Today's article is 'borrowed' from the ArmyBarmy Blog site. Stephen Court, the blog's creator must be counted as the most creative, industrious and influential 'army' blogger in the world. He's blogged every day, for several years, without fail. And, I believe that he, more than anyone in the SA, has been the pioneer that's moved scores of others, including the FSAOF, to appreciate just how effective a 'cyberspace soapbox' can be in sharing messages deemed significant.
Today, the FSAOF, will have its 90,000 visitor- 4 1/2 years of blogging.
Welcome Steve!
______________
Today, the FSAOF, will have its 90,000 visitor- 4 1/2 years of blogging.
Welcome Steve!
______________
Sven Ljungholm at Former SA Officers Fellowship
blog decided to test our suggestion last week about officers repaying training
expenses if they leave before having served 20 years:
The responses are here: http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8664794015642071822&postID=6323582974991702043&isPopup=true
Admittedly it is asking former officers if they
should pay the money back (and not a broader spectrum of salvationists), but
there are some good arguments made against the idea. So maybe we should
toss it.
Two outflow discussions:
a.
That said, we are told that in at least one place,
if the Army pays for you to study for a higher degree and you leave within a
certain period you are meant to pay that back.
So, a Captain studies for a MSW or a MBA or something and
the Army picks up the tab. And within a couple of years of securing the
designation the officer leaves (and benefits in the job market with the MSW or MBA for
which the Army paid). Should s/he pay the Army back for that expense?
b.
Why on earth is training so expensive? Until
fairly recently you could score an Ivy League four-year degree for the cost of
two years in CFOT. (Canada) And, as much as Ivy League, and in fact most
post-secondary education, is ridiculously over-rated, isn’t it still in a
different stratosphere than most (all?) training colleges today?
Why should it cost more to create a Lieutenant than
a Harvard BA? (a premise that may now no longer be extant)
Surely we can train cadets much better through
incarnational apprenticeship – faster, better, and cheaper.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to test the claim?
You could take two comparable territories – say USV and USX (you can guess
which US territories we mean). And USV goes with the incarnational
apprenticeship model and USX stays with the current residential model.
Within a decade the territories would no longer be
comparable. USX would have continued in its incremental growth –
hallelujah.
But USV would be completely different. Here
are some of the changes:
a. ‘new officer’ corps would be much bigger than
they were at the start of the experiment because new officers are much better
than they had been in the old model;
b. cadet sessions will have exploded. Instead
of 40-something there’d most likely be well over a hundred and maybe over two
hundred in each session;
c. the flow-on effect of ‘b’ is that there will be
many more corps – hundreds?
d. ‘c’ implies that there will be heaps more
conversions, soldiers, made, candidates made (multiplying the positive
effect…), outposts started…;
e. how will they pay for all these new corps?
Well, training will cost a fraction of what it costs in USX – let’s say
half. So, starting with the benchmark of 40 cadets, saving $80,000 EACH,
USV has an extra $3.2 MILLION to invest in new corps the first year
alone! Money is actually a bonus of the new system;
f. We said it was faster – because USV has an entry
officer profile cadets who are trained in the new system can be commissioned as
soon as they match the profile, typically in one year (as in the ‘good old
days’) rather than two – oops, save another 50% of training costs!
We could go on, but you get the idea…
Why is such an experiment unlikely?
Well, here’s a quick stab on it:
a. The General is 66 (today – holy birthday to the
General). The Chief of the Staff is 62. Without running through the
whole year book the average age of potential high council delegates is likely a
shade over 60.
b. Our ten-year experiment would put them all into
retired officer residences. Outside of Korea and General Larsson’s bold
2010 goal, we just don’t set campaigns beyond our terms. And our terms
are too short for any long-term plans.
That said, Canada and Bermuda has a 54 year-old TC,
so he could potentially be around in one appointment long enough to test this
thing out. How about it, Commissioner?
c. And those potential High Council
delegates? They all went to training college. Don’t discount how
personal experience and nostalgia can play in to such a decision.
Stephen Court
Major
Stephen Court
Major
14 comments:
From HARVARD'S website...
Cost of Attendance for 2012 – 2013
Financial aid is awarded to help with all of these expenses, including an additional standard allowance for travel expenses.
