Establishing relationships has an inherent value in it, we do that best face to face. I don’t disagree that often weekly parade nights are a waste of time, you’ll see me argue against them in the previous page. I think two days a month, with a coherent plan, is probably good though.
There is some inherent value to establishing relationships, that being said due to the fickle nature of the reserves attendance system it can be months before you see some people due to how everyones schedules match up.
2 days a month is easily said, it is much harder to get everyone to match up especially with society moving towards working less traditional hours and more shift work.
The advantage of one month a year guaranteed by law is you can get people from all over the country who normally wouldn’t be able to attend your standard parade nights/weekends due to location and or schedule to participate. Its a lot easier for employers to accommodate 1 month off a year than constantly asking for a weekend here or there, and that doesn’t even include asking for time off for training.
Are you? Why ? Because I’ve taught a BMOQ-A where the candidates had downed tools for a year due to Covid, I can assure you the skills fade was real, and we had to take a lot more time than you’d think retraining on basic weapons handling. What’s your solution to 11 months of skill fade?
If the skill fade is that bad after 11 months, I would argue we didn’t spend enough time on it in the first place. For example a couple years ago I hadn’t handled a MG in a few years. Despite that I could still strip the weapons faster than the soldiers who had just finished the then shortened BMQ-L. They were less confident with the weapons than I was and it had been years since I was trained on them.
We like to pretend that we are constantly utilizing skills we have learned on a regular basis in the CAF, yet the reality is many things we get trained on we don’t refresh on a regular basis as is, we go back to trying to remember our training from years ago.
This is also why I think its important for the Reserves to have a hard cap on your rank unless you have a exceptional amount of time doing the job at the lower levels.
That’s a good point and a fair question. I don’t know where we capture that but we should be. NES is built for the volunteering to serve nature of the reserves. If you have troops that can’t make their 1 month training block are they immediately kicked out or how does that work?
I would set it up that troops can ask for a exemption to the one month for various reasons (medical, parental/family, etc.) up to the CoC to approve. If the CoC refuses the reason due to the legal requirement to attend you will attend or you will be charged with AWOL.
Treat them like the Regs for that one month span, what does the Reg Force do if someone fails to show up when ordered?
No you won’t. You spend a minimum 1 week refreshing basic skills, then you’ll hopefully get in a range, at best you’ll validate at platoon. When we do Bde Exercises they’re the summery of full training years with multiple 3-6 week exercises building to them.
Either way it will still have your soldiers much more trained at their levels than the current system. When we have Regiments with maybe a company on paper, that only have a platoon to a section show up on ex currently, what is really being validated?
If everyone is legally required to show up you have everyone there to train. We can’t demand people always show up to everything on the current system, its too much to demand as a part time gig. Getting a month off to do it is much more attainable.
I agree fullly the the reserve system is a self licking lollipop administratively. It generates admin for COs because the CO position exists ect. Fully agree. That said having 1 WO plan the flights, arrivals, and training goals of what ever size, let’s say platoon, with no established chain of command to help sounds horrific.
Its not necessarily one WO doing the work, just that if we know this is happening every year we can plan it every year. I imagine the structure would look something like all the WOs and above and Majors and above would be Reg force (with some exemptions for retired Reg force members transferring into the Reserves, or Reservists with tons of full time experience wishing to advance).
Since those units would be stood down each year, we can use that leadership as training staff for the CAF (run both courses for the Regs and Reserves the rest of the year), or filling in elsewhere as required. Then pull them back to manage the Reserves for the one month exercise/standing up of the unit.
Some members will have to be full time managing the Reserves but with the reduced admin of having the units stood down most the year, a lot of the current manning needs would be gone. If we properly utilized technology we wouldn’t need nearly as many people to administer the system.
For example, we create a lot of admin just by sending stuff down the CoC constantly.
There is so many exercises and taskings I have had sent to me that by time it hits the troops it is now urgent (or even past due) for a response, when in reality they asked for the manning a few weeks prior it just took that long for it to be emailed down the CoC.
