We here in Div 22 01SR are finding that we are the last ones called to assist by the Gold Side. The Harbor Masters, Bay Constables, Fire depts and Police boats come first. We arebeing totally ignored. Is anyone else experiencing this?
cbruce9@aol.com

If you're talking about an immediate response situation, why wouldn't they call the agencies with people on duty who could probably respond the quickest? At least where I am the fire department and police have boats docked on the water ready to go when someone shows up. The Aux has to round up crews and trailer in vessels.

Now, there probably are lots of other places where maybe the Aux might be the quickest responder and maybe that is your situation. In which case you've obviously failed to impress the CG with your capabilities. Is it possible that someone in the CG just doesn't like the Aux based on other reasons? Sure, but it wouldn't be the norm.

One other issue to think about is that the CG has to PAY for Aux assistance in terms of fuel and other costs and assume responsibility for any accidents, injuries, etc. that happen to Aux members while responding to an emergency. That isn't the case with the other agencies, so there are some distinct advantages to using them instead of the Aux for some situations.

Locally, our problems lie more in the fact that the other agencies fail to call the CG at all when they probably really should, and we're working to build our relationships with them so that won't happen.

Hey River
Our guys could be on patrol with the same results. I must admit we are aging out and are high risk.
It just seems in our area where there is a heavy concentration of support agencies we are not utilized
And to tell the truth I don't blame the gold side considering the risk. In our district we have 872 people out of 3856 who are over 70
Any thoughts?
Bruce

In my old AOR, Aux boats out on patrol may not be utilizied depending on the coxswain who was aboard. There were several coxswains that were (and some still are) allowed to patrol to 'show the flag' or do pollution reports but weren't trusted to handle the most simple SAR case.

Some of those are still around and getting orders. At least one is reliably reported to have vision and 'mental' 'issues'.

And don't forget the "No Towing Policy" aka the Maritime SAR Assistance Policy. The Aux is only the 'agency of first choice' in SAR or just the "R" if the Aux finds it as a come-upon, the distressed boat hasn't been in contact with the CG and it is an immediate distress. Failure to meet all three and the CG must hand the case off. The Aux would only get it then if the other parties would take more then an hour to get there or no one wanted to take it.

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

quote:

Originally posted by 17798559:
I must admit we are aging out and are high risk....

And to tell the truth I don't blame the gold side considering the risk. In our district we have 872 people out of 3856 who are over 70
Any thoughts?
Bruce

This is a common "self-defeating" attitude amongst the Auxiliary. The solution -- recruit younger members.

Many of the new members added to my Flotilla during the past year are under 40, and the majority under age 50.

The organization will always be what it thinks of itself. When I hear "high-silver" Auxies lament during district and division meetings exclaiming that they aren't young and vibrant -- and aren't capable of meeting the performance standards for various qualifications, I want to stand up and throw the chalkboard eraser to the front of the room and exclaim that not all Auxiliarists have "one foot in the grave"...

There are no requirements for Auxiliary members to be primarily of "post-retirement" age. It's all about where you target your recruiting efforts. You target retirement homes and assisted living facilities and you'll find an aging membership.

One newly created detachment in District 8CR is actually located on a college campus. You'll find most of the members there to be in their 20s...

Hey Scuba
I totally agree. But it seems some of the old silver like it that way. They get in the way of going after younger folks. Who knows the old ones would have their thunder stolen. The youngsters would do a better job. The fact is the auxiliary is becoming or has become an old man's club. Not to mention the lack of diversity
Thanks for the view
Regards
Bruce

Bruce

The other thing to think about is that according to AuxInfo, you have very few coxswains in Div 22 and if you have such a small pool of people, it wouldn't be worth the CG's time to call you out in case of emergency.

22-01: 8 coxswains
22-22: 4 coxswains
22-03: 1 cox (and only 1 crew)
22-04: 3 cox
22-05: 1 cox
22-06: 1 cox
22-07: 0 cox

So, given that the majority of the flotillas in your Div can barely put a boat in the water, and according to 2007 data only a couple of flotillas did any real amount of patrolling at all last year, what do you expect?

If your flotilla is actively doing routine patrols, maybe the CG would consider calling you for non-routine stuff.

Again, I'm not ruling out that there may be some anti-Aux bias involved, but as a Division you're certainly not operating at full speed in this area.

Incidentally, one flotilla did have a fair amount of stand-by SAR time -- they also happened to be the 2nd highest in patrol hours.

And yet more fun with AuxInfo.

The average age of the active membership of the Aux, which includes the applicants, is 59.0 That number hasn't changed significantly since 1999 when I started looking at the numbers. And FWIW the applicants drag the average up, not down. The average age of the applicant pool is 61.6

FWIW - 1SR average age 55.3; Division 22 56.5. Division 22 has one of the widest variations in average age that I can remember seeing.