Tuition $37,576
Health Services Fee $930
Student Services Fee $2,360
Room $8,366
Board $5,264
Subtotal $54,496
Estimated Personal Expenses $3,454
Estimated Travel Costs $0-$5,000
Total billed and unbilled costs:
$57,950 - $62,950
Amazing. What a treasure, a resource of thought, I might say brilliant thinking, certainly provocative. Thanks for sharing.
Bob Gregg
SA Officer
USA West
Why are Army leaders so OLD??
In just about every other walk of life, the top people are in place based on ability, not years service.
If Barack Obama or David Cameron were SA officers, they wouldn't yet be considered as DC material yet - and would probably have resigned anyway ages ago as a consequence.
The age profile of any High Council as a 'shade over sixty' says it all. It's like a Cardinals' conclave, only with women ;)
Too many Generals have been appointed far too late in their life, and have achieved very little as a result.
Oh, for an energetic, visionary and youthful Gowans or Burrows...
Won't happen, of course, because the SA has become a self-perpetuating gerontocracy.
I know I have asked this question before, but it still bugs me!!
'Oh, for an energetic, visionary and youthful Gowans or Burrows...'
Terry, we may not have a 'youthful' General but I think there are few of us who would not comment on the fact we have an energetic, visionary and possibly even prophetic General in Linda Bond.
Yes, I like others probably wish she was able to complete at least two terms of office and because of her age it is unlikely. However, this does not prevent her from being God's woman 'For such a time as this'
And I would like to ask a question: 'What did you achieve as a young officer within the SA or did you not stay around long enough to discover what you could have done?'
I am now a Methodist minister, anonymous, and the church have entrusted me with far more opportunities and responsibilities that the SA ever would have done.
My point remains - the SA is run by old people, and there is very little opportunity for gifted younger officers to make a difference.
Which is why most of them leave.
I wonder just how many active and formers actually bypassed the TC process? I and my then wife did; 6 years in mid-town Manhattan, 4 in Sweden, members of a 6 member team to reopen the work in Russia, and as a two member Ljungholm team, 'open fire' in Ukraine and Moldova.
Any portion of the $300,000.00 we 'saved' the SA by bypassing the training college would have been a god send; could have purchased a bed in Moscow instead of sleeping on cardboard boxes the 1st two months. And chairs, a desk and even a used, operational fridge! We were sent to open TSA work with $200.00 cash and our personal credit cards- I'll bet my grandfather had more than $200.00 when sent to 'open fire ' in Moscow 70 years earlier, in 1920! But then, hope, faith, holy courage, logic reckless abandon to the cause of Christ, along with a good dose of 'street smarts', and a wife who never stopped, are worth far more than money in planting our colours!
No regrets whatsoever- Hallelujah days!
God bless the Salvation Army!
Sven Ljungholm
Former FSAOF
USA East
The assumptions in Major Court's argument are completely naive and nonsensical, and the figures have to have been plucked out from somewhere in La-la land. Let me explain.
Assumption: The Army would grow much faster if it had more Officers.
This is a cop-out - a scapegoat. In Australia, many appointments (Corps and Social) are filled by either Solders or Envoys who have had either no training in the SFOT or 2 months at most (many social appointments are even filled by non-Salavtionist employees). Are you saying that we don't even have any soldiers who can take on such roles? Where then would the increase in Cadet numbers come from?
TSA is not growing because it refuses (like other denominations) to ask hard questions about it's structure, Theology, and Doctrine and seek to change them.
Assumption: Cadets paying for their training would reduce the cost of training Cadets.
Whilst there would be a contribution towards training that TSA would not have to find, they would have to find other money that Cadets currently subsidise for. Let me explain.
Cadets currently do all the maintenance, cleaning, serving, housekeeping, some administrative work, and most of the fund-raising on a regular weekly basis. If Cadets were paying for their course, then TSA would have to find money to pay for cleaners, maintenance personnel, admin assistants, servers, housekeepers etc. (approx. $200,000.00 per year min in the Australian Job market) It would also lose the massive amount of fundraising that Cadets bring in. In Australia East, when I was in College, the average income from fundraising that Cadets brought in was approximately $500 per cadet per week - averaged out over weekly pub ministry and major fundraising events (20 cadets each session, 2 sessions, approximately $1,000,000.00 per year). TSA would have to find that as they would no longer be able to say it was part of training. As well, if Cadets were paying for their course, TSA would have to PAY them for their 'apprenticeship' activities - out-training and specialling, and in some cases, running small nearby corps due to lack of Officers - $15,000.00 min per year per cadet in Australian terms - x 40 cadets (2 sessions of 20 cadets) $600,000.00 per year.
