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4.5.2.1 Documenting Life through Autobiographical VQ Assignments

The best example of documenting volunteer life is the VQ written assignments that document the autobiographies of participants’ knowledge, perceptions and experience in community service work. Under the VQ programme, “Autobiography’

becomes everyone’s common writing task, which is different from ‘a few people’s writing task’ in the Lancaster study (cf. Barton & Hamilton, 2012). To define

‘autobiography’ briefly, as mentioned in Chapter 2, I adopt the interpretation of Smith and Watson (2000): ‘Autobiography’ in Greek refers to self-life writing. However, it is more appropriate to judge VQ assignments as an ‘autobiographical type of writing’

in this thesis. The reason why I argue that VQ written assignments are like autobiographies, but not fully so, is because the assessment criteria are as follows: the degree to which the evidence presented demonstrates that the CGLI criteria have been met, the validity and reliability of the evidence provided by adult volunteers themselves, the quality and sufficiency of the evidence and the comments of volunteer referees who are their Major Unit Cdrs, which means all this evidence involves literacies, attitudes and practices around the literacies of writers’ community service.

The scope of these ‘autobiographies’ is limited to the volunteering domain, it does not include other domains such as home or school. VQ assignments also have a time constraint. To reflect on one’s leadership and management calibre, writers are required to write about their life as adult members instead of as cadet members.

Consequently, my analogy has certain boundaries. Using Sam’s GCGI assignment as an example, this volunteer was required to show evidence of his previous and current community service in a squadron as a middle manager and leader, as shown in Data extract 4.20.

Data extract 4.20 Sam: ‘[A VQ assignment] is like a summary of all my previous work at Air Cadets’

[A VQ assignment] is like a summary of all my previous work at Air Cadets, a consolidation of the reflection of my feelings and a reference for my fellow members.

[A VQ assignment] is just a description or a reflection of our memory. We just have to describe what we have done before … I just have to write about my own experience.

(Sam, semi-structured interview 1, 2012)

Sam regarded his VQ writing as a showcase of his memory. In fact, what he wrote was more than that. He did not only talk about his past memories but also his current practices and future goals (see Data extract 4.21 for his supervisor’s comments).

Data extract 4.21 ‘Making reference to his vast experience’

Apart from citing examples of his verbal instruction given to cadets or subordinates, Sam demonstrated his ability to deliver effective written instruction by email correspondence and to motivate the members under his command. Thanks to his habit of keeping a record, he was able to include impressive evidence in his assignment.

4.5.2.2 Documenting Other Aspects of Volunteering Life

4.5.2.2.1 Documenting Life through Other Texts

The previous subsection shows how the participants in this research documented their volunteering life in the HKACC through VQ assignments. This subsection will explore how adult volunteers document their life through other texts. For example, the CTRB, as a mandatory text for all cadet members, is distributed to each cadet upon enrolment to let them record “all activities a cadet participates in, such as training, examinations passed and community services achieved” (Hong Kong Air Cadet Corps, 2015) in their entire cadet life. Unit Cdrs like Holiday play a major role in countersigning their cadets’ training accomplishments and their service hours at different stages before the CTRB is passed to Training Group for endorsement or verification whenever cadets go through the process of classification advancement and promotion (see Figure 4.6 for an example of a page in a CTRB).

The candidate has been providing comprehensive training to cadets and fine-tuning training style in squadron by making reference to his vast experience that he had gained from his 6-year cadet life. He aims to assist his fellow cadets to establish a happy cadet life and develop all-rounded skills.

(The major unit commander’s feedback form of Sam, 2010)

Figure 4.6 CTRB of Holiday’s cadet

Unlike cadets, adult members including the researcher record their service hours on a log sheet, known as a ‘duty hours log’ (see Figure 4.7), instead. This document is a collection of either electronic or printed text showing a documented history of adult volunteers’ community service. Adult members who satisfy the minimum annual efficiency requirement, which is 100 duty hours per year, can seek recognition from the Social Welfare Department to obtain a volunteer certificate each year (Hong Kong Air Cadet Corps, 2012).

Figure 4.7 Researcher’s Duty Hours Log in 2013

Another text that appears quite often in the organisation is the Hong Kong Award For Young People (AYP) Record Book for those members aged twenty-five or under. Paper-based record-keeping documents are still vital in both the paper-based community in Lancaster and the digitally-oriented community in Hong Kong. The

“AYP, formerly known as The Duke of Edinburgh's Award” before 1997 in Hong

Kong has the aim to “help both the young as well as those who are concerned for their welfare” and to cultivate “youngsters with perseverance and the spirit of self-challenge” (Hong Kong Award For Young People, 2015). As an AYP bronze expedition instructor, Holiday is responsible for planning the content of an expedition programme lasting two days, including a night camping, as approved by AYP Head Office, monitoring the safety of cadets in the field during expedition training, assessing whether cadet members achieve the right level and signing the AYP Record Book. Based on her involvement in the AYP, Holiday suggested creating ‘more interesting items except theory class’ in order to let cadets learn how ‘to build up different kinds of ability in their cadet life They will learn some skills in those expeditions’ activities. It will involve in expedition leadership skill and soft skill on communication with teammates’ (Holiday, reflective report, 2013). Figure 4.8 shows two examples of a CTRB as mentioned earlier and an AYP Record Book for cadet members.

Figure 4.8 CTRB and AYP Record Book, 23 August 2014

4.5.2.2.2 Documenting Life Through Photographs

Photographs are observable data which show the participants, settings, artefacts and activities involved in literacy events and practices; “Photographs are particularly appropriate for documenting these aspects of literacy since they are able to capture moments in which interactions around texts take place” (Hamilton, 2000, p.17).

Selecting photographs taken at squadron activities and posting them onto the squadron’s base notice board is a typical literacy event. For instance, Holiday’s squadron’s display board at her base is a good example to showcase important events including recruit cadets’ passing-out parades, flying operations, group photos with the

principal during training courses and expedition activities her cadets have been involved in before (see Figure 4.9 for a photo taken during a participant observation in 2014).

Figure 4.9 Display Board in the Squadron Base, 23 August 2014