NEWSLETTER OF August/Sept Issue

PCR-WALEWIS COUNTY COMPOSITE SQUADRON PCR-WA-110 WASHINGTON WING, CIVIL AIR PATROL

LCCS HAS AN ACTION-PACKED SUMMER

Lewis County Cadets have had a very busy summer. We have had some cadets participate in just about every event, and some have been able to participate in just a few. That is the beauty of Civil Air Patrol - there is something that fits just about every cadets lifestyle. Here are a few of the events that we participated in this summer: We had a visit from the IACE cadets. There were some from the UK and two from Turkey. They had a great time at the shooting range, an afternoon in the glider, and then an evening barbeque at the Carmicks home. It was a perfect day, and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely. We had several color guards at different events including several Memorial Day and 4th of July events, the Napavine Parade, the Air Fair, and the SW Washington Fair. We helped with many tasks at the Chehalis Air Fair, including flight line marshalling and crowd control. A yearly event that is used as a fund-raiser for our squadron is the STP bicycle event. The cadets unloaded mountains of luggage from semi trucks at the Centralia College Campus and organized those mountains so the luggage owners would be able to locate their belongings. What a huge task! The LCCS Civil Air Patrol booth at the fair was manned by both cadets and seniors as they helped find lost children (and parents), performed a color guard at the opening ceremonies, and talked about CAP to people who stopped by the booth. We had several cadets that attended this years Basic Encampment, Cascade Falcon XIII. Three attended as basics and five cadets attended as staff members. Our own Lt Col David Peterson was the Cadet Commander for the encampment.

Published by Lewis Co. Sq., CAP PO Box 56 Chehalis, WA 98532 Editor: 1st Lt Ruth A. Peterson

Inside this issue:

Leadership Column BCTS Weekend Info New Webpage Notice Sept-Oct Birthdays Websites of Interest Upcoming Events 2 3 3 3 4 4

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Volume III, Issue 5

Adventures in Leadership
Motivation vs Criticism
by 1st Lt Ruth Peterson

CIVIL AIR PATROL Drug Free and Proud!

Motivation is one of the main subjects of instruction in the CAP cadet program. Motivation is necessary to accomplish many of the goals that are set for cadets by the Squadron, fellow cadets, and themselves. However, it is a difficult subject to teach because motivation can quickly deteriorate into constant criticism which has the exact opposite of the desired effect. A cadet or element that is criticized regularly without encouragement and instruction will quickly become demoralized. There have been many instances where an NCO or officer finds reasons to criticize a uniform, D & C, or any number of other issues. While it is necessary to point out errors, gigs, and departures from the regulations, it is equally important for NCOs and officers to encourage and instruct. If a group of cadets is consistently wrong or less than perfect, the fault often lies with the lack of instruction and motivation provided by those of higher rank. If a cadet wants to be in a position of authority, he or she must be willing to provide encouragement and instruction. Dont just tell a cadet his uniform is out of regs. Spend a few moments being a mentor. Tell him what is wrong and how to fix it. Tell him how to look up the regs online. Help him to fix his uniform that day and encourage him to have it in good condition for the next event. Come up with a contest and have a great prize for the winner. Establish a contest between elements and encourage the cadets of each element to help each other to create the best element in the Squadron. There are many ways that you can motivate cadets to be at their best. Usually it requires some serious effort on the part of those with a higher rank and position. Dont ever think that being promoted to a higher rank or position means that you dont have to do as much work. Those in leadership positions are obligated to work even harder as they train the newer and younger cadets to become the next leaders in CAP. The extra effort required by true leaders will benefit not only their squadron but in the end, it will provide the greatest benefit to the cadets themselves. Those who take the time to teach skills to others will strengthen those same skills in themselves. Those who motivate a group will find that the group becomes a closer team and that the team will then begin to teach and encourage each other leading to success of the team which in turn reflects on the success of the leader. In the end, a good leader places himself and his team into a situation where everyone wins. I challenge every cadet in Lewis County Composite Squadron to find ways to motivate each other to become the best CAP unit in the Wing.

