December Meeting Highlights

Post by FSO-PB Jonathan James

FC John Poulson, thank you sir for your outstanding dedication and hard work to this flotilla and your shipmates. You pulled us through some confused seas the last couple of years and the flotilla is stronger then ever and thriving because of your leadership.

Last Wednesday was your last meeting as Flotilla Commander and probably the quickest of all the meetings in which you were the Chair. Was this you, ready to give up the Gavel, or was it because you had something planned for after the meeting? Well of course you had something planned for after the meeting, it was a fun and non-violent gift exchange and party to allow us all to have some great fellowship and food. And what better way to go out than with a party.

Some quick highlights from the meeting before you get to see some pictures.

* If you plan on participating in the crew and coxswain academy this year, please contact John Poulson and Kevin Thiel FSO-OP 2012 with your intentions. They will work with you to see that your squared away for the academy.

* Congrats to Lynn Easton. Your a Grandaddy to another Granddaughter . Another lucky one to spoil.

* DIRAUX notes are being sent once a month highlighting activities in DIRAUX's office. This is a great source of information from DIRAUX and the staff that helps keep the auxiliary running.

* Uniform of the day at the boat show will be Tropical Blue. Please see that your uniform is squared away when attending the boat show.

* The UDC has an excess of the untucked ODU which means you may now purchase more then 1 set of the ODU from the UDC.

*Commanders remarks were short due to the Change of Watch where FC Poulson will grace us with his last Commanders Comments before passing the Gavel to FC elect Rick Williams.

*If you have not sent your check in for the Change of Watch, please do so as soon as you can. Its going to be a memorable COW.

Stay tuned for more on the meeting in the December meeting minutes.


Here is a slideshow of the meeting and party.


Photos by FSO-BP Jonathan James

October Flotilla Meeting Highlights.

Post by FSO-PB Jonathan James

This months flotilla meeting was outstanding. We had close to 30 members and 3 guests which made for a great time for fellowship and to conduct the flotilla business.

First off, I would like to thank our visitors for joining us Wednesday night. It was nice to meet you all and I hope it was a good experience for all of you. Flotilla meetings are usually the most nitty gritty function of the auxiliary but it is vital to the success of our unit. It allows us as members of a flotilla to come together and plan for the months ahead. It also allows us to get together as friend and catch up on the going on's for the month and recognize members for their hard work.

Speaking of awards.
Paul Ploeger was awarded his 2nd Operational Service Award for more then 341 hours underway this year. That is just outstanding.

Rebecca Easton was awarded her1st Sustained Service Award for 5 years of service in the Auxiliary.

Matt Epstein was awarded his 4th Sustained Service Award for 20 years of service to the Auxiliary. BZ Matt, I know your looking forward to another 20 years of service.


Daren Lewis was officially introduced to the flotilla as District Captain elect and now represents the southern divisions. The District Captain is also responsible as a liaison for the Coast Guard Units in his area. The District Captain delegates some of this to the ASC (Auxiliary Sector Coordinator)BZ Captain Lewis on your new position.








For the program visitors, we have some PV specific materials that you may not be aware of. The most important is the CG-5093 Manufacturer ID Code System, which is the form to sign up the marine dealers as a program partner. The biggest thing this can can do for the dealer is provide them with the quickest recall updates available. There is no yearly renewal unless the business name or location changes.
ANSC 7048 PV Activity Report is another must have. You don't get credit for your visits unless this form is filled out and SENT TO THE FSO-IS.
A program partner sticker is also available for our partners to show their customers at the front door that they care and participates as a program visitor.


A FRIENDLY REMINDER: MEMBER DUES ARE PAST DUE. PLEASE GET YOUR DUES IN TO THE FSO-FN

The Flotilla COW has changed the date to 15 January 2012 due to the Division COW being held on the 7th and would require a good number of flotilla members to participate in 2 COW that weekend. Boarding time and meal cost will be available via email soon.


We voted on a couple VERY IMPORTANT motions at the meeting this month. The first of the two motions is as follows.............. Sorry I can't tell ya on the blog what the motions were. I will have the motions available soon in the flotilla meeting minutes.


Mary Magrant conducted our member training session at the meeting which covered the steps/process to becoming an instructor (IT). The first step to gaining your qualification is to study the Instructor Development Course located at http://www.cgauxed.org/elib/idc.htm
Once finished with the course you need to log onto the E-Learning site and take an openbook, none proctored test.
Once the course and test is completed you can move onto the Personal Qualification Standard (PQS) which is a book that has tasks that must be complete in the presence of a mentor. Once this is completed, your paper work is sent to district and walla. Please call Mary for a more in depth discussion on the steps required.

VE's please remember to submit any Vessel Exam paperwork that has not been entered. The leadership would like to see your numbers accounted for this year.


EVENTS TO ADD TO YOUR CALENDER:
22 OCT Sat: ECP Training Session at MSU.
02 NOV Wed: Division Meeting
09 NOV Wed: Flotilla Meeting. Elections will be held.
12 NOV Sat: HAZWOPER Training and Exercise.
19 NOV Wed: ABS Class. Contact FSO-PE for details.

Effective staff reports

I've been giving considerable thought to how to craft an effective staff or leadership report over the last few weeks. We place a great emphasis on reporting in the Auxiliary with little guidance on what a staff report should contain. An effective staff report needs to contain more than simply a record of accomplishments. I believe we can positively influence our staff to think in big picture terms by asking them to report on a broader set of activities.

