Trying to start a reserve unit

[geo]

Redleaf...
one of the problems with the Canadian Militia is that it has not followed the communities as they have expanded outwards. You end up with something like the downtown core of Montreal where you have
1 RCH (Donnacona)
1 Armd Recce (RCH)
1 Arty (2 Fd RCA)
1 Engr (3 Fd Engr)
1 Comms (712 Comms)
5 Inf (CGG, FMR, BW, RMR, R de Mais)
1 Med (51 Fd Amb)

11 units that are all within easy walking distance of each other.
Not too bad for the specialty units (so long as the specialty is interesting) where people will travel to get to them BUT all 5 infantry units are "selling" the same product to the same population.....  meanwhile; there is little (or no) presence in the suburbs & off the island......... Lost oportunities.....

Then again - they can't afford to pay the people they do have!

 

[redleafjumper]

Brigadier-General Grant, Commander LFWA has provided a letter to the Chair of the Prince George Militia Committee that states in part:  "...(LFWA) identified Prince George as a community capable of supporting the growth of a reserve unit (approximately company strength) and submitted a proposal requesting authority to establish one.  PMO LFRR (Project Management Office Land Force Reserve Restructure) reviewed and approved several of the proposals, however our Prince George proposal was not one of them.  The proposals that were approved supported the needs of the army strategy and expanded upon currently existing structures.  The rationale for using these criteria was to mitigate the addition of any significant costs (for example new infrastructure) that would hinder the overall growth goal."

Further discussions with LFWA staff indicate that, as stated, the problem is money to establish an armoury facility.  To this end the committee has taken the matter up with local MPs and has written to the new Minister of National Defence.  The committee very much appreciates the efforts of LFWA in supporting a plan to establish reserves in Prince George. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Funny I was just in PG 2 weeks ago and this subject came up, there is a fair bit of interest from what I see. The recruiting base there would work well for either an infantry or Engineer unit (both?) Many of the potential recruits have extensive firearm and bush experience, plus there is a large base of people with current certificates for operating and maintaining heavy machinery. Not to mention bridge building, road building, blasting, logging, instream works etc,etc. I suspect that a unit in PG would be getting people as far away as Ft St John.

Historical, it was people from these regions that gave the Cdn Army the reputation that it earned in 2 world wars. It certainly is a far more fertile base for recruiting than the cities are in regard to material and skill sets.

 

[DG-41]

Something that may prove useful to you might be to study the new armouries in Windsor, which was done a a joint project between the Reserves and the Windsor Police.

There are lessons to be learned here from both the "do" and "don't" perspectives - some parts of this joint venture have been smashing successes, other parts... not so much.

Perhaps something similar can be done in this case.

DG

 

[redleafjumper]

The RCMP just built a new headquarters building for their NDHQ (North District HQ).  There have been discussions about building a new public safety building that would include the ambulance,  a fire hall and a 911 dispatch, but it seems that the current building will serve for some time.

My own preference would be for a stand-alone drill hall, rather than a partnership with the civil authorities.  Scheduling and resources get muddied in such relationships, but certainly something is better than nothing.

Colin P's observations are exactly the point.  The people here already have lots of the skills sets that would do the job.

 

[geo]

Redleaf..... PMO LFRR will be retiring & the office shutting down by this summer
Please feel free to encourage LFWA to go back and try again... the trick is to find the money...... for facilities ...... for wages....

 

[redleafjumper]

Thanks Geo, That encouragement has already has already been done, and it has been well-received.  LFWA seems to be onside; my impression is that this needs a political boost with the requisite funding.  This is far from over.

 

[geo]

ahhhh.... the funding!
as the CDS has said..... if you want us to do this and do that... then there must be money to fund said request - cause we're done with stretching our resources..
(though possibly not in those exact words)

 

[a_majoor]

If the big hold up is an armoury, why not rent a school? During the day, the full time staff only need one or two offices, while every Thursday night and some weekends, the troops will be taking lessons in classrooms (big stretch there), and can parade in the parking lot or the gym. Part of the parking lot could be fenced off to provide DND parking, while weapons and serialized kit could be kept in a sea can at the police station, and driven over on parade nights.

Sure this is not a 100% solution, but if we think we need bricks and mortar for a Reserve unit(s), think again. "C" coy RHLI is in a "Big Box"
store above Marks Work Warehouse in Burlington, and the new Lincoln and Welland Company in Welland and 31 CER Squadron in Waterloo are in industrial parks. If LFWA is looking for ideas, have them drop 31 CBG a line....

 

[geo]

a_majoor.... think that LFWA is still trying to figure out the funding model to pay the troops.... which means that they either have to get more money from the head Puzzle palace OR reallocate the funds that it already has under it's control.

If I base myself on LFQAs situation this year, there were all sorts of fancy dandy plans to grow & enroll.... but, there was no mney to back up the plan. The expected annual January "boost" everyone was expecting didn't come - matter of fact, there was money clawed back.... so both Reserve Bdes ended up cancelling their spring break FTXs in the US.

Ain't the Bricks & mortar that is a problem - IMHO

 

[a_majoor]

I may have misunderstood the previous post then, I was reading the LFWA reply as being down on the idea because they did not want to take on the infrastructure costs. We too have issues with funding to pay for the growth of the Brigade's manpower...oh well.

 

[redleafjumper]

It is both infrastructure and pay that appear to be obstacles.  A_majoor's suggestions are creative ones; perhaps some of the lurkers on this thread might consider them as additional options.