Volume III, Issue 5

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Hey cadets! Check out an awesome new site we have! Our cadet program is on Myspace now! You can check out the site at www.myspace.com/lewiscountycap. What is it, you say? Oh, it's got a TON of awesome stuff - we have a bunch of pics posted of events we've done over the past couple years, there are links to things like practice AE and LL tests, so you can be prepared when you are ready take them. We even have calling tree posted on it every week, so if you absolutely can't get ahold of your element leader, you still know what's going on the next weekend! Check it out, and be prepared. We are also going to see about making a lot of cool changes to the awesome cadet zone of the squadron website too! P.S. You don't have to join Myspace to look at it. It's a public profile and anyone can take a look! And parents, we made sure that anything that might be offensive and not cool is avoided by any means we can, outside of Myspace's own advertising that we can't change!

Basic Cadet
Lewis County

Training School
Composite Squadron

Lewis County Composite Squadron will be hosting a Basic Cadet Training School on October 17th 19th. This will be an opportunity for new cadets and airmen to get together and learn tons of new things. The school will have classes on CAP history, CAP activities, Drill and Ceremonies, and Customs and Courtesies. All the Cadets that attend this event will have the opportunity to promote by the end of the weekend. It will be a lot of hard work and tons of fun!! This event will be held at the beautiful Mayfield Lake Resort. Check-in will begin at 5pm on Friday night and the Cadets will be busy until graduation on Sunday at 4:30pm. The cost will be $20 for the entire weekend. All other squadron members are encouraged to attend as well, since there will be activities planned for them. C/Lt Col Peterson and C/2d Lt Shea have a weekend packed full of training and fun scheduled. I hope to see every one there. If you are a Basic Cadet or an Airman then please get a registration packet from Lt Bell or Lt Tibbits. It has all the information you will need. Also it will be uploaded to the LCCS website.

September - October Birthdays

C/SSgt Jordan Bell SM Sherrie Hail C/2d Lt Ashley Lobb SM Dean Rivers C/SMSgt Josiah Beresford C/Amn Jacob Judge Cadet Meghan McCormick C/Amn Tom Witt SM Lori Corder Maj Sue Carmick C/Amn Tonya Rider C/Amn Krystina Wulff

Civil Air Patrol

Websites of interest for Cadets: National CAP Website
(Check out the National encampments! You must sign up for them by the end of Dec.)

OFFICER DRILL SCHEDULE THURSDAYS SEPT OCT

http://www.cap.gov/
Washington CAP Website

6:30 pm SCOUT LODGE At 3rd and Adams Chehalis, WA

http://www.wawg.cap.gov/
The Hock Shop (For Uniforms)

http://www.thehock.com/ DATE
The LCCS squadron website is filled with pictures, articles, information, and important links. Check us out at:

TOPIC Business & Planning Drill Operations Training Senior Training Cadet Programs

Sept 4 & Oct 2 Sept 11 & Oct 9 Sept 18 & Oct 16 Sept 25 & Oct 23

www.lewiscountycap.org

Important DatesAdd to your Calendar TODAY!

For More Info, go to www.wawg.cap.gov. Click on Members. Under Members, click on Cadet Programs. If you have any questions about events (price, how to apply, etc) call your higher-ups, and they can help you out!
27th and 28th September- Squadron Field trip to Oregon. We will be visiting a bunch of awesome places. Theres the Coast Guard base near Astoria where we will get to see the aircraft and equipment they use. We will get to see the Air Museum in Tillamook, with the largest wooden hanger in the world, along with lots of aircraft exhibits. Another sweet stop will be the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, with the worldfamous Spruce Goose and just wait until you see the SIZE of it! Make sure you have paid the $20 fee to Capt Corder already, and then plan for a bit of spending money for food and gift shops The Overnight plans are already taken care of, we will be camping in McMinnville and coming home Sunday afternoon. 17th through 19th October - The motivation phase weekend at the Mayfield Resort and Marina! The Basic Cadet Training School will give new cadets a huge step up, plus there will be a lot more offered for the experienced cadets to advance their training. Look at the article on page 3 to get the rest of the info for this awesome weekend.

PLEASE NOTE: Deadline for articles is on the 15th of the month. Schedules must be in by the 20th. Send to the editor at Grpete@centurytel.net The Fireball is an unofficial newsletter, published monthly in the interest of the members of Lewis Co. Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol. Opinions expressed by the publishers and writers are their own, and are not to be considered official expressions of CAP or the U.S. Air Force. Advertisements in this publication do not constitute an endorsement by CAP or the Dept. of the Air Force of the products or services advertised.