I do? I want to fix this, but at the same time I want to leave the squadron, which my dad says to be apart of the solution not the problem, which in turn makes want to leave CAP in general. I have not got anything out of the program, nothing exciting, nothing useful. I have no idea what to do and I need any and all advice you have to give. Thanks.

If you don't think you're in a position to effect meaningful change, your options are to quit or develop yourself so that you're ready to make those changes when the time comes.  Look for opportunities outside of your squadron to fill your craving for the exciting and useful.  Things like encampment, NCO academies, ES training weekends, etc.  CAP is much more than the weekly squadron meeting, but sometimes you have to go out of your way to find what you're looking for.

[MSG Mac]

The Command Staff (senior and Cadet) should be contacting the absent cadets. If only to ask why they're they've decided not to attend meetings. From what you've said the lack of structure, no activities, and the general apathy of the leadership are the problems.

[coudano]

Well if the meetings are boring, that'll explain why nobody shows up to them.
That's not really rocket science.

How many people live in your city/area?
6 or so active cadets is really not that hard to imagine in smaller/rural areas.
I've seen a lot of such squadrons; been in a few.


How far away is the closest unit?

[ironputts]

The best way to recruit new cadets is with the current cadets you have now. Our best time for recruiting is in the Fall when the kids retuirn to school. The adults setup a table at middle and high schools during "back to school night" a club fair, or any other after school activity. The senior members need to get permission by the school administration. I have found most kids are more receptive to other kids their age to talk about CAP. 

There is nothing wrong bringing siblings and other family or friends to meetings and have them join. We just had 5 family members in our squadron! Dont forget home school kids and reach out to the local home school chapters who can have you join them for one of their meetings to recruit those kids. We currently have 4 cadets that are home school students.

The best way to recruit is with cadets willing to walk up to someone and ask them if they want to join CAP. Of course there is the initial shyness but that is where the cadet has the fact sheet along with stories to tell and recruit the kids. The more prepared you are the better the sales pitch! It is not easy and it is tough with just a handfull of cadets but if each cadet recruits one student then you will be in double digits!

[Eclipse]

Bear in mind, it's summer.

Presumably a lot of your cadets are away at summer activities (in fact, why aren't you?), family vacations, and other things that limit their ability to attend meetings.

For years I've said that this idea that local squadron functions slow down or come to a halt during summer is a detriment to CAP (the same thing happens around the holiday),
with that said June is the last time you want to get yourself too worked up unit participation. 

The time to be concerned is the Fall and Winter, though now is a good time to start making plans for the new fiscal year which starts in October.

The O-Ride issue is interesting as there has been a pretty significant emphasis places on them in the last FY, with pressure on Wing CC's and DOs to get cadets in the air.
The fact that this isn't filtering down to yo in the form of actual rides means there are larger issues in your wing, or your unit staff may be ignoring the opportunities.
For you personally it might be a good idea to start looking outside the unit for flight opportunities.

[Cadet Mac]

Bear in mind, it's summer.

Presumably a lot of your cadets are away at summer activities (in fact, why aren't you?), family vacations, and other things that limit their ability to attend meetings.

For years I've said that this idea that local squadron functions slow down or come to a halt during summer is a detriment to CAP (the same thing happens around the holiday),
with that said June is the last time you want to get yourself too worked up unit participation. 

The time to be concerned is the Fall and Winter, though now is a good time to start making plans for the new fiscal year which starts in October.

The O-Ride issue is interesting as there has been a pretty significant emphasis places on them in the last FY, with pressure on Wing CC's and DOs to get cadets in the air.
The fact that this isn't filtering down to yo in the form of actual rides means there are larger issues in your wing, or your unit staff may be ignoring the opportunities.
For you personally it might be a good idea to start looking outside the unit for flight opportunities.

Actually, there was 17 cadets on roster in spring, then 10 as of now, so they are not on vacations(I actually got back from mine 5 days ago).

And they are ignoring O-Flight opportunities. I was about to go on a wing level flight(until it got cancelled) and my squadron-mates didn't notify anyone much less knew about it. (i only knew about it from my wing's website)

[lordmonar]

Three options.

