NACO states: fewer of our members are obtaining or retaining quals. We continue to lose boat crew, coxswains, co-pilots, first pilots, aircraft commanders and both surface and air facilities.We are losing instructors and fewer members are choosing to become certified in any
discipline. Why? How do we fix the situation?

Generally speaking, people are resistant to change and the Aux certainly has initiated many changes in recent years (so has the gold side).

Next year, when the new ODU is available for the AUX, we will have three different "work" uniforms. At least one district has tried to implement a "look alike policy" which is best observed by ignoring it. Does the public care if AUX crew are wearing two types of uniforms and/or two types of caps (not even counting the Tilley).

This type of stuff upsets people and they vote with their feet.

There's a simple solution. When I was a teen, I qualified for Water Safety Instructor. It's the next rung up from Advanced Lifesaving, and it's a bear to qualify for.

The Red Cross was smart. In order to keep it's instructors, it had a rule. If you successfully taught x amount of swimmers and they passed their test, your certification would be renewed for another year.

The Auxiliary could do something similar for boat crew. If you've done x amount of SARS,(or other specified task) you would be renewed for the year.

Just a thought.

Could you copy his exact statement? I'm not sure exactly what he was getting at from what you said.

Could you copy his exact statement? I'm not sure exactly what he was getting at from what you said.

I have received the following email. It did not come from anyone who has posted to this thead. You can even assume I have gotten it more then once. To protect various identities I can only give you a bit longer 'taste' then you have gotten already. The first line tells you the original "To" - assume that it has gotten well beyond that group (obviously since it has already been posted here):

quote:

All DSO-MTs,

The National Commodore has reviewed a recent analysis that, in part, states that "fewer of our members are obtaining or retaining qualifications in many of our programs. We continue to lose boat crew, coxswains, co-pilots, first pilots, aircraft commanders and both surface and air facilities. We also continue to lose instructors. The Member Training data makes it clear that, pretty much across the board, fewer members are choosing to become certified".

quote:

COMO Steve Budar, NACO asks: What do we make of this? What actions do we need to take at this time?.... a discussion item for NEXCOM in June.

The National staff has been requested to respond to COMO Budar's queries. In order to assure that our response also represents the thinking and experience of the members where the action is taking place, we are respectfully requesting your response to these questions. Why do you feel that there is a decreased initial qualification and qualification maintenance as described above? I encourage you to consult others in the Chain of Leadership going as far to the deck plate that makes sense. Please collect your thoughts and others into a single input to me. I will consolidate your input and all other DSO-MT inputs into a single report. Please send your input to {name withheld to protect the innocent} National Department of Training United States Coast Guard Auxiliary"

Without seeing the actual analysis upon which the statements are made, its sort of difficult to evaluate especially without knowing the time span over which it was done.

For example: Due to the recent dismemberment caused primarily by the PSI which was probably aggravated by the "natural" loss of a lot of new post-9/11 volunteers typically seen after someone is in an organization for a year or two and decides they don't like it, the Aux probably has a higher percentage of new members than it did 5 years ago. New members are much less likely to be qualified, so the ratio of boatcrew members to total Aux membership is bound to be somewhat lower now than it was then.

But, perhaps the evaluation upon which NACO's statements were made takes that into consideration in some fashion (I can think of several) and it still holds true. Though FL and I disagree upon its extent, we probably have seen some losses of qualified members in the boatcrew program due to what I consider minor changes in the requalification process and a slight increase in the annual hours needed for currency.

Though I have no evidence, I suspect that the losses of instructors probably has to do with the fact that in-person basic boating classes have been rendered obsolete by internet classes and while they are still taught and probably will be for a while, they are the equivalent of the buggy whip factories described by Gordo Gecko in Wall Street.

One problem is with the AUXDATA system. Paper work gets lost or missentered.

Haveing members go though qualification steps or annual quaslifications and then the soemone misenters the data or the paper work does not get sent in. The member has to redo the process.

At what point does the member not want to redo the work, and what other stuff could the member enjoy instead of redoing steps because of lost paperwork.

There are many causes of the decline and most of them have been discussed here and we will do it again. Some of the causes are across all of the quals, some are qual specific. Despite its preference for 'one size fits all' there will be no workable solution that fits all qualifications.

However, I begin by showing you one of the causes. It is contained in the message itself. It is probably one of the root causes of the entire problem. The tell-tale statement is:

quote:

I encourage you to consult others in the Chain of Leadership going as far to the deck plate that makes sense.

Read that several times. The first reference is to the Chain. We all know how rusty and inefficient that Chain is - some even think large chunks of it are corrupt. It is also well-known that large chunks of the chain believe in several Mismanagement Principles.

