What constitutes "active participation"?

[Storm Chaser]

I am demanding a definition from those who support that......to show how subjective a definition it is.   How problematical it would be to administer, and how much damage it can do to CAP.

"Demanding", that's actually funny.  Everybody wants to play Army until they have to get their crayons out.

It's subjective by design, that doesn't make it pointless.  There are plenty of people in CAP who do not serve in a
standard unit model who bring value by their contributions.  The respective commander, to whom the burden of
the membership applies, is free to determine that value.

This is as simple as the fact.  FACT (note the capital letters) that CAP, as an organization, has literally no idea how many
"members" it actually has beyond the number of checks it cashes each year.  The are many MANY (more caps) units with 50%
or more of the roster that never show up or participate in any way.  There are many more that have "members" they have never
seen or who haven't shown up in a decade.

As someone in the military, we'd all expect you to understand the importance of an organization which purports to be
a ready force in times of disaster (in fact is mandated by its charter to that effect), to have an accurate count of the
real status of all its members.

I don't always agree with Eclipse, but on this instance I think he's right.

I'm not interested so much on how many members pay their dues in my group, which is what our membership data reports, but on how many are actively contributing to the organization. It's not so much about safety currency, although that provides a useful indicator, but about how a member is contributing according to his unit (squadron, group, wing, etc.), duty assignment, ES specialty, special activity staff assignment, among others.

Safety currency is but one indicator. That said, a member who have not been safety current for several months is most likely not actively participating or contributing in any meaningful way. There are, of course, exceptions and that's up to each commander to determine.

[Eclipse]

Qualified ≠ Proficient

And what does going to a meeting every week have to do with either?

Clearly nothing.

There's simply no reason to attend them.  There's nothing that ever happens at them of any value.
Once qualified, recurrent training is clearly a waste of everyone's time, and expecting people
to do the staff jobs they agreed to is a burden. The sooner CAP can eliminate any in-face contact and expectations, the better for all involved.

There's no way for NHQ to compel commanders to enforce regulations, and why should they
as the organization is in better condition then it has been in a decade.  Membership is up,
real missions happen so frequently that they don't make much notice of them anymore, and
CAPs standing and reputation in the ES, aviation, and military community is higher then ever.

Status quo is clearly serving the organization well, carry on.

[Storm Chaser]

Qualified ≠ Proficient

And what does going to a meeting every week have to do with either?

Nothing. But that's something you brought up.

The previous statement made was whether you would want to use someone who you haven't seen in months or years. You said that all you care is that they're qualified. I replied that being qualified is not the same as being proficient. How can you be proficient if you never participate? As an IC, I care whether they can do the job. And in my experience, not everyone who's qualified can.

[lordmonar]

Hmmm. Interesting. Sounds like you have seen some leadership issues unrelated to the qualifications and readiness of the units and members.

Members are either qualified and signed off for an ES qualification or they are not.  If the "low-timers" have their qualifications and show up ready to work, why on Earth would you not employ them in a given mission?  Sure, for a given task if I had multiple people to choose from, I might select the most qualified and experienced member, but to summarily exclude "low-timers" just because you have some more experienced folks seems a little . . . . short sighted.

Actually, my concern with the low-timers gets back to the idea of qualified versus proficient.  If someone gets signed off as an observer, doesn't show up to anything for two years and then when a "Sandy" type event happens, they may be technically qualified, but would I want them in the cockpit if I had other people, who had been to SAREX's and other training to do the work, not sure that would be a good idea.  The best advertisement for getting called back is by being able to do the job.  "qualified" people sometimes aren't

Then you need to address the ES regulations about qualifications and re-qualification.

And being active in the squadron....not an empty shirt....doing your AE job or your CP job or your admin job........does not address your ES proficiencies and qualifications.   

Which keeps circling back to my point.......the concept that managing our empty shirts will bring value to our organization just does not pass the common sense test.

It adds work for little or no value.

[Eclipse]

Which keeps circling back to my point.......the concept that managing our empty shirts will bring value to our organization just does not pass the common sense test.

But not knowing who the members really are, that does?

[Eclipse]

And being active in the squadron....not an empty shirt....doing your AE job or your CP job or your admin job........does not address your ES proficiencies and qualifications. 

No one said it did, that addresses your...

wait for it...

...AE & CP skills.

And if the organization was fuly staffed, then CAP wouldn't need people having to wear 12 hats, so "doing their AE or CP job" would be enough.

[lordmonar]

And being active in the squadron....not an empty shirt....doing your AE job or your CP job or your admin job........does not address your ES proficiencies and qualifications. 

