Summer Closure

What do you thinkof units closing during the summer leave period ? , i am not sure its such a good idea, there are still many who would be happy to attend on drill nights, i think info flow would be far better served by keeping units open , maybe without the permanent staff.
Subjects such as NGT or "dark blue line" or CLM topics could be covered .
Just my opinion but open to suggestions

"still near that Bunker "" where is my bloody sand wedge :wink:

 

I for one enjoy a break for summer, it is hard enough to be enthused on a drill night doing NGT at the best of times.

Not sure if you are aware that a certain unit closed its doors on the evening that England were playing a football match in some recent tournament. Did not go down so well with some of the Scots and Italians amongst us.
Is the RNR run by the PSIs for the benefit of the RNR or for their benefit.

Discuss!

 

I think it gives a welcome break from it to be honest. I do roughly 3 hours of travelling on a drill night to go to/from my unit so a break from that is nice.

 

Sush, you'll wake up the PSI's and they need their beauty sleep.

On a more serious note there is already stuff to do in August. At my RTU we have PT and guard training for ceremonials in autumn. It is not just a break for the PSIs and us but also for the families who have to put up with our training the rest of the year.

 

I don't think it is a good idea to close for August.

Drill nights are really mostly admin nights nowadays and as such things still need to go on as people are going away on ORT and other activities throughout August. Its hard enough to get these things organised during "non-leave" time.

If you want a break, just don't turn in for a couple of weeks. Most people do that all year round often blaming "work".

Not sure we really need the PSIs anyway as long as there is some sort of semi intelligent admin cover in the UPO

 

Clearly you are not at the same unit as me then! Semi Intelligent it is not!!

 

Our unit doesn't close its doors apart from at christmas. The PSI's go off on a staggered leave so there is always someone around. I agree with navy lark, if you want a break just take one, no one forces people to attend, so i see no reason for units to close during the summer.

 

You make a good point, but it supposes that instructors will come in. We have just changed to weekend training, and this bounty year I am scheduled for 16 weekends on my PTP.

And there was me thinking I would join the RNR to get a life ...!

 

That's a tad impractical, methinks. Was your PTP written bya PSI (i.e someone with little appreciation of what it's like fitting the RNR round another full-time job) by any chance?

Don't know about any other unit, but we've had PSIs in the past who labour (ha!) under the impression that we don't do anything the rest of the week (the current ones are OK though).

APN

 

No, bizarrely - I did it myself - but we have 7 branch task book weekends, 1 branch national weekend, 2 regional weekends, WUA, Its a knockout, 2 x SR and 2 x CBT type weekends. It works out better for me as it happens to do weekends, but I know that is not the same for everyone. Also we have been told by the branch WO that you no longer need do 12 days ORT broken up into 5+5+2 days but only 5 + 7 weekend ORT days.

 

Get that in writing before next April comes around.

 

Yes, I am very suspiscious about it because nothing seems to have been promulgated formally, but we have been told this also by Head of Branch. There would be merry hell kicked up if I did not make bounty.

 

I think this is a little unlikely because the RN shuts down for the weekends so how will we be able to achieve any worthwhile ORT within an RN environment. Only last week our PSI was ensuring that everyone in the branch had booked up their 12 days or 2x5 days ORT or lose their bounty.

 

Not sure what branch you are but all of the above are self-instructing with SRs from the branch. I have not trained on a weekend in an RN establishment for ages - in fact only the CBT weekends, and it looks like we will have to take up the slack there because the RN instructor has gone and am not sure what is happening about their replacement.

 

I appreciate what you are saying but as a Comms type we only seem to be able to obtain good ORT when we attend the 12 days CTP on NW's (Old JMC). I suppose the weekend training we undertake is worthwhile but it is nowhere as good as what we can achieve during the CTP. And in unit training is going nowhere even with our PSI putting loads of time in for us. Mind you it may all change when the Regional Training Weekends really get up and running with specific branch training. At the moment though they all seem geared up for GSSR. Got no problem with that though because I think it is the way ahead and is interesting. At least it is the sort of training that can be carried out in unit over weekends.

 

I think that works for you because you have an equivalent branch as such in the RN. We on the other hand are very RNR specific being MTO

 

Our unit doesn't close for summer leave either. Part of me would like an official break, however if I didn't turn up on a drill night as per many people from the unit, then I don't think I would be any worse off. Those that don't turn up still somehow seem to get the training or otherwise that they request at the snap of a fingers, (maybe this is to entice them to stay, as we are poor on retention and low in numbers) whilst myself and other regualr committers who dedicate far more time and energy seem to have to fight for the training we need, the kit we need etc. Ok drip over!

 

Well, our CPO(M) has continued to run Guard training over the Summer period so Pres is not fully closed. Good on Jan for giving his time to do this.

There may well be people happy to attend but what could really be achieved? The usual Drill night training adds questionable value anyway so I'd prefer to see these topics covered during normal terms.

Also, I'd love to be a fly on the wall when the MODGS find out.

We earn the break over the year so lets not give it up so cheapily.

In fact you've prompted me to start a new thread on a related topic. - Cheers