What a week. I haven’t stopped since I came back from Scotland, between work and cadets and all the rest, trying to catch up on stuff like washing clothes is difficult because I just don’t get the time! (Don’t worry, I managed to get it done, so I don’t smell!)
Last night was the usual cadet parade night. Now recently one of our Wing staff officers went to visit the local school to try and recruit some new cadets. Bear in mind that we were struggling to keep the 10 or so we had, and it was not unusual to be parading 3 cadets at the main squadron and 5 at the DF. As a result, we started opening only one location per parade night.
So Mondays are up at Squadron HQ. Last night we paraded 10 uniformed cadets….and 39 probationary cadets! I mean, holy crap! We actually struggled with enough staff, whereas we used to often have more staff than cadets turning up. We had to break them down into 3 flights and we ran first aid training with the uniformed cadets, some basic drill for the probationers that had been before, and an induction talk for those whose first night it was. We had a completely full hall on final parade, the staff had to squash around the wall.
This Thursday for the first time since Christmas, we’re parading at both locations. Even if our retention rate is only 50% of these new ones, that’s only a single year we’ve spoken to, we can go back and talk to other years too….
In related news, Ken the Wing and Regional Adventure Training officer has stood down as Wing AdvTrg Officer (or WATO). He’s staying on as RATO, but Wing are looking for a new ATO. I’ve enquired….
Completely unrelated, but Andy, a very good friend of mine from London came to visit on Friday night and we had a few beers. Unfortunately, he had to head back fairly sharpish, but he’s coming up next month for a proper piss up. Woot.