Questions then Answers format

At this evening's Flotilla meeting we instituted a new program I'm calling "Questions then Answers". During the good of the order section of our meeting, immediately before we adjourn to the fellowship portion of the meeting, I opened the floor to questions. The slightly different take is that we didn't provide answers in the session. Rather I recorded all the questions and asked the membership to provide the answers on a one-on-one basis during the fellowship (read food, coffee and friendship). In addition I'll address the questions here on the blog over the next few weeks.

This approach has 5 objectives:

1. Get questions out in the open for the entire attending membership to consider.
2. Encourage our members to share their expertise while providing answers
3. Allow the leadership to understand where we have information gaps to fill and the opportunity to begin filling them via conversations, this blog and formal training
4. Empower our members
5. Achieve the first four objectives without significantly extending the business portion of the meeting.

Our members contributed a great initial set of questions. The funny moment came when we got a question on augmenting at Sector Portland and 10-15 fingers immediately pointed to Todd Mains, our Auxiliary Sector Coordinator.

The questions (paraphrased):

• Who do I speak to if interested in augmenting at Sector Portland?
• I did "activity X" how do I record the time spent?
• What are the requirements for the new sew-on officer devices with black "A"s on the ODU?
• What is going on with the transition to the un-tucked Operational Dress Uniform (uODU), who can order the un-tucked, ...?
• I've been in the Auxiliary for a bit, who is my second tier mentor?
• How does a new crew member get underway (get orders)?
• Where can we teach public education classes?
• Can we institute a lucky bag to share surplus member gear?
• How does the district store work?