1. Good news only may go 'onward and upward'. They certainly aren't going to tell thier 'betters' anything bad. It will all be the members fault.

2. Black Hole Management - this ties into another statement in the document:

quote:

Please collect your thoughts and others into a single input to me.

You just know that any real biting criticism or insightful analysis is going to get lost or buried in that "single input".

But the last real telling part is the part about the deck plate. It is the deck plate, ie the Bilge Mice, that aren't getting quals or renewing the quals they have. The Bilge Mice are the only ones who can give you the Real Reason (if they feel safe and secure giving it to you). But the info gatherers are only supposed to talk to the Bilge Mice if 'it makes sense'. The only people it 'makes sense' to talk to are the Bilge Mice - and I doubt that except for a few courageous souls no orifice will talk to them.

If the PTB really wanted to know the answer they would post on the internet and mail to every member (and ex-member) a questionairre that asked the questions. Although the raw data from that would need to be analyzed by someone the Grand Poobahs should look at least a sampling of the responses.

But that is one of the root causes of the problem - the disconnect between the higher level (nat and district) officers and the Bilge Mice. So the Grand Poobahs, with or without CG support, keep ladling on the requirements, changing requirements etc without ever asking or getting input from the Bilge Mice.

And the Bilge Mice have been voting with their feet.

While I am certainly in favor of regular membership surveys and even occassional special surveys of the membership, you don't need to do them for every issue.

But, before you took such a step, wouldn't it be prudent to ask for advice and information on the subject from the senior leadership to get some ideas on what might be going on? You have to have some reasonable idea of the issues to ask about if you want to do a survey.

Even if they don't do a survey on this issue, it is very reasonable, and doesn't represent anything nefarious, to ask the people reporting to you to check into it and get back to you with their conclusions. Thats what they're there to do, you know.

Back to the original topic: The problem apparently lies primarily in the more "operational" fields (boat and aircrew). If we accept the statement that fewer Auxies are becoming qualified in those fields, why would we be surprised? The CG and NACO have been emphasizing RBS and other non-operational activities for years. Perhaps all this talk about RBS being important is beginning to pay off and people are moving that direction.

While I doubt many boatcrew are dropping quals to do VEs, perhaps the new members that we are getting at a respectable rate are starting with an RBS orientation.

Another Root Cause - Fraudulent Advertising and/or 'Bait 'n Switch'.

The print brochures probably paint a more balanced view of the Aux but take a look at the various web sites from Nat on down. Even include in this some unofficial sites like "Aux Your Boat". They paint a false picture of the Aux as some action oriented, helo supporting, high speed low drag, response organization. And we all know the Aux is none of those things.

So the Aux and its well-intentioned boosters present a distorted picture of the Aux. Then the members 'signs on the bottom line' and a few monts later finds out the awful truth.

The Aux is not a first responder organization, it is a clutch speed, 'go only as fast as you need to make headway' type organization. Dramatic helo ops are limited to a few areas at special times. Rescues will be few and far between - many Auxie boat crew will never even participate in a SAR event in their Auxie career. Most of the time you will be going slow and just 'showing the flag' (and hopefully reporting ATONs and pollution).

Further the new member, who thinks they will be on a boat on day one is surprised to learn that it might take a year or more just to make crew and another 1 to 3 years to make coxswain.

So he looks at much vaunted and touted air program instead. He is surprised to find that either it doesn't exist in his district or that there is a wait list to get in (and place on the wait list may be governed by 'who you know or who you ...').

So then he looks at the almost as much vaunted Trident program. There he discovers that there are almost no trained Auxies or even 'trained trainers'. He is on his own. So maybe he begins the slow process of self-learning. Then he discvoers that the local CG unit has no interest in having Auxie involvement or only has a need for a few and they are "full up" and dont' need anymore. Or maybe what interests the member (see Auxiliary Of One post - coming shortly) isn't what the local unit wants or needs - so the Auxie, to his surprise is SOOL.

Then the pressure starts to be applied to the member to 'do something' - although the something he joined to do isn't available. And that something is the most despised and neglected program in the Aux. The new member begins to rightly suspect he has been 'had'. He feels almost forced to do missions the current members despise and do not want to do.

So he votes with his feet and then tells as many of his friends as possible what a lieing sack of 'you know what' the Aux is.

That scenario is possible, but I strongly suspect that the Aux has been at least informally promoting that sort of image for quite a few years. I suspect the percent of people being "bait and switched" has always been there, but for your proposal to be right, it would have to have gone up quite a bit to get the results we're apparently seeing.

While I am certainly in favor of regular membership surveys and even occassional special surveys of the membership, you don't need to do them for every issue.

