Originally Posted by Bigcsm22

As I said. It is upto each county whether they run it or not. Gmacf are apparantly not running with it shortly.

I would be surprised at one County choosing to change the APC Syllabus, and if they should have this wish, the least they will need to do is to change their website information!

Duke of Edinburgh’s' Award
GMACF encourages all its cadets of the correct age group the opportunity to participate in a Duke of Edinburgh's Award programme (DofE).
The DofE Award is run in conjunction with the APC Syllabus and therefore members of the cadets get the best of both worlds because most of skills in the APC Syllabus count toward them achieving a DofE award.

Perhaps someone might like to draw this rumour to the GMACF Command and ask for a clarification of their situation?

Originally Posted by RoyalMarine1995

Well its something that anyone can do anyway, so bin it from the scheme. Any keen DofEers can do it anyway.

But for those who are no longer at school (or are but not at one that runs D of E) they would need to go to a whole lot more effort to organise the damn thing.

D of E isn't about helping you through the APC syllabus (although it is a handy side-effect), it is about providing a bit of adventure, developing skills and helping the individual to be more of a benefit to their community. It also looks good on the CV. Many counties run BTEC as well which offers close to 0 benefit as far as the APC syllabus is concerned but this doesn't make it worthless.

I'll add that D of E isn't in the syllabus per se, it is an added extra.

Originally Posted by Bigcsm22

By the sounds of it the won't get there silver until they have completed scic. So mite aswell scrap it.

SCIC is not required for any silver D of E completion.

A young person who has achieved Master Cadet and perhaps Cadet Sergeant or RSM, will be known by anyone with anything to do with the Cadet Foces as one who has put a lot of time, a lot of commitment, and a lot of effort into achieving that.

There are, sadly, many potential employers in that cadet's possible future, assuming he or she does not go a service route to a career, who will put their own perception upon what those words written on a c.v. might mean in real terms, without any understanding of the effort, ability and interest involved.

A cadet who can write Gold D of E Award among their achievements can rely of many, many employers who are looking for a good quality of staff taking more interest in that application.

I am certainly no believer that anyone should go for gold for that reason, but it is to so many a recognised measure of a young person who has stribenm to achieve, as apposed to so many young people you just coast along in life doing not a lot, that my hope would be that any County in the ACF might recognise this, and the added factor that so many ex-Cadets with Gold Awards are excellent ambassadors for the whole ACF and for structured and uniformed youth organisations.

Talon. Wind yer neck in. I never said it was a requirement. They need a silver exped length to complete jcic. But now they also need a practice exped. Most detachments don't hold a practice so cadets will only get to walk on camp during their apc testing. So one year will be a practice exped then the next year will be the qualifying exped. Wish I wouldn't have replied to the post now. Cadet instructors have enough to deal with without d of e. So why not bin it. Lets face it. Our caa's do next to jack shit to help us out
And my brother completed gold!!!!!

Originally Posted by Bigcsm22

Talon.
They need a silver exped length to complete jcic. But now they also need a practice exped. Most detachments don't hold a practice so cadets will only get to walk on camp during their apc testing. So one year will be a practice exped then the next year will be the qualifying exped. Wish I wouldn't have replied to the post now. Cadet instructors have enough to deal with without d of e. So why not bin it. Lets face it. Our caa's do next to jack shit to help us out
And my brother completed gold!!!!!

I can see good reasons there why you may not be totally enthusiastic, and some would emanate from local things, some have been affected by the overall development of the ACF.


The fitting in of D of E with the APC syllabus does need some careful management, and there are, to be fair, pressures of other ACF activitie which can make it difficult. Some of those extra pressures have been over the nation with increased need for health and safety assessments for activities, the newer activities such as outreach and exernal qualifications for cadets and adults, all of which adds a need for CFAV's. Having said that, most detachments when I was involved ran with just one or two adults and staffing has certainly extended over the years.


Some areas in addition do have staffing problems, where they have not been able to attract enough adult volunteers, and that must for them pressure activities.

All I would say if that very many counties are very very successful in all areas of what the ACF does, and there does seem to me no detraction from the quality of the senior cadets they produce by being successful at D of E, indeed the opposite.

Bluntly, if your own feelings are shared widely across your County, there would seem to be local management challenges which are not being met.

My feelings are aired regularly. To no avail. I might add.

Originally Posted by Bigcsm22

They need a silver exped length to complete jcic.

Eh?

But now they also need a practice exped. Most detachments don't hold a practice so cadets will only get to walk on camp during their apc testing. So one year will be a practice exped then the next year will be the qualifying exped.

Now I am confused. The practice expedition has long been a requirement of D of E.

One of the reasons I'm joining the ACF as a PI is to help get kids through DoE. I did it myself when I was a lad and its a great feeling to acheive the awards.

Certainly since the first post in the thread I have heard no more rumours of Counties dropping the Scheme, and many Counties, Battalions and Sectors are represented on our armycadetforce.com forum.

Possibly slightly over-simplifying the situation, but it occurs to me from what I see that a County with enthusiastic DofE staff, and good communications down to Detachment level do well.

If DC's are not aware of the Scheme and HOW it operates, this does lead to cadets wishing to take part because they saw it on National or County advertising, and are then stalled when they ask their DC and little knowledge and less enthisiasm is forthcoming.

Originally Posted by Bigcsm22

Talon. Wind yer neck in. I never said it was a requirement. They need a silver exped length to complete jcic. But now they also need a practice exped. Most detachments don't hold a practice so cadets will only get to walk on camp during their apc testing. So one year will be a practice exped then the next year will be the qualifying exped. Wish I wouldn't have replied to the post now. Cadet instructors have enough to deal with without d of e. So why not bin it. Lets face it. Our caa's do next to jack shit to help us out
And my brother completed gold!!!!!

I don't suppose it occurred to you that an exped involves walking around in civvy clothes with civvy camping gear on civvy national parks.

In fact, it doesn't really need much military support at all. 4 cadets could get together, get a train down to the new forest and do it themselves. Just because they're doing DofE in cadets, it doesn't mean they have to do all the elements in cadets. Cadets are free to do their elements of DofE in any fashion they like, the ACF simply enroles them on it, and assists them in completing it by offering the opportunities.

I did my Silver DofE without even joining the Army Cadets, so I'm pretty sure you don't have to do SCIC to get it.