No one said it did, that addresses your...

wait for it...

...AE & CP skills.

And if the organization was fuly staffed, then CAP wouldn't need people having to wear 12 hats, so "doing their AE or CP job" would be enough.

And kicking our empty shirts....helps getting fully staffed how?

That is the fallacy of your idea.

The problem is and always has been not enough active and trained people to do all the jobs we need to do.   

I question the value of managing the empty shirts in rectifying that problem. 

[JeffDG]

Qualified ≠ Proficient

And what does going to a meeting every week have to do with either?

Nothing. But that's something you brought up.

The previous statement made was whether you would want to use someone who you haven't seen in months or years. You said that all you care is that they're qualified. I replied that being qualified is not the same as being proficient. How can you be proficient if you never participate? As an IC, I care whether they can do the job. And in my experience, not everyone who's qualified can.

Honestly, I have no clue if a member goes to weekly meetings, and honestly it has no bearing.

I might be running a mission 300 miles away from me, and whether the qualified Mission Pilot attends his squadron meetings or not has, within rounding error, zero to do with whether he can do the job or not.  Weekly squadron meetings have nothing to do with neither qualification nor proficiency. 

Same thing on a Katrina level event.  You need bodies who are qualified.  They will rapidly gain proficiency.  And whether they go to every meeting ever will not make them proficient any quicker.

[Storm Chaser]

Again, no one said weekly meeting. Why do you keep repeating it? Active participation doesn't necessarily mean attending weekly meetings. But not participating at all will mostly likely translate into lack of proficiency. We require that CAP pilots maintain certain levels of currency and proficiency. Why not require it for other specialties?

[lordmonar]

Again, no one said weekly meeting. Why do you keep repeating it? Active participation doesn't necessarily mean attending weekly meetings. But not participating at all will mostly likely translate into lack of proficiency. We require it for pilots, why not for other specialties?

Eclipse has suggested that missing 3 meetings is reason to be declared inactive and moved to patron status.

And no.....we don't require it the FAA requires it.   But a MP is good for 2 years just like every other specialty.   The form 5 must be done every year and the FAA requires a medial and currency.

[vorteks]

Perhaps a clear communication to members of the expectations and potential consequences in the Eclipse plan would result in some of those "empty shirts" becoming more engaged again.

[Eclipse]

And kicking our empty shirts....helps getting fully staffed how?

Kicking empty shirts is step 1.  Why is that so hard to see?  I've said it that way bout eleventy-twelveteen times,
yet you keep characterizing that as my saying it's an end-all fix, which I never have.  It's a personnel's officer's job
to manage the membership, and a baseline of any successful organization.  It's Management 101.

The rest comes after.  Right now, there is no impetus to recruit or retain beyond local
commanders self-initiating and self-actualizing, and a lot of that self-actualization is
allowed to continue because on paper the unit doesn't look too bad, but in reality
no one ever shows up, and the wing has been shuffling sock puppets for years just to keep the charter viable.
Units with a 30-50% sock puppet rate, or that would lose their charter if the socks were removed form active
status are not only >not< the exception, they are actually relatively common.

Normalizing the membership forces the issue in a way which cannot be ignored.  Doing so would absolutely
cost CAP 30%+ in raw numbers, and probably 20% of the charters would be in jeopardy.  The leadership
at all levels, but especially NHQ, might be able to wrap itself in the "60k" fallacy because it ignores the
churn and looks the other way on empty shirts, so things just continue to slowly spiral down.

Losing 30% of the member and 20% of the charters could not be ignored by anyone, regardless of the spin,
and the policies put in place prevent it from happening again, while raising the quality of the new members
who come in because expectations are set properly.

The majority of the first step is a one-time purge that then sets up CAP for success with the rest of a comprehensive
retention and recruiting plan.

[lordmonar]

It is so hard to see....because you can't show me it helps?

How does that help my staffing issues?

It makes them worse....because I got to actually to the kicking out....to that means more work for my understaffed unit.

"normalizing" so it can't be ignored, assumes the powers that be are not aware of the situation........they are.   They are ignoring it now.   If in six months we start reporting 40K members instead of 60K member.....suddenly someone at NHQ will say "Gee we need to start building OPLANS, UTCs, UMDs, and UMPRs for all our units....and we need our wing commanders to split up those tasking up to all the units, so that they can know what their manning levels, training requirements, and equipment requirements are. "

"loosing 30% of manning and 20% of charters can't be ignored".......they are ignoring it now.