 

[geo]

redleaf.... using existing facilities is nothing new.
militia units in the 20s operated out of firehalls and the like
that takes care of the bricks & mortar
the problem with money for pay is that there hasn't been additional funding distributed down - so the only thing a Area/Bde Commander could do would be to rob Peter to pay Paul.... (example only) take money from the Seaforths & give it to the RM Rangs (example only)... and that'll be real popular with some folks

 

[redleafjumper]

The robbing Peter to pay Paul problem is one that was explained to me at length by one of the officers who participated in a feasibility study on this issue a few years ago.  He recommended against forming a unit in Prince George for precisely that reason; there just isn't enough money at the brigade level to pay for what they (need to) do now.  There is certainly pressure on many of the established units to get more recruits, but it is difficult to retain them when you have no money to offer interesting and relevant training, nor enough to pay any interested reservists was there to be such training.

At this point, it is clearly a political decision about greatly increased funding for 39 Brigade. 

 

[geo]

and 33, and 34 and 35.......etc

For once, this is a national problem

 

[redleafjumper]

It is indeed.  The expectations remain high, but the budget remains low.

 

[pbi]

Redleaf...
funny thing was pointed out last fall @ a Conference I attended at the Head Puzzle palace. It was pointed out that some units, defined as being Arty Regiments or Service Battalions were in fact, nothing more than a Troop / Platoon / whatever.

I really don't care about names BUT, what is the funding model being applied to these regions? how are mandays being doled out to the areas/brigades/units? When I see some areas forced to "stop & drop" in December or January while others are spending like the devil ... I suspect that something isn't quite right.

I remember hearing Gen Q___n assuring areas to enroll and train till your nose bled.... well; some did.... and they're broke!

Geo: I can only go on my own experiences as COS 38 CBG 2002-2005. The funding model we applied was that directed through the ARE and various CLS policies and directives. Through the Brigade Operating Plan, we allocated each of our units 37.5 days/person of unit controlled funding per year, or as close to that figure as we could possibly get. If we could not reach 37.5,  the Comd would explain the reasons why to our CO's, including where the money had gone.  One year we only allocated 34 days as we re-allocated 3.5 days towards a Level 3/4 exercise for bde units. The soldiers and unit leaders still got the benefit of the trg dollars: it was just that we controlled the spending of them. The complete budget was always available for scrutiny  (hard copy and on line) to anybody who wanted to see it. There were no "secret reserves" : in fact during most of the time the Comd's reserve was either in the red or spent to help achieve training goals.

On top of the 37.5 days, we had seven "Brigade days" that we could allocate to collective training, which in 38 CBG was almost always Bde-coordinated. We also had  funding for CITY courses (Continuous Individual Training Year) such as communicator, PLQ, driver,sp wpns, etc. As well, we could usually expect a downloading of funds from LFWA in the last quarter of the fiscal year, although typically this arrived so late that it was difficult to use.

During the time I was COS, I only recall one unit "running out of money", and in this case it was because of poor fiscal management on the part of the CO, who simply decided to ignore direction and blow his budget on one activity. Most units ended up turning some money back at the end of each year. As we reviewed the budget monthly (and all our operations quarterly) we could usually see problems coming and head them off  by re-allocating funds.

The very badly conceived direction issued by "General Q***n" and others to "Recruit, Recruit, Recruit" was in defiance of one of the most concrete limitations facing the Army Res: ability to train large numbers of people effectively and quickly. LFWATC certainly could not handle the additional load, and even our demand for devolution of courses to us in the Res CBGs still did not meet the needs. One of the crucial limiting factors in the training capacity problem was the availability of qualified NCOs to act as trainers. In my opinion there was no way that "Recruit, Recruit, Recruit" was ever going to work. I do not know what the final results were, but it really missed the point. What was needed was not to fill the armoury floor with "puppies" but to build an NCO cadre first. This was always our Bde Comd's priority and, IMHO, a key fight in the Res. No NCO cadre: no useful Res.

Cheers

 

[geo]

pbi.... yes, the funding model in some (all?) areas is based on 37.5 mandays a year per reservist on Cl A AND
an average unit participation of 85%

If a unit has an authorized establishment of 150, they get 150 x 37.5 x 85% = 4871 mandays = 31.9 mandays per person

if the unit participation is higher than 85%.... they're in trouble - the model doesn't work

now - consider if the uinit gets funding for 150 @ 85% BUT.... only parades 100 or 125 that gives bags of mandays to that unit's members while a unit averaging more than 85% goes hungry....

if the unit participation is lower than 85%..... my question is.... what does the area HQ do about the "extra" mandays that the unit has in it's coffers? If the unit can't bring it's people in OR can't bring in new blood..... should they be allowed to survive?

 

[pbi]

Geo: (I hauled my post down and edited it a few times)

We rarely encountered units parading 85% on a consistent basis, or consistent enough to disrupt the Bde budget. We rarely had to get Area involved, but usually re-allocated funds internally as I described. Sometimes we made cuts in other areas, such as TD funding for Bde HQ staff, etc. but it never seemed too draconian.

You raise a good point: a steady 90% attendance by all of the units in a Bde might indeed cause a "run on the bank", and mght require Area or CLS to get involved. The best way we found to avoid this (albeit at our actual attendance levels, not at the higher ones we are theorizing...) was to have the Bde Comptroller staff watch all units budgets closely , keeping the Comd and I briefed on a regular basis, and also through a regular reconciliation program in which we shifted unspent funds to meet demands. We did not let one unit choke while others went fat and happy: that woul be pointless because under DNd fiscal management (as you no doubt know...) money in budgets cannot really be "saved" from FY to FY.

Cheers

 

[geo]

Ayup.....
the unit that's "fat & happy" would be the one that's understrength and getting smaller... resulting in it's reducing itself to nil strength .... which would not make anyone happy - in the long run.