Our unit hosted our Open House last week.
We're content to count this as fulfilling the requirements of the National Open House Month. (NOHM) Actually, we had already planned to hold an Open House for Cadet Recruiting on 25 SEP anyways, before we even got the memo. (Yes, holding the event prior to October 1st counts, we checked. Just consider it leaning forward on our part.)
The snack tray pictured is what happens when you let loose a hyper high speed logistics officer on the project, and task as the SNACKO. Pretty simple really, just a cookie cutter and some free time... but it got lots of compliments...
She also made up a very nice lawn sign, vectoring folks into the correct driveway off the street. This was not some hand drawn silliness, this was a professionally made lawn sign. (...she knew a guy...)
Once we had them in the building, we locked the doors, and... just kidding...
We gave everyone about 20 minutes for the meet & greet. Most people don't have time to eat before a Squadron Meeting, so the snacks and beverages kept their stomachs from grumbling too much while we held our dog and pony show.
The first part was the Introduction to CAP... I couldn't find anything appropriate on CAP Channel. The best video introduction to the Cadet Program I could find was this one on YouTube. (just the first part) It was pixelated when I blew it up on screen, but the audience dug it.
After that we went through a few of slides about the three missions, then a quick overview of the Cadet Program... I think the important thing here was that the presentation was tailored for this audience... prospective Cadets and their parents, most presentations about CAP that you can find on the Web are too broad. Remember, less is more here, keep focused. We wrapped the intro with the excellent video by Major Malachowski. (aka Thunderbird 3)
Next up was our Show & Tell. The plan was to taxi a CAP airplane up to the ramp and let folks crawl around it for a bit, but that got scrubbed do to some severe weather forecast for the area... So, we did show people examples of Ground Team gear, and one of our CFIs talked about how learning to fly is a big motivator for kids. Call it dropping back a few yards to punt.
For the tail end of the evening, we sent the proto-Cadets downstairs to do the Mine Field Teambuilding Exercise,(right out of the Great Start Booklet) lead by our Cadets. While the kids were doing that, I briefed the Parents Introduction. (also per the book)
We closed the evening with a quick Joint Q&A with everyone in the room.
It seemed like everyone enjoyed taking part, and we hope to see good turn out for Cadet Great Start: Week One.
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