I have identified six components of an effective staff report and I would appreciate critique and additions.

1. Execution: What has been accomplished in my area of staff responsibility including my own efforts, those of my reporting staff and those of the membership?
2. Expected execution: What accomplishments/missions are expected in the near term?
3. Execution opportunities and planning: What accomplishments/missions are in the planning stages? What is on the horizon? What are our opportunities?
4. Program development execution: What have I and my team done to build program capacity? Who has been trained? What partnerships have been developed? What materials have been developed or are now available?
5. Program development planning: What is planned to build program capacity?
6. Needs/gaps: What is missing that I need and/or needs leadership attention or action to resolve?

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?

Coast Guard Publication 1

Shipmates,
Secretary Napolitano introduced a revised Coast Guard Publication 1 at the Coast Guard Academy graduation today. The Commandant produced a YouTube video describing Publication 1.



Please take the time over the next few days to review Publication 1. You will find it an excellent overview of our history combined with a trenchant review of our ethos, values and principles of operations.

We'll discuss the principles of operations at an upcoming member training. I look forward to your thoughts.

Get the job done

Tom Peters tells a story of an experience 41 years ago in Vietnam:

When I got back from the field, covered with mud (it was rainy season), I was sent directly to the Commandant [of the Marine Corps General Chapman] with no time to change into a respectable uniform—a great embarrassment. General Chapman engaged in all of about 15 seconds of chitchat, and having done his duty to my aunt, sent me on my way. As I was literally walking out of his temporary field office, he summoned me back, and said, out of the blue, "Tom, are you taking care of your men?" (I had a little detachment, about 20 guys as I recall, doing the work described before.)

Yup, 40 years plus later, I remember his exact words—which is the point of this Post. I replied to the General, "I'm doing my best, sir." To this day, with a chill going up my spine (no kidding—as I type this), I can see his face darken, and his voice harden, "Mr Peters, General Walt and I and General Buse are not interested in whether or not you are 'doing your best.' We simply expect you to get the job done—and to take care of your sailors. Period. That will be all, Lieutenant." - Tom Peters in a blog post 06MAY2009

General Chapman's comment resonated deeply with me. Shipmates, your #1 job is to save lives. You save lives by teaching, doing vessel exams, public outreach, air and surface rescue, and by maintaining the watch for threats to our security. My #1 job, and that of all the leaders,  is to assure you have the tools, training, and support to get the job of saving lives done.

I've recently participated in a number of discussions around our funding model for the Auxiliary, perceived competition from other providers of boating education, the SAR assistance policy and commercial towing assistance providers, our district budget issues due to the District store, and how we recruit new members. Each of these discussions has been focused on a narrow set of concerns rather than the overall impact on our "job" of saving lives.

Do we look at other agencies that are funded to teach free boating education as competition or as partners in getting our job done? Sure it impacts our fund raising and potentially our recruiting, but do we teach to fund ourselves and recruit or do we teach to save lives? I'd suggest a better strategy is to reach out to our partners and assist while at the same time engage in a dialog around how the Coast Guard funds boater education.

Another example, do we look at commercial vessel assistance providers as competition or a more hulls and expertise on the water which saves lives? In my experience there is more work to be done out on the water than there is resource to do it. We get our job done when we have a healthy ecosystem of private sector and public sector partners to help. Occasionally this means we don't provide immediate assistance in a non-distress case but who knows what lives are saved because we then catch the big distress case or because the commercial provider comes upon a distress case on the way to the scene of the non-distress case.

Far too often we let the tail wag the dog when faced with change.

If we evaluate every situation against our primary mission of saving lives, our "job", the Coast Guard will find the funding for us because we are effective and new members will seek us out because we represent a dynamic and exciting opportunity to serve. We may not be funded in our traditional manner or recruit in our traditional ways but I'm willing to bet we will be in a better position to get the job done if we focus on the core mission and are willing to adapt to, and in some cases demand, change.

Lead like a Guardian: RADM Branham's Commander ’s Emphasis and Philosophy

Last week on his All Hands blog MCPOCG Bowen posted the text of a pamphlet that RADM Branham is distributing in the 7th Coast Guard District.

The pamphlet contains the Creed and the Guardian Ethos but also adds RADM Branham's emphasis and philosophy. This document speaks not only to being a Guardian but also how to lead like a Guardian.

Commander ’s Emphasis and Philosophy

We are America’s maritime guardian!

We protect our citizens, rescue them from

harm’s way, defend their freedom and

protect our maritime environment.

Semper Paratus is our guide.

Relentlessly pursue mission excellence

Ensure you and your personnel are well trained,

properly equipped, focused and ready to perform all missions.

Push the throttles forward

Be aggressive, proactive and innovative. Seize opportunities.

Seek new solutions. Weigh risks. Never give up!

Be a guardian to our people

Know them, their families and their issues.

Be visible and accessible to them.

Make teamwork our hallmark

Cultivate international, interagency and joint partnerships.

Tell our story

Raise the Coast Guard’s visibility to the public

through the media, friends of the Coast Guard

and other stakeholders.

Each of these messages is important. No matter what role you fill in the Coast Guard you've likely seen each done well and done poorly. Shipmates, let's take up this challenge to lead like a Guardians and please demand the type of leadership called for by RADM Branham from me.

Thank you RADM Branham.