The figures over 2 years then are:
Wages: $400,000.00
Lost Fundraising: $2,000,000.00
Apprenticeship payment: $1,200,000.00
Total Cost: $3,600,000.00 or $90,000.00 per cadet TSA would have to find.
Cadets contribute under the proposed scheme (assuming they pay the average that non- ivy-league students pay per year under Government restrictions/caps): $40,000.00 for 2 year course.
This means that TSA would have to find an EXTRA $50,000.00 per cadet that it doesn't have to find now. or $2M each 2 years or $1,000,000.00 per session (assuming session size of 20) worse off. Where is this money going to come from?
As a result, asking Cadets to pay for their course would in fact cost TSA considerably MORE money than the current residential system costs.
Let's rethink things before we put them out there.
Food for thought,
Yours in Christ,
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East in London
Par 2
You could play around with the above figures, and eventually you might be able to get it down to almost even - but it would still cost more to train cadets if you asked them to pay for their course than it would under the current system.
Also, if you asked them to pay for their course, there would be greater restrictions as to who could be accepted and commissioned as TSA would then have to abide by much stricter Government regulations regarding paying for training. This may in fact reduce the number of potential applicants and cadets, which would again, throw the figures out of whack, and increase almost exponentially the cost of training each cadet.
Yours in Christ,
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East in London.
Thank you Graeme,
I am an active officer who received no assistance from the Division, Territory or my Corps when entering Training several years ago. And, I also had to pay the government $22,000US during my first year of Training for the profit made on the proceeds of the sale of the house before entering Training.
I paid a big price to be a Salvation Army officer and never regret it! I am eternally grateful that I did pay my way through Training, as I do have an appreciation of what the Lord gives me each day.
Maybe if there was truly some personal sacrfice in entering Training there would be a long term appreciation of how the Army treats it officers. WE ARE BLESSED - the complaining needs to stop.
My profession today pays over six figures, but I would not go back to money, position and lack of Calling!
We would not need to have this type of discussions if people would be fully committed to their Calling through TSA while loving the lost, growing saints and serving suffering humanity.
This Army would be booming if we were more focused on being Jesus.
Anonymous -
You make the assumption that most Formers resign their commission because they want to etc.
Most formers have no option but to resign. Most formers, given the option, would put on the red epaulettes immediately. Most formers were forced to resign against their will. Most formers made an incredible sacrifice going into Officership, and when they were forced to resign by TSA, were left with less than nothing.
We would have a booming Army if TSA leadership appreciated its' Officers, if they didn't shoot their own, if they showed love and compassion to their Officers instead of hate and Pharasaical legalism.
Just a thought.
Yours in Christ,
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East in London
We are based on a military structure, but a basic concept of the military in many countries is an officer corps made up of "career" officers and short-service officers.
We made youth work, etc., available to people on a short term basis, but how many people are we losing who might excel in leadership if they were given an opportunity to serve for perhaps 2-5 years AS A FULLY COMMISSIONED OFFICER with no up front expectation of ongoing service, but the option to transfer into the "career" branch at the end.
Serving Officer,
UKT
Career Officers...the people in the cash office at THQ? The one in charge of Retireds? So many jobs that could be handled by non officers to free up the officers to do the important things that officers need to do.
Former USA South
Former USA South
Thank God for the availability of those positions at DHQ and THQ where officers in need of respite from the rigors of front line service, and for many other personal reasons we may not be aware of can still give useful service in the greater scheme of things.
The SA has got a responsibility and duty of care towards its officers just as it has towards its other employees and must find work within the capability of its workforce.
ACTIVE UK
My father was what anonymous from USA South called a career officer. He died in service as the Retired's Secretary at THQ. He was greatly respected and loved by his retired officers and worked incredibly hard in this position. The irony was that he had just attended his own Retirment seminar prior to his death, a shock to everyone.
Thank you (active UK) for expressing what some may not feel to be important. My father was a wonderful officer (sentiments from soldiers at all of his corps) who suffered the vitriol of a sadly self-serving party following which TSA had the sensitivity to move him to DHQ then THQ to escape the 'rigors of the front line'.
USA South (formerly UK)
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