Nobody said to take one on every issue. But NACO's letter certainly has the tone of 'an organization in crisis' and in crisis mode you had better start thinking outside the box and the chain. After all, it was the Chain who either got you into the mess in the first place or failed to do their job by not alerting you to the problem before it became a crisis. This is also the group that from another thread we know doesn't communicate with the membership now. If I were the Big Dog this is hardly the group I would trust to help me fix the problem or even figure out what the problem was.

But maybe Root Cause Number 3 - NACO is a child of the process. He probably believes in it himself - so he will never figure out what is really going on.

The problem apparently lies primarily in the more "operational" fields (boat and aircrew). If we accept the statement that fewer Auxies are becoming qualified in those fields, why would we be surprised?

That is a highly selective analysis of the original document. Here is what NACO wrote:

quote:

We continue to lose boat crew, coxswains, co-pilots, first pilots, aircraft commanders and both surface and air facilities. We also continue to lose instructors. The Member Training data makes it clear that, pretty much across the board, fewer members are choosing to become certified".

The direct inclusion of instructors makes it clear the failure to qualify or recert is across the board not just Ops. The "pretty much across the board" is broad enough to encompass the rest of RBS.

Rather the detailing of the Ops quals and the near neglect of the RBS ones is symtomatic of the problem. There isn't a balanced effort nor even a balance in a 'share of mind' among the leadership. Their first and almost only reaction is to the glory missions of Ops.

Side issue - since NACO raised it. In the 7th, the draw down of First Pilot and Co-pilot quals is deliberate. At my last AuxAir7 Seminar, about 2 years ago, the AuxAir7 PTBs were explicit that they were only interested in Aircraft Commanders. Basically if you didn't have the flight hours and IFR to qualify as an AC then don't bother applying. In a way it made sense, if you have enough candidates to fill your needs as ACs then why scrape the bottom of the barrel for less qualified pilots. (Now putting on flame-retardant kevlar undies). Also in a dramatic reversal of long standing policy, they started pushing the lowly Air Observers to upgrade to Air Crew. Prior to that they were trying to reserve the Air Crew qual for pilots with expired medicals (explicityly allowed by the regs at the time) or pilots-in-training who didn't have the hours to even qualify as Co-pilot. There wasn't any way the Air Gods were going to let some lowly AO upgrade to Air Crew and get wings without holding that FAA ticket. Then for reasons that were never explained they starting pushing the AOs to upgrade.

And that raises another qual specific reason for not recerting. The lowly AOs and maybe some Boat Crew members get fed up with being lorded over by the Air and Boat Gods and just walk away.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FL51D7,

Sounds like D7 sucks to work for....

Glad I'm in D8.

Wow, now I am depressed....maybe I shouldn't have joined?

Stay away from discussion boards and your morale will skyrocket.

From what I can see, D7 does stuff alot differently than the rest of the AUX.

quote:

Originally posted by bbeckerusa:
One problem is with the AUXDATA system. Paper work gets lost or missentered.

Haveing members go though qualification steps or annual quaslifications and then the soemone misenters the data or the paper work does not get sent in. The member has to redo the process.

At what point does the member not want to redo the work, and what other stuff could the member enjoy instead of redoing steps because of lost paperwork.

As with the Gold side, keep copies of things that matter. AUXDATA access is free to all, ask for access and check the entries.

We are blessed to have a kick-butt FSO-IS. In my experience with him, the only things that don't get entered are things that never got to him.

--M

FL, please note that I said that this was evidentally primarily in the operational fields and also please note that I specifically addressed the Instructor issue earlier in the thread.

One issue that wasn't addressed by the NACO's statement is whether or not we're losing low-time people in these fields or the high-time people in the boatcrew program in particular. I can certainly believe that we've lost low-time folks who are not interesed enough in the program to do the 12 hours now needed to stay current every year.

I think having a boatcrew member who only does the minimum is better than having no boatcrew member since that person just might be available to help in a pinch even if they're not out there every month. However, it has been proven over and over again here that people who only meet the minimums don't contribute much to the overall effort of any Aux program. So, losing some of them isn't a major cause of concern in my book.

However, if we are losing a lot of high time and very productive coxswains and boatcrew members, then we've got a big problem somewhere in the program. But, without further detail there is no way for us to know whether or not this is the actual problem.

As far as aircrew members, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the cutbacks in D7 that FL describes were causing a major drag on the national number of certified people since they account for such a big portion of our membership.

Unfortunately, your blessings will cease as of January when the FSO-IS position is supposed to disappear as part of the reorganization. At least that's what's going to happen in my District.

quote:

Originally posted by ward2up:
Unfortunately, your blessings will cease as of January when the FSO-IS position is supposed to disappear as part of the reorganization. At least that's what's going to happen in my District.

So far we get to keep them here.

--M