You think General Vasquez does not know the score?   John Demeris?  Gen Myrick?   They know....right now.....30% of our members are empty shirts and that 20% of our units are shells.     

Making me and all those units do extra work......does not fix anything.

Now......going to the NHQ types politely and respectfully with a thought out suggestion and a plan of action.....that may get them off the dime.   Or maybe working your way up the chain where you have the influence to make your view know and effect change.

Sorry......but doing it just because.....does not spark the change that you are suggesting.

It adds more work.  It causes animosity toward CAP by former members.  It does nothing to put more bodies in the squadrons.  It does nothing to improve our readiness to respond to emergencies.  It does nothing to accomplish our AE mission or our CP mission.

Value added.   I don't see it.....I don't see it even as a price for further value added down the road.   Not one based on the notion of "if you break it then they have to respond".

[Eclipse]

Making me and all those units do extra work...

What.

Extra.

Work.

Nothing I am suggesting is outside what is supposed to already be the Commander's job, and on the other side,
everyone has less to do - you clearly missed it, but those members are going to 996, so they aren't your problem
anymore - 30-50% less administrative overhead, no more SUI issues, no retention issue.  Done.

Less.

Work.

As to your other comments, people ignore a lot of things, until they can't any more.
But thank you for confirming what most of us already knew anyway, that the situation is
relatively dire, and the leadership is doing nothing to fix it.

Honestly, I don't understand how you, of all people, can think it is healthy for an organization
like CAP, one which purports to install core values of excellence and integrity, to just
walk around in a haze of kidding itself about some of the most fundamental issues such as "who's a member".

The basis for any successful enterprise is knowing three things Goals, Resources, and Timeline.
These are interdependent and none of them are optional for anything resembling a successful plan.

Management 101.

[FW]

I gotta go with Bob here.  Squadron commanders know who their active members are.  Why would it be a problem to put non participating members in Patron Status?  I, for one, don't think it's fair to let those MP's, MO's; etc, be active twice a year during SAREX's or missions because it's "more important", or "free flying for me" because they are in the "GOBN". 

We need to do a much better job of motivating all members to participate, stay proficient, and engaged in performing missions.  Contrary to popular opinion, CAP is a social organization.  We can't survive just on emails, online services, and texts.  Every once in a while, we must actually meet face to face and get some real work accomplished...

[a2capt]

Since one wants to 2'B members who are not safety current, one might note that unless an activity requires a GES card to participate, the Unit Commander may waive safety requirements, thereby cleaning up that ugly safety currency requirement...

Until the next commander says "WTF!" .. since it's not uncommon for some of us to be seeing the Wing CC himself sending out notes that pretty much amount to ragging on units that are not "100%" compliant.

They're doing it totally wrong.

If the safety currency is a requirement, then let it be an SUI item where rosters can be looked at .. "how did this member participate if they were not .. ahem, uh, 'current'?" and start sending people away from the sign in table .. go use your phone, go answer the downed power line questions, and come back. Whatever.

[lordmonar]

Making me and all those units do extra work...

What.

Extra.

Work.

Nothing I am suggesting is outside what is supposed to already be the Commander's job, and on the other side,
everyone has less to do - you clearly missed it, but those members are going to 996, so they aren't your problem
anymore - 30-50% less administrative overhead, no more SUI issues, no retention issue.  Done.

No...it is not.

Show me one regulation that suggest one of our duties is to "clean up the books" of inactive members.

It is not our job.   You are ADDING a new requirement.

You are adding a now weekly or monthly activity to "check up on the attendance" and "call the inactives" to see if they are going to come back.  You are ADDING a requirement that we now have to do patron paperwork on those who are "inactive" for six months.

This is all new stuff that we don't do right now.   

I don't do any admin stuff on the 30% of my empty shirts.   I don't have to....they are inactive.
So moving them to inactive.....increases my work load...not decreases it.
And of course....this is not a one time good deal.   I clean up my 30% right now....but I will still have a certain percent of my current active members go inactive over the course of the year.....and if it is important that our numbers be true.....they should be "live" that is we are always updating them.....at least monthly.   So the process of managing this....even if it only takes 10 minutes a week.....is 10 minutes that I'm adding to my already overworked admin staff.

Less.

Work.

No....more work.

As to your other comments, people ignore a lot of things, until they can't any more.
But thank you for confirming what most of us already knew anyway, that the situation is
relatively dire, and the leadership is doing nothing to fix it.

I'm not confirming nothing.  The situation is the situation.  Nothing DIRE about it.

