Sea Cadets or Air Cadets?

[redcat9]

My 15 year old DD is looking for opportunities to join a cadet. We found the Royal Marines and Royal Air Force both have local branches in our neighbourhood. Which one is better? We know nothing about these. They both look great on the websites.

I'd imagine like with scouts and other organisations, a lot depends on the particular leaders for that group and the kids who currently attend. When I attended Army Cadets in ancient days of yore, the older members were responsible for a lot of activities - the idea of developing "junior leadership", they went on courses and became corporals and sergeants and would do the drill and organise the running of stuff. So if you have on-it leaders who are willing to invest time and resources in planning good stuff, and who set a good example to and supervise the older members, it will all be good. Lackadaisical adults who don't plan much and leave it all to the kids, and kids without leadership, could lead to a not great environment and limited activities.

We called the local Air Cadets "space cadets" and joked that the Sea Cadets couldn't march properly as they had webbed feet. But that's by the by. 😂 Air Cadets has the bonus of potentially learning to fly gliders, and Sea Cadets get to muck around on boats. In Army Cadets we focused on more "infantry" type skills like physical activities, assault courses, patrolling, camouflage, shooting. It was all good fun as a teenager, even an unfit scaredy cat like I was.

Sea Cadets for me, gave me a chance to row, sail, canoe, power boat. Also off shore sailing on a square rigger.

What’s his interest, my son does marines and loved it. However as others say it will depend on how well the groups are run as it’s up to volunteers to put the effort in to organise stuff.