They say we need more pizza parties, canoeing outings, and dances. I'm not saying that CAP shouldn't be fun, and I'm not saying those activities don't have their place. We should reserve those kinds of activities as a rare reward for when a major goal is accomplished. Cadets don't join to go dancing, eat pizza, or go swimming. They can do those things anywhere.
Cadets join to do cadet type things.
In my experience, trying to keep cadets in the program by doing things that have nothing to do with the program actually increases the chances of your cadets leaving in the long run. In most units, and I've been in quite a few in the last 23 years, the source of low morale can be identified rather quickly. What was really exciting was that when we applied this test to our units, we were able to quickly identify where we were going wrong. This led to fixes that snowballed into better and better performance. I'd like to describe for you the five criteria and how you can apply them to your unit.