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Activity Planning
Leading the Way Pt 7
Developing a Cadet Staff
Winter Hawk 2002
Reality Values

Updated: 04/16/02

Activity Planning: Getting It Right

C/Capt John Paul Andree III, CAP

So you want to run an activity

That’s great! In all seriousness, the cadets who show the drive and desire to run an activity are the ones who are the most successful and respected in CAP. Think about it: outside of your unit, why do you respect the people you do? The most likely response to that question is that you saw them run an activity that you attended and liked it so much that you wanted to emulate their abilities. Any successful activity has not only been well planned, but also well executed and well promoted. In any activity, from a one-day O-flight to a weekend FTX to a region encampment, there are numerous qualities that they all have in common, even though you may not realize it.

Who are you?

Before getting too deep into this subject, it’s important to remember that experience with running activities plays heavily into what is brought up here. There are four categories of cadets that may be reading this:

1. No experience with planning an activity. Looking for advice on how to do so.

2. Either has run a small squadron activity or worked under/shadowed a project officer on a larger activity. Looking for concrete ideas when running own activity.

3. Has run a weekend activity and has had some success with activities before but is looking to minimize mistakes that have happened in the past.

4. Has run numerous large-scale activities with success and is looking for some added ideas to help in the future.

Whatever your level is, this area will give you some helpful advice on the many different areas of activity planning.

Idea to Reality: Activity Planning

A veteran of many activities and a good friend of mine, Col. Edward Phelka, said that the key to a successful activity is successful planning. I doubt that he was the first to come up with this idea, but it still stands. The success or failure of any activity lies in its early stages. The following sections cover a few key points in activity planning (though it certainly is not a full step by step lesson in activity planning).

1. Get approval from your squadron first of all (wing too if it’s a CAC or wing activity). Also, I’ll digress here for a moment to mention that if you do have an idea, don’t keep it a secret. Contrary to popular belief, seniors CAN’T read minds. Let them know what you want to do and why you want to do it and what it will accomplish (while I admit that a proposal to take a trip to Florida is great, if the only reason you want to go is to lay on the beach all day, then I can almost guarantee that your idea won’t fly. If you want to visit Kennedy Space Center however, then you have a reason for going and an objective: to educate cadets hands-on on the NASA launch program.)

2. Start an Operations Plan: An Operation Plan (Ops-plan in short) will summarize your objectives, all necessary information, and any other information into one, concise format. Ops-plans may be as easy as “Who, What, When” or as complex as an Army Operations Order. One Ops-plan that is modeled after this complex format that I did is included in the appendix. Remember, only make the Ops-plan as detailed as you need it to be. If all you’re doing is making a complex plan to look important, then the entire purpose of the Ops-plan has been thrown out. This is also the same information that you want to publish when promoting the activity. This should also include a schedule of events that will happen at the activity.

3. Times and Dates: Check with your squadron and wing calendars and set a time that is far enough in advance to successfully plan for the activity and is during a time period when it can be done (I.E. Scheduling a cold-weather FTX for winter would be the ideal way to go). Also, once you make those dates, make a plan for yourself of when certain objectives must be met. This could even look as follows:
   
   10 AUG - Ops-plan submitted
   30 AUG - Staff Selected
   15 SEP - Lesson Plans submitted
   30 SEP - Staff Meeting
   10 OCT - Pre-Activity Check
   20 OCT -Activity
   25 OCT -Participation Letters Out
   
   Granted, that is a very minimal list, but it gets the message across that a timeline for events will not only make you stay on top of things, but will also allow you to plan the activity at a steady pace, instead of rushing at the last minute. Also, keep all the dates you make. If you let one pass by, other people WILL notice it.

4. Staff, or “Et tu Brutus”: The Shakespeare reference comes from the fact that in selecting staff for your activity, select those who you can trust and put responsibility in. A good test of this is ask yourself the question: “If I could not be at the activity, would these people still do their jobs the way I want them to?” If the answer to that question is no, then why not? One problem you may run into is asking highly specialized instructors to teach classes while you run the activity. This is exactly what should be done, but on some occasions, that instructor may feel that they should be in charge simply because they know more about the subject at hand. The answer to this question is NO. The project officer commands the activity, and thus relies on specialized instructors to carry out the objective; the project officer should not have to do this himself. Other problems arise with the availability of capable staff. E-mail, while a great information tool, is terrible for motivating people to attend or staff an activity. The best approach is not to do a blanket e-mail, but to personally call people. “I think that you’ll be the best for this, will you do it?” carries much more weight than “Staff applications are now being accepted…” Also, hold your staff to the same timeline that you are following and clearly outline their duties and responsibilities early on, to avoid confusion later. Remember, personal calls will solve more problems (I.E. Neglect for deadlines) in a better fashion than any other means.

5. Paperwork (How much is too much): Any good activity has just enough paperwork for it to run successfully, but not too much that it becomes a burden. There are a few key papers that you should have though:
   
   

   1. Operations Plan
   2. Logistics Sheet (if you borrowed anything, what is it and who did you get it from)
   3. Accounts Sheet (How much it costs to run the activity and any returns)
   4. List of all staff and their contact information

   If it gets to a point where you’re filling out paperwork for the sake of filling out paperwork, you have too much. If you are delegating this authority to someone else with the same reasons, it’s worse.

6. Assistance, or “I need some help!”: If you get to a point where you are either stuck or need some expert help, don’t be afraid to ask. Ask those who have either done a similar activity before or someone who has experience in what you need doing. Remember though, you should select staff that you can rely on to have the experience in certain fields to help you in anything you may have problems with. A quick political example: President George W. Bush is very inexperienced in national and international affairs; however, he surrounded himself with the best possible people (with the most experience) to be on his staff. Therefore, delegation of authority is a crucial task in running any activity.

7. Promotion and Publicity: Just like your staff, blanket attempts at publicity rarely work. The best alternative that I’ve seen is personalized calls to both squadron and cadet commanders to insure that their squadron will participate. If running a squadron activity, personalized calls to your cadets never hurt and very few people will say no when you have them on the phone. Even better, if you can visit another squadron, show up on a meeting night and talk to their staff and announce it to their cadets. That will really make people pay attention to your activity. Once again, you may delegate this out between your staff or do it yourself, depending on their workload and theirs.

If you have any questions about this material, if you would like to see any area of activity planning in detail, or for ideas and suggestions, please feel free to contact me, C/CPT John Paul Andree.