22-01 Huntington 61.7
22-02 Northport 58.3
22-03 Cold Spring Harbor 67.3
22094 Stony Brook 61.0
22-05 Oyster Bay 52.3
22-06 Port Jefferson 46.6
22-07 Fr. Salonga 48.1

I believe all of those flotillas are located on the north shore of LI, NY. Stony Brook is the location of one of the State University of NY (SUNY) university centers. Port Jeff is where the Bridgeport, CT/LI ferry comes in. Cold Spring Harbor is also the name of Billy Joel's first alblum. All of those towns are of decent size and located on LI Sound. An age spread of 20 years over those flotillas in the same geographic area and similar marine enivronment is a bit hard to explain. The example of the Stony Brook flotilla shows that being in a college/university town is no guarantee of 'youthness' in the flotilla.

And another FWIW, F&S's division has an average age of 58.8 and his flotilla has an average age of 53.4 - younger then the Aux but not necessarily spring chickens either.

Last set of comparisons: Average Age of the Active (includes APs) of the 3 areas:

PACAREA: 58.5
LANTAREA East: 58.8
LANTAREA West: 59.4

Thanks everyone perhaps we should focus on the less physical tasks. Watchstanding, PE, station augumentation (I work in the galley) Even VE is a challenge for those of us with a balance problem. Small boats and Kayaks ok. Marine Domain Awareness Teaching the public what to look for
Good Night All
Bruce

I'm confused. First you complain that you're not getting enough call outs from the CG and then you complain about the Aux being a bunch of old fogeys that can't do the work anyway.

Maybe someone just wants to have a little fun with us...

I guess what I am complaining about is the fact that the Aux even puts these guys on patrols. No physicals are required. I am not complaining about the Gold side not using us. If I were in there shoes I wouldn't either. We had several accidents involving older crew. What I really think is the Crew Program should be cut back dramatically to locations where there are no other agencies and to involve only crew and coxswains who can pass a physical and a once a year QE By the handwriting on the wall when the CG do not use us it appears that the life of the crew prog is limited
I am not trying to jerk you guys around just trying to find out if this is Aux wide
Thanks again
Bruce

What I really think is the Crew Program should be cut back dramatically to locations where there are no other agencies and to involve only crew and coxswains who can pass a physical and a once a year QE

Or maybe the boat crew program should just change its focus and not try to be all things to all people. It doesn't take too much physical fitness to do ATON patrols (something almost no one else does) and Marine Environmental Protection (pollution patrols) and the like.

I have written about this before and Tilley documented it well. The current BCQP and its emphasis on towing came about in 1984 when the CG thought it was going to have to give up non-distress towing. It forced the Aux to implement the BCQP. Then a few months later, Congress rammed the NO Towing Policy, ie the Maritime SAR Assistance Policy, down the CG's throat. That pretty much wiped out the rationale for the BCQP but the CG never eliminated or revamped the policy in light of reality. Instead it still acts like the Aux is some prime time towing agency. The Aux isn't, hasn't been and will not be a prime time towing agency in most areas.

One of the few places the BCQP was getting some relevance was the Paddlecraft Operator (PCO) qualification. We were told for years that paddlecraft was the fastest growing area of the sport and had one of the highest accident and fatality rates. So what does the CG and Aux do - they cancel the one program where the Aux was directly involved with paddlecraft.

"Observe and Report" MOM patrols don't require much physical fitness either.

But will the Aux and the CG face reality. Probably not - they are both too enamoured of the glory missions of surface ops - even if the Aux doesn't really do them. The members know. All you need do is look at how few Auxie's ever competed in the old and now defunct ISAR. The last I read, not every district was sending a team to the revamped NSAR - with its emphasis on guess what - SAR - the least useful skill of most boat crews since they will never do it.

I think the CG Aux is makeing the Boat Crew and Coxswain program a little harder and trying to require a better job done by the QE.

That is needed. Too many have had the title and not the skill. To get the Gold Side to use us more we need to train hard, and keep our skills on track with what is needed. That may mean looking at redoing some of our programs.

I have done a lot of night Helo Opps as the saftey boat 6 miles off the coast in the dark with 2-3 seas. You can tell real fast who has the skills and who needs more training.

quote:

But will the Aux and the CG face reality. Probably not - they are both too enamored of the glory missions of surface ops - even if the Aux doesn't really do them. The members know. All you need do is look at how few Auxie's ever competed in the old and now defunct ISAR. The last I read, not every district was sending a team to the revamped NSAR - with its emphasis on guess what - SAR - the least useful skill of most boat crews since they will never do it.

Amen FL!

Folks, let's take this a step at a time. The original post complained that AUX was not in the priority list of first responder call-out in his area. Well that's true everywhere. To repeat, the Auxiliary is not a first responder organization. Not anywhere. And that's good.