Honestly, I don't understand how you, of all people, can think it is healthy for an organization
like CAP, one which purports to install core values of excellence and integrity, to just
walk around in a haze of kidding itself about some of the most fundamental issues such as "who's a member".

I don't see your fix.....as fixing anything.  I see it as adding to the admin burden that we are already struggling to overcome.   
I don't see the problem as dire.  I do see it as something we have to over and I do have some ideas of how we can fix some of the problems.

FORCING OUR UNITS TO SWEEP UP THEIR EMPTY SHIRTS does NOTHING....NOTHING.....to fix the base line problem of too much mission, too much overhead, not enough people.

The basis for any successful enterprise is knowing three things Goals, Resources, and Timeline.
These are interdependent and none of them are optional for anything resembling a successful plan.

Management 101.

Yep.    So....moving out empty shirts helps me as a unit leader to under stand my goals how?   My resources?  I already know 30% of them are empty shirts.  My Timeline?   

You can spout managment slogans at me all day.

Bottom line.

Problem is not enough people to do the job.

Kicking out the empty shirts does NOTHING to fix that.
Kicking out the empty shirts ADDS to the work for which we don't have enough people to do.
Kicking out the empty shirts will not magically make "THEM" suddenly worried about the status quo.

So....again.....COST/BENIFIT.

[lordmonar]

I gotta go with Bob here.  Squadron commanders know who their active members are.  Why would it be a problem to put non participating members in Patron Status?  I, for one, don't think it's fair to let those MP's, MO's; etc, be active twice a year during SAREX's or missions because it's "more important", or "free flying for me" because they are in the "GOBN". 

We need to do a much better job of motivating all members to participate, stay proficient, and engaged in performing missions.  Contrary to popular opinion, CAP is a social organization.  We can't survive just on emails, online services, and texts.  Every once in a while, we must actually meet face to face and get some real work accomplished...

So....this is not about mission readiness.....but more about "I work my butt off....and he get's to just waltz in and fly twice a year".

Yes....we need to do a much better job of keeping those who have joined, active, engaged, and busy.  We need to get more of them to step up to the plate and take on some of the [mess] work we got to do to keep the three missions running.

I don't see requiring......and this is not discretionary here......if it we leave it up to 'what they want to do" Bob's plan will not work........requiring unit commanders to clean up their roles based on more or less arbitrary definition of "inactive".  We are going to require them to do this at least once month...to keep the numbers clean.   

And at the end of the day....what have we gained?

You don't want that one guy who only flies every six months flying......don't let him fly.   Give it to someone who works his butt off.
But moving that guy to Patron status.....against his will....because he does not "do" anything else......decreases our readiness.  Makes this guy now pissed at CAP.   

Net result?  More work for the squadron, less readiness, more animosity from former members.....oh....and our numbers are now clean.

[Eclipse]

Kicking out the empty shirts does NOTHING to fix that.
Kicking out the empty shirts ADDS to the work for which we don't have enough people to do.
Kicking out the empty shirts will not magically make "THEM" suddenly worried about the status quo.

[lordmonar]

No....I see the forest.....and I see the trees.

Your problem is you are attacking the wrong trees.

We have identified the problem.....too much job....not enough workers.

The fix is easy.

Less job....more workers.

You are suggesting the opposite.

You are wishing that "they" will do their job....and some how that will magically make the people appear and work load decrease.

So you have come up with this plan.......This evil master plan........we start forcing them to close units and we force them to see our membership numbers drop 30%.....they will have do something.


Now who is ignoring reality?

We already have units well below their minim membership....and that is before you factor in the empty shirts.   Do you see any wings or group guys driving out and finding out what the problem is?

No....in fact you have emphatically stated that it is not their job to do so.  I.e. they don't care if that unit is okay or folds.

So what makes you think that the nefarious "them" at NHQ is any different then you?

If your unit....in your opinion is undermanned......suddenly dropping 30% off your books is not going to get wing off their butts to come down to help you.   

Calling wing and saying "I could use some help here"...now that might work....but not the other.

Someone goes inactive......okay...they go inactive.  I may or may not have the time to follow up and find out what's going on.   Eventually they will drop off my books...I move their records to the inactive file...and in five years I destroy them.

That is my base line of work.

You would want me to MANDATORY follow up on the individual.  Six months into the inactive status I would have to initiate paperwork to transfer him.  and then six months (or less) his membership expires, I move his files to the inactive file and five years later I destroy them.

Tell me that is not more work.   Tell me that we actually get some benifit from it.