The May Shared Leadership Team (SLT) got off to a great start with Rambler as our gracious host. This was our most streamlined meeting to date, with an overall focus on F3 Community and Culture.
As we have at all of our meetings, we started with one PAX sharing why they go to F3 daily and what it means to them. Today it was YHC’s turn. Prior to moving to NC, I dealt with some pretty serious depression. I worked through it then by joining a mountain biking team. After moving here, I didn’t have a team to rely on and kid 2 was on the way. My M told me that biking as a workout wasn’t going to fit our new family’s life and suggested we start running, something that I always hated. After three runs of less than 3 miles each, I ended up in PT for 8 weeks, two times per week. At PT they told me two things; 1. I didn’t know how to run properly, and 2. I didn’t have muscle in the right place to support my (in)ability to run. They taught me how to run and showed me exercises to strengthen those muscles. After 2 years at the gym, I was getting bored with it. At a conference a friend of mine told me about F3 and that he recently started in Greensboro. When I got home, I looked into it in Churham, and a week later, on September 11, 2017 I posted for the first time at Devil’s Ridge (Riggs was the Q). Since then, I’ve realized that for me, F3 is just as necessary for my mental health as it is for my physical health. I’ve strung together some grey days since we’ve moved here, but F3 helps me manage it in a way that I didn’t have before. I’ve also really noticed that with me working to be healthy, it pushes my M and 2.0s to be healthier. Understanding the importance of physical activity, eating right, and making healthy choices are now a normal part of life, when they may not have been without F3. Thank you, brothers, for this community that has helped me so much. Being able to give back to this region and making sure we show our 2.0s how to be healthier is what keeps me coming back.
The round table reports generated a good amount of conversation and became the focus of our meeting. Here are the highlights:
1st F – Bump Draft & Cosmo – Hogan’s Heroes is going well, and there has been a lot of positivity around the monthly challenge. Bump reminded everyone that the Quarterly Report will be July 2nd at TBR. Be on the lookout for some exciting opportunities surrounding this QR, and the holiday weekend.
2nd F – Bellhop & Uzi – Possible 2nd F extravaganza adjacent to the QR report. Your 2nd F Qs are working on a couple events coming up related to the Rambler Ruck and another community wide event before Labor Day.
3rd F – Moore & Nickelback – The 3rd Fs have a survey out on the Churham Q channel that will help them develop a new initiative to further support the health of our PAX. If you’re on the Q channel, please fill out the survey!
Commz – Castaway – He was not able to join us but is working on some F3 business cards to help EH, QR Codes, and maybe some yard signs.
Expansion- Boucher & Vice – These guys have been supporting the launch of Hogan’s Heroes and becoming more active in some smaller group discussions that happen throughout Churham. As part of their workplan, these may lead to the development of some Shieldlock opportunities for Churham.
Rucking Q – Rambler – 35 PAX are rostered for the Rambler Ruck next weekend, $9,000 has been raised so far for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Weasel Shaker – Nightshift – He brought up the idea for Q school, and suggested our SLT connect with Dredd, one of the founders of F3 not only for some conversation about he SLT, but also about running a Q school.
Nantan – Knope – The big topic on my agenda went out this morning. Dad Camp is returning after a COVID hiatus! As in the past, this year’s site will be Camp Seagull the weekend of August 19-21. The registration went out today, and a new Slack Chanel has been created for conversation and coordination.
During our discussion, we collectively noted there have been several leg/foot injuries to the PAX. This observation helped us continue conversation from our March meeting where we talked about how to keep injured PAX involved in the F3 Community. With ideas bandied about, we landed on building communication between injured PAX, and having them connect with each other for adaptable workouts that can run parallel to the ME. The thought being, the injured PAX could start with Warmups with the whole group, the injured guys would then do their own ME, and rejoin the group for Name-O-Rama and COT. Bellhop offered to Q the first IR workout on Tuesday, May 10 at the Piranha. To help facilitate this, be on the look out for an IR Channel on Slack soon. A couple SLT members spoke up about how easy it is to fall away from F3 when you’re injured. Some other ideas we had to help PAX out are solid pre-blasts going out the night before. You don’t need explain everything about your workout, but denoting a merkin, run, or leg heavy day will help the injured guys know where to go (or not to). We see these as a couple minor steps that we can do to keep our community engaged when they’re at their most vulnerable about falling away.

Nightshift also suggested that we get a Q school going. After some strong discussion on this, we decided on a couple things. We’re going to reach out to the F3 Nation Leadership to come to Churham to talk about the SLT and how we can serve our PAX, with some type of Q School the next day, or later in the same day. This is more of a long-term goal that may take some time to pull off. Recognizing that there may be a need for some type of Q school, we landed on a shorter-term goal, the Q School Quickie. These will be a pop-up or special workout where we focus on how to Q a workout, some discussion on form, talk a bit about F3 that kind of thing. The first one will be held in Durham in June, with additional Q School Quickies happening in each corner of the region. We hope that these actions will help us maintain our culture of strong Fs all the way around and help some of our newer PAX feel more comfortable to take the lead.
Our culture and our community is what makes Churham so important to each of us, and all for slightly different reasons. Our hope is that this work will not only keep our culture and community strong, but also sustainable for the guys that are following in the 43 feet behind us.
Thank you for the opportunity to lead, and for making F3 Churham everything that it is.
See you in the gloom.