One:  Your parents can get involved with the program and make it more to your likening.

Two:  Change squadrons.

Three:  Quit.

Hate to be blunt here.....but no one on this board can really help you as we don't have any situational awareness on your squadron.

[Private Investigator]

You got some great advice.

The only thing I would add is what are you selling? If you are pitching flying and no flying is happening nobody will come. If you are doing the ES, SAR, DR and the whole pararescue thing you will get every teen who ever dreamed about being a fire fighter or paramedic showing up. Some teens and/or their parents want to have the 'military' experience, so you have to give that appearance of the military to them. So if you have a Plan "A" and it is not working go to Plan "B".

[Nearly Dark Side]

I'm gonna level with you, at your position there is not much you can do. My squadron is in a similar position, we went from 30 active cadets to 15 in one year and now only 8 or 9 non staff members coming to the meetings. I am the flight commander and a C/CSgt and I have very similar feelings to my own squadron. I have a few questions about your experience, what is your staff position and have you ever been to an encampment? If you have a staff position of any kind then you should talk to the cadets under you. If you have been to an encampment then you know what CAP can be. Your situation is interesting to me because I have a similar squadron, the difference being that my flight is motivated but some of the staff, the element leaders and the flight sergeant, are not, my problem is that there is no one qualified to replace the staff because my squadron is very bottom heavy. The thing to remember is that interest in programs like CAP goes through fads and a recruiter's job is to find out what appeals to people now about CAP.

[TexasCadet]

Here's an idea. Ask the cadets what they want to see happen at the squadron. If you do only ES, and everybody is into flying, well, you get the point.

[flyboy53]

I hear ya' but there are several things to remember here and there are those activities that do take precedence to CAP.

Yes, it's a school night. Don't put yourself in the position or elevate the CAP organization to a level that a squadron meeting is more important than school activities. However, if cadets are blowing off meetings for school activities or studies, then you have a sense where their priorities lie -- and should plan accordingly.

You should poll the cadets in your flight to determine what it is that they want to do. If Emergency Services, fine. Train accordingly, but NEVER do that at the expense of other MORE important aspects such as testing or achievement progression. All too often, some units develop a wild hair and chose Emergency Services above everything else. Then, pretty soon, retention starts dropping because nobody progresses and you start seeing cadets remaining at the same rank for a year. Back in the 60s, I was a cadet in a squadron that only did Ranger Team stuff. Nobody ever got promoted. I spent four and a half years as a cadet and never got beyond three stripes -- and not by my own choice. In fact, I didn't even know that I had earned the third stripe until I became a senior member and got a chance to look at my cadet records.

That unit eventually became a flight of only senior members that at one point dropped to five people before things turned around. I warn you to not fall into the same trap.

Cadets like to be challenged. You may want to ask your flight if they would like to earn model rocketry badges or something similar as a flight and then start working toward that goal...or something else that will catch their interest. You may even find that there may be CAP activities that cross over to school or just the opposite. Pursue them.

Then it's one step at a time....

[Private Investigator]

Here's an idea. Ask the cadets what they want to see happen at the squadron. If you do only ES, and everybody is into flying, well, you get the point.

Exceptional answer.

I would like to do more geocaching with our Cadets but I got the message loud and clear, "Dad, nobody wants to do that!" Right now the Cyber Patriot is a big draw.

[luv2fly97]

This sounds exactly like my squadron, we have 12 cadets on the roster and on average only 3 including myself show up I'm the only staff member that ever shows up to the meetings I'm the cadet commander/ flight commander. The element leaders never show up or call the element members and our staff sergeant has been gone for the entire summer without an excuse I finally got a hold of him 3 weeks ago and he's been doing random stuff and that he would start showing up again and he's still gone and impossible to get a hold of. I have talked to the sq commander and he has no interest in changing the staff. I have found our meetings getting boring because no one wants to teach classes besides me and they will only allow me to teach so much and never let me teach. All we ever do is drill we have 3 hour meetings and drill is all they come up and they ask us to come up with topics and they shoot them all down I think the real problem is laziness. I'm not sure what rank you are but take initiative in the situation and call the other members up or talk to the CC and see what they have to think about it  as a CC I know I love to hear input from other cadets even though there's only 3 that show up for the meetings, except last week we had a whopping 6 cadets lol. Remember even the lowest ranking cadet can make a difference, so you can try calling, motivating and make suggestions.  If you are still unhappy look into other squadrons around your area and consider transferring you want to get as much of the CAP experience as possible don't sit in an unproductive situation and change squadrons not all squadrons are bad. I have considered transferring but the other ones conflict with my schedule :/

