Flotilla Commander, USCGAux Flotilla 14-8, 7th District

United States Coast Guard Auxiliary
Flotilla 14-8
Seventh District
Serving Area North Florida and The St Johns River
From Downtown to the Shands Bridge

Flotilla Commander

Whit Vick
A member of The Auxiliary 1998 and Flotilla 14-8 since 2008
email: cwvick@comcast.net

I am honored to have been elected Flotilla Commander for 2012 and will do my best
to live up to this responsibility. This is uncharted water for me, and I welcome any
advice or suggestions you might have.
With Kevin Koehl as Flotilla Vice Commander and the Flotilla Staff Officers in
place, I think we have a strong team for 2012. Those of you doing this job for the first
time, as I am, will be learning as you go. My advice is to study your job description
and do not hesitate to call on others in the flotilla who may have done the job before.

Latest News and Updates

Here are some goals and thoughts for 2011. Some of these came from our members:

1. Recruitment: Charlie Smith suggests we try and get 11 new members in 2011--he calls this "11 in 11". Carolyn Strong suggests trying to recruit more women, and when recruiting, explain the benefits of having spouses join together.

2. Retain members. A personal lesson here: when I joined the Auxiliary, for several years I did not really get to know anyone--partly my fault as work took up a lot of my time. But, there seemed to be a clique who ran the flotilla and did not seem to be interested getting to know or encourage new members. As a result, I went to fewer and fewer meetings. A few years later, a new bridge took over the flotilla. These new folks learned my name, found out I was interested in boating. I made friends and got more engaged, eventually getting crew and then coxswain qualified with the help of my new friends. The point here is to be proactive in getting to know our members, find out their interests, give them a job to do or let them tag along with you. Give people an opportunity to get involved.

3. Have more social or fellowship activities--this should impact retention of members. This idea is from Carolyn and Bob Strong. Bob wrote that he believes fellowship is the glue that holds the flotilla together.

4. FSO mentoring: FSOs should try to mentor or have an understudy learning their job and who can take over in the future. I encourage each FSO to identify this person or persons.

5. Chain of leadership: The idea is for members to report to FSOs, FSOs report to VFC, VFC reports to FC. This allows delegation of responsibility and one person is not burdened with all flotilla matters, trivial and important. As much as we can, we should follow this guideline. However, I would not want strict adherence to this to interfere with communications in our flotilla. Since we have a fairly small number of active members, I think we should encourage open communications amongst all in the flotilla. Many problems can be averted or remedied by proactive honest, open, and respectful communication. Mike or I should be available at most times by either e mail or cell. On that note, check e mails--as in the past, this is how we will continue to do much of the flotilla's communication.

6. Operations: We have four members currently interested in operations and have been on patrols as trainees. I would like to see all complete this crew training process and become qualified as crew this year. Cris Vonderheide has been on quite a few QE missions and is an excellent source of information on what the QE's are like.

7. Have more speakers at meetings (idea from Carolyn Strong). In the same vein, try and have some type of training at most meetings.

8. FSOs individually set goals. Since I have mainly been in operations and am not very familiar with many of the other areas, think about what you would like to accomplish in your area.

9. Treat all with respect and integrity. We are all volunteers. There are no bosses or underlings. Along this same line, respect the time of others--someone else's time is as valuable as yours.

10. Have fun. Remember, this is your ride (as the message on the spinner at the YMCA tells me).

Whit Vick, FC(e) 14-8

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Last update: January 09, 2012