We have to stop trying to make the Auxiliary surface operations department into something it is not authorized nor desired to do.

The primary job of the Auxiliary surface operations department is MOM. Observe, report, show the flag, promote goodwill for both Auxiliary and USCG. It is not distress response nor is it SAR response.

Occasionally (and certainly in my area where we have a lot of "come upons" and almost all come-upons in our area are considered a "distress" operation) we will come upon or be dispatched to a distress situation where we need to use a few of our towing skills. That is usually a last resort call of the local command authority. And the second a more qualified responder arrives, Auxiliary is relegated to a lesser task. That's the way it is. No glory, close the door on the way out.

In some areas of the country, even that never happens because almost all disabled vessels are not in real "distress" and so we cannot hook it up anyway. We just wait for other assets.

So here in our AOR we have a new, pretty young crowd of very gung-ho boat-crew. And these folks want to push as hard as they can into "real" USCG operations. Anyone who suggests that we have other valuable fish to fry is labeled an old fogy or worse. But that doesn't make it right. In fact it is completely counter-productive to our overall surface-ops missions and the stated Auxiliary mission goals from the USCG senior staff.

So whether 40 or 80 years old, if we are doing our primary surface op missions, and we are qualified through the QE process, what difference does it make? A slow-moving coxswain with a slow-moving boat IS the Auxiliary mission.

And I can understand why many younger folks don't want to play in our arena with those rules, but that's the facts. We need to stop pretending and promoting membership without the inaccurate hype.

We are so dumb about this. We scare away the best potential members, (senior, retired) with our paramilitary posturing and depictions of racing, leaping safe-boats and hovering helicopters. And then we lose new, younger members who joined based upon distorted information. They leave when they see the reality of what we do does not match our hype.

I’m all for a younger Auxiliary, but if our purpose and missions do not appeal, let’s not pretend otherwise.

That's why I advocated no mission specialization attempts until completion of 1-year as a general member. During which time extensive new-member uniform, policy, procedure and purpose training occurs. That way way a new member can make an informed decision as to next steps. And the new member understands our purpose and our limitations.

Hey.... Somebody pulled my trigger! <G>

quote:

Originally posted by 17798559:
We here in Div 22 01SR are finding that we are the last ones called to assist by the Gold Side. The Harbor Masters, Bay Constables, Fire depts and Police boats come first. We arebeing totally ignored. Is anyone else experiencing this?
cbruce9@aol.com

Been there.

Put yourself in the OD's boots. How familiar are you (the OD) with the Aux, their facilities, crews and capabilities. Versus familiarity with the local harbor masters etc? When the crap hits the fan you are going to call on those you know and that can be counted on. Don't forget your career will be affected by your decisions and how well the people you call on respond to the situation.

As for call outs. How good is your plan? Is it on file with the station? Has it been executed for practice at least once in the last year? Identifies members who have been given some additional level of station specific training?

If you want the local station to call you when they need help. You will first need to build a level of familiarity and trust with them.

Wow Right on... I came into this forum looking for a little information and got truck loads. I does tell me that the "Leadership" should be listening befor the aux dies. You guys out there know a heck of a lot about the real problems.
QUESTION TO ALL
When was the last time a Commodore, Rear Como or Division Captain asked any of you for your opinions on problems or solutions either informaly or in a forum?
Bet Never Happened is your answer
Thanks again. I am going to share this with my Div SO-PS and SO-OP.
Thanks again and keep sending thoughts.

Just a reminder that some of the experiences and frustrations expressed in this forum do not reflect the entire AUX.

I have experienced many instances of being called to assit. I have participated in SARs. I have participated in Helo ops. I have had many other agencies express "OMG, am I glad to see you". Of course, we do have a few members that seem to work extra hard in screwing those positive moments up, but such is life--weed where you can, nuture those that show promise.

--Mark

quote:

Originally posted by 17798559:
QUESTION TO ALL
When was the last time a Commodore, Rear Como or Division Captain asked any of you for your opinions on problems or solutions either informaly or in a forum?

Captain a little over a week, Rear Como slightly longer and Dist. Como less than a year(Dec. IIRC).

Now if the DCP, RCO, Como doesn't know you well, you are not going to get asked. So the question is also how many functions/meetings do you attend with these people?

quote:

Now if the DCP, RCO, Como doesn't know you well, you are not going to get asked. So the question is also how many functions/meetings do you attend with these people?

I would ask rather, "how many functions/meetings do they attend with us"? They are the leaders, they are supposed to reach out to us.

I would also caveat, When you do have the opportunity to talk with a senior district staff, how many really ask you for your opinion versus nodding and smiling? And what evidence have you ever seen that any of your opinions have been acted upon?

Another alternative for voicing your opinions is to avail yourself of the chain of leadership.

--M