FEDERATION RESERVES and SINGLE PERSONNEL
– we’re here for you too! Todd Fellows joined the Evidence Team in May of this year after a career in the RAF. One element of Todd’s role is to be the point of contact for Reserve and single personnel.
I
f you are reading this as a newcomer to Envoy, and the Families Federation – our role is to represent the concerns of
RAF personnel (which includes single and Reserve personnel) and their families. We operate outside the chain of command and always promise an independent and confidential service. We do not promise to resolve every issue; we are not here to do that. However, if we can help we will, or direct you to someone who will be better suited to provide you with the help required.
The Evidence Team is responsible for gathering information to support reports which are presented to Government, MOD, the RAF and to all Service personnel and their families.
We gather the evidence in two ways:
Proactively by holding workshops, online
surveys and meeting with personnel and their families, we hold the workshops during station visits and present a series of questions relating to a specific theme. We use an electronic voting system and if you have seen the quiz show, ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’, we use similar equipment but sadly without the millions bit. We gather the audience’s evidence and add a cross-section of comments for inclusion in our report.
Because we can’t get to everyone, and not everyone is available to attend our workshops, we also use online surveys (with comment boxes). These comment boxes are extremely popular and I can assure you they are fully utilised (some printable, some not!). After the recent pay announcement in March, we ran a ‘Quick Six’ online survey attempting to gauge the strength of feeling of people. 609 participants took part and made 93 (A4) pages of comments.
Reactive evidence gathering: Individuals will also contact us via our website, email or telephone. They may also call at our office and tell us about an issue or concern, which they may need help with, or to just chat through. We endeavour to answer all emails sent via our general enquiries line, within a 24 hour period, or the next working day if delivered over a weekend.
The types of issues people contact us about are varied. Without going into specifics, they can range from people having difficulty with Council Tax rebates and exemptions – to issues involving school place allocations; from getting clarification on certain aspects of Service life through to dealing with mobile telephone companies.
My role within the Families Federation includes being the main point of contact for Reserve and single personnel. This is as part of our new contract, awarded in June this year. We recently conducted a visit to RAF Waddington and carried out a Reserve-specific workshop. This was very successful and allowed us, with the help of the audience, to frame future questions to be more relevant to Reserve personnel and their needs. Our intention is to visit the RAuxAF Squadrons at their training weekends to conduct workshops and gather their opinions of life as an RAF Reservist.
As with most of my Families Federation colleagues, I have had a long career in the RAF retiring after 32 years as a Personnel Support (Pers Spt) Flight Sergeant. With our combined years’ service and backgrounds, we do appreciate the issues and have generally experienced something similar ourselves. Remember, ‘We are in your corner’ and there’s no such thing as a daft question. If you think we can help in anyway or you just want to tell us what you think, please do get in touch via
enquiries@raf-ff.org.uk.
14 Envoy Winter 2014
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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