Cadet Program Goes Virtual!

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Lt(n) Terry Scott, Commanding Officer of Rcscc 23 Kent, prepares for a special St. Patrick's day lesson.


Cadets from all across PEI had the opportunity to take part in a 5 day, virtual Cadet Activities Program during March Break. Taking cadets online isn’t something new for Lieutenant (Navy) Terry Scott, commanding officer of 23 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps Kent, in Charlottetown. His team of staff have been training cadets online since this past October, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Patrick O'Hanley, the Chief of Rcscc 23 Kent, prepares for a virtual knot tying lesson.


Patrick O’Hanley, the Chief Cadet of 23 RCSCC Kent explains, “Our whole training year has been online. Everything had to be adapted and many areas of our training plan had to be cut out. You can’t do sailing or marksmanship over a computer.” Another big challenge that the cadet program had to face was retaining cadets. “Cadets has always been a very hands on program, and when you remove the hands on aspect, some cadets lose interest.” In order to retain cadets, staff and senior cadets had to get creative. They had to integrate more activities into their lesson plans that could be held online, as well as engaging with their cadets through social media. Over the past year O’Hanley, has developed a social media plan for Rcscc Kent, which focuses on engaging cadets with fun cadet related activities and challenges, as well as promoting the local business community by sharing ideas how cadets could support local. “The activities and challenges are intended to keep cadets thinking about the program, even when they can’t be here in-person,” explains O’Hanley.


As Covid-19 numbers start to decrease again on PEI, cadet training has started to resume in-person, training once a week. Cadets and staff are hopeful that the march break Cadets Activities Program is the last time that they will need to train online until their end of the training year in June.





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