F e d e r a t i o n N e w s Federation
Capturing the Views of the Warrant Officers
T
his season we are again out on the road with our workshops, capturing evidence on family-related issues. And we
have been lucky enough to secure a slot at the Chief of the Air Staff’s Annual Conference of Warrant Officers. Tis is a highly influential audience and one that we have been keen to address since our inception so we were delighted when offered the lunchtime slot sandwiched (literally!) between high-profile briefings by the Senior Leadership Team. We chose to ask them questions on Definition of Family, Operational Deployments, Pay & Allowances and Quality of Life. Tere were 128 voting WOs with a few senior officers thrown in for good measure (CAS included). Others observed from the sidelines to better understand our modus operandi.
The topics covered gave the audience the opportunity for much good-natured banter and discussion to add depth to the statistics being gathered via the voting pads. One WO (who shall remain nameless) stated in response to the question, “Where do you live for the majority of the week?” that he lived ‘at work ’ – You can imagine the banter he generated!
Feedback after the Conference was positive, with the following comments confirming that our message had been received and understood:
‘What a refreshing change, really enthusiastic presenter. Thought I was participating in a game show. A most enjoyable session and a subject close to my heart.’
‘Excellent, I had never heard of this prior to the Conference. Looking forward to their visit
22 Autumn 2010 ‘
NEWS
to our unit in Sep – Oct, I will encourage my personnel to attend the workshops.’
‘I thought the workshop was extremely well presented and dynamic in its structure.’
A very important topic in my view. I think there are serious issues with understanding what the FF can actually do for our people and their families. Their mere existence is not widely known so to introduce them at the WO level was very well judged.’
Not known to miss an opportunity, as soon as CAS made his closing remarks on the WOs’ workshop, we asked him if we could run a similar workshop with the RAF Senior Leadership Team – the most senior officers in the RAF, all 2* officers and above. CAS agreed that we could be added to the agenda at their meeting at Shrivenham the following month.
The Senior (Senior) RAF Officers Add their Thoughts
S
o it happened that on a hot day in July the senior men put their
thumbs to work. Again, there was a great deal of banter and some of the comments drew much laughter: When asked to describe a type of family, one senior officer answered ‘Dysfunctional!’ and when another commented that he spent the majority of his working week living in the boot of his car, we suggested he link up with the sad WO who lived at work!
The question that drew the most comment was one asking if they enjoyed a good ‘work/life balance’ – when 96% of the audience said ‘No’, the hunt was on to find the two officers who had dared to vote ‘Yes’. But as all votes are anonymous, there’s no way of knowing!
All votes are now being analysed by the team and it will be interesting to see how the ‘seniors’ votes compare with the rest of the RAF. We look forward to including these results and those from the remainder of the season in our Evidence Report, which will summarise all votes cast during our 2010 workshop season. To view the 2009 results a link is available from the homepage of our website at
www.raf-ff.org.uk
Reaching RAF Families
T
he Federation achieved another ‘first’ when we were invited to run
one of our workshops at a special event for the families of deployed personnel based at Brize Norton. The Station Community Support staff regularly invites a number of family members to Sunday lunch in the WO & Sgts’ Mess and on this occasion we were asked to join them and run our Operational Deployment, Pay & Allowances and Quality of Life workshop.
The team were very pleased to gather evidence from 38 voters who were happy to tell us what they thought about the support offered to families by the RAF and the impact that separations and assignments have on family life. Family members included parents and siblings of deployed personnel who had a completely different perspective on life in the RAF compared to our usual audiences. We have since received feedback from Brize to say how much the parents enjoyed the opportunity to give evidence on family-related issues. We now hope that other units will follow suit by considering including us at similar gatherings.
Hopefully, all these sessions have raised the profile of the Federation that little higher and that, now the seniors and WOs have taken part, they will encourage others to participate, particularly the non-serving family members – who are always the hardest to reach.
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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