Why couldn’t that initial email simply have been sent to the troops directly? Or if we were smart we would generate a website which lists the taskings available and allows the troops to apply for them as they come up. That would allow the soldiers to apply for work if they desire to, well substantially reducing the admin on the collective CoCs.
It also allows for a decentralized approach which doesn’t require the people arranging the taskings/courses to be anywhere near the people attending them. You could have someone in Moose Factory in the Reserves and take taskings/courses if they wished. In many ways this could open the doors for many rural communities with not much good job prospects to have people join and earn great money for the area without having to commit to moving away for long periods.
I’d argue building maintenance is of critical value to the military - we need those places to keep our equipment and provide training venues / places to run admin
Building maintenance is of critical value, what I am questioning is why we need armouries in every city when we could centralize all those resources in a few bases across the country and allow the full time staff there to deal with that.
What if they don’t show up?
Treat them the same as the Regs, its a legal requirement, you face AWOL if you don’t.
So the nearest rifle for someone in Price George is Edmonton ? What if they break some kit, how does that happen without some kind of regular check in / local stores ?
Where ever the training bases happen to be is where the equipment would be. Why would we need the equipment to be elsewhere?
Set up a online equipment shop/depot for ordering replacement equipment/returning equipment. Make it so the box the new equipment is sent in has a return label on it and you pack the old broken/damaged/now under/oversized equipment in and mail back to the depot.
Equipment really doesn’t break that much, certainly not enough to justify the amount of money we spend to keep stores going at each armouries. I think I have used clothing stores for equipment maybe half a dozen times in the last 8 years, certainly not enough to justify a full time pers managing a micro stores.
Yes I agree about duplication of work. But you were the one talking about not having units beyond regional WOs running the admin. So now what it sounds like we’re talking about is coming around to regimental amalgamations into usable Bn hubs with dispersed sub and sub sub units. Right ?
There is always going to need to be more than just one person, but the admin side will be substantially reduced. Exactly how many is needed would have to be sorted out, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the current manning demand.
Or on a soft wear program called CFTPO ? Isn’t this kind of already what happens ? Chain of command finds a tasking, ask for volunteers via a talk or group chat? Then does the CFTPO filling online ? Give members the option to bid ? Sure I guess.
We can make the current system more efficient than it currently is. There is a lot of inefficient processes in how we currently do it, see my example above for taskings.
The problem is now we have 47 UOI qualified MCpls in the Toronto Militia district but no driver examiners and no one has vault access. Individual training goals are great but need to be subordinate to the institutions needs.
100%. The main goal is to create OFP soldiers, beyond that courses become optional. What OFP means can be adjusted as needed. The Reserves as I see it mainly exist as a force multiplier on the cheap for the lower levels (the levels which are easier to maintain the skills at). To me the training should primarily be run by Reg Force staff, just as the courses the Reservists should mainly be taking be oriented towards their specific positions.
Why have Reservists with driver examiner, when the training is done mainly by the Regs? Why would a Reservist need vault access when the weapons are managed in the centralized bases? We create a lot of the demand for these types of courses currently due to our spread out nature. By centralizing it reduces/removes the burden of these types of courses.
Some will argue the Regs cannot possibly provide all that training, I simply need to point to how many troops we have helped train for Ukraine. Its not a matter of we cannot, its a matter of we choose not to.
So we’re really just talking about amalgamating units, which everyone here is for. In fact I think everyone in the CAF more or less agrees. The 1 month a year thing I think would be fraught with problems and end up being a month of refreshing drills with some ranges at best.
Even if it turns into a month of refreshing drills/range time/field time isn’t that all it really needs to be? Isn’t that basically all we do year round with the Reserves anyways, just spread out in a inefficient manner?
At least with this one month system we would kill a lot of needless admin, expensive building costs, full time positions that don’t need to exist, and actually force the troops to attend/get the training.
