On Wednesday night, the Shared Leadership Team had a great kick off to 2023! We welcomed Brotox and Cherry Baked to the SLT, and jumped right in with Moore sharing why he is here. We start each meeting with this question, to allow us to know more about each other, but more importantly to remind us of what our community means, and in turn, what the SLT is working on behalf of.

With the bulk of our meeting set to talk about our strategic drives for 2023, we jumped into a quick round table to highlight key initiatives since we met in December. Some quick items:
– QR is on track for 1/7
– Several 2023 and January specific challenges kicked off on 1/1, with several PAX jumping on board to start the year right.
– Thank you for attending the Holiday Party, it was good to have the Ms join us to see how important this community is to us.
– Over $33,000 raised for the holiday fundraiser to support our local kids!
– Be on the lookout for a new tracking tool that allows us to track the number of hours, dollars and pounds (of stuff moved) in 2023.
– The Cloudbuster Tough Ruck is going to be held March 4. This event supports the Fitch Pediatric Rehab Center, and will be held in conjunction with the Cloudbuster Baseball Tournament.

With the recaps out of the way, we had the most robust conversation in SLT history about our direction for the new year. We categorized these initiatives into four broad categories; Education, Outreach, Churham Building and Regionality.

Education – Thanks to the work put in by my predecessors, and all of the PAX that have held a leadership role in the past nearly 10 years, we have an amazingly large and very strong (literally and figuratively) region. We grew as F3 Nation did and as the Nation created and tweaked their doctrine. This year we will be working on a modified version of the Q source, one that incorporates a 2nd F component based loosely on a Q point. This is intended not only to educate about the doctrine, but also to bring the PAX together surrounding topics that are important to us. Nightshift and YHC will be taking the lead on this.

We will also be working on a newsletter via email. Intended to go out monthly via email, it will provide statistics on our region, highlight the key links and topics of the month (it sucks having to dig back through all of your Slack Channels to find something), and some other fun and inspiring information. As we develop this, we’ll be looking for contributors.

Outreach – Being a big region has its pros and cons that we’ve learned about over the years. The SLT members have committed to engaging more in the F3 Nation, and extending our help to surrounding and start up regions. For the past 10 years, we’ve focused on our region, and we have much to share. In addition to the SLT members, I encourage each of you to join the F3 Nation Slack Workspace at this link, https://f3nation.com/slack/#more-394321, and please join the conversation. This is an easy way to pick up the 6 around the world. In addition to our national work we will be meeting more with our adjacent regions, about more joint and complementary work.

Churham Building – This is where we need all hands on deck, and where each of you can help by stepping into a leadership role (formal, informal, highly visible, or deep behind the scenes). After all, we are a Leadership Organization!

Part of F3 is engaging men, building community, and fellowship. Well, what happens when a PAX is injured? How do we keep him engaged, how do we cool the fartsack for that guy? We’re open to ideas on how to hold IR workouts for the PAX that need it. While we don’t have the prescription for this, we’re looking for help in making this more of a thing in the way that best suits your AO. This may look like encouraging a PAX to lead a parallel work out during the regularly scheduled ME, it may be several injured PAX calling out a pop-up workout, it could be as simple as a couple guys breaking off after warmup, and going for a walk, then coming back together for COT. If you have another idea, please try it, you are freed to lead. If you want to talk more about this, or need assistance, reach out to any member of the SLT.

AOQs, be on the lookout for an AOQ symposium in the first quarter. Some planned topics are AO Q responsibilities, how to engage PAX on the IR, how to make sure an FNG comes back for their second post, and swapping ideas on what is working and what isn’t. Collectively we can do more than can we do individually.

Regionality – This is a tough conversation, maybe the toughest we’ve had. Many folks from outside the region (and some within) would say that Churham is too big. Many PAX within Churham have extolled the virtues of having a large footprint. As we continue to expand into Pittsboro, inch towards Raleigh, start to encroach on Carpex, and as Mebane comes toward us, we do need to keep this thought in mind. Given the focus above on education, outreach and Churham Building, the SLT is committed to keeping an open mind on this topic, absorbing any info we can about it, and understanding the Pros and the Cons. We’ve committed to each other that we’ll be open to data points, and conversations about it, but will not be taking any further action on this until the second half of 2023. We will keep the first three topics first, and allow them to help influence us on this fourth topic. Our SLT takes our Standard of Quality very seriously: “…everything we do is for the health and happiness of the PAX of Churham.” We want to understand this issue completely so us and the leaders that follow us are able to make the best decisions possible.

Thank you to the SLT members for a difficult, but honest, respectful and productive meeting. We look forward to serving this region, and helping facilitate the leadership that each of you take on when Qing, leading an AO, picking up the 6, reaching out to a PAX that is down, or volunteering to make our community better. Now, get out there, find a challenge you like (I recommend the Cloudbuster for any Ruck Curious PAX), commit to it then go kick its ass. I look forward to helping with that and keeping you accountable along the way.

SYITG!