[Jeff10236]

Let me start with the disclaimer that I am not yet a CAP member so I don't know how things work there (if you look at my history here, I looked into it 2 years ago, then grad school really amped up, I'm done now so I finally have the time and I'm about to join).  I have volunteered as a youth group advisor for a religious youth group for a few years and I'm a high school teacher who regularly plans field trips so I have some understanding of programming activities for teens.

My first question would be if the problem with your senior staff is laziness or a lack of imagination.  They simply may have few ideas about what to do for programming.  Either way, if you (and maybe you and your father) took the lead you could possibly come up with some good fun and interesting ideas as well as develop leadership skills that will help you for the future.  You mentioned a Wing flight you were going to go on that no one in your unit knew about let alone promoted, since you knew about it you could have promoted it.  Just be careful of your attitude, don't get angry or upset and sound frustrated when bringing ideas to leadership, make sure you use a tone of "I have a great idea, can we do this?". 

If you have trouble finding ideas, I'm sure CAP has suggestions for cadet activities.  I see a lot about a model rocketry program, something like that could take many hours of time and be a lot of fun.  I looked up your unit (apologies if out of bounds but you have it listed right there with your forum info under your name) and you are in a great area.  Aside from routine activities, there are a ton of flight/military related opportunities for field trips around here, off the top of my head there are several good museums for air and space flight,  cryptology and espionage around here, and several Air Force bases (not to mention Army and Marine bases plus a military school where you might be able to learn about Army, Marine and Navy aviation).  I kept that list somewhat general in case you don't want everyone knowing the area you live (though again, you have the unit there so I assume it isn't an issue), but if you need me to be more specific PM me or let me know you don't mind my listing them here.  There are also quite a few active squadrons around here, maybe you could talk to either some cadets or senior staff working with cadet programming in one of those units about things they do (and maybe do some joint activities with some of the closer units).

Of course, others mentioned getting involved in activities that don't require your unit.  They seem to have a number of Wing level activities and training classes you can take.  I see you started going that route with the cancelled Wing level flight.  Keep on that path so you can get more out of the experience even if your unit is a bit lax (and bring stories and photos of your experiences if you can to interest others in the unit to do the same).

As for the lack of activities, is it really as bad as it sounds/is that the reason you are having cadet recruiting and retention issues?  Keep in mind that major activities take time and planning and for the senior staff this is a volunteer opportunity outside their regular jobs, and job and family obligations will sometimes interfere with major activities.  Depending upon the number of senior staff working with your cadet program, a few field trip activities a year may be a lot.  Also, having been to basic training (Army) and spending some time in a military college (Norwich) I can tell you that a lot of time in any military style organization may be spent on routine activities that may not be that exciting.  For example, I'm sure the cadets in your unit spend a lot of time on drill and ceremonies and I understand that it may not be the most exciting activity in the world, but given that CAP (especially the cadet program) is a military style organization, that is just part of the package.

Finally, it does sound like your unit could use some help.  I am in your area and was planning on joining.  While I was planning on joining either a unit that is about 15min from my work or another that is about 15-20min from my home, yours is only about 30-40min away.  How much help could a brand new senior member be in such a situation?  I wouldn't want to come in and step on any toes.  I wouldn't want to come across as trying to take over the cadet programs (especially since I don't really understand CAP yet having only been looking in from the outside).   Obviously, one senior member wouldn't solve the lack of interest among cadets.  However, I would be able to help with ideas for activities and with the ability to plan activities for teens along with experience in programming for teens.  I would hope the senior members would be happy to have someone who could help with some of the work of planning such activities.