Specialty Role Reflections
We may be a Federal Disaster Recovery Coordination Team, but we also have jobs within our team as well. These titles are Community Representative, Fitness Trainer, Health and Wellness Liaison, Media Representative, Project Outreach Liaison, Recruitors, Service Learning Initiator, and Vehicle Safety Tools Officer.
Community Representative, Adriana Sandino
Before we left for round 2, the campus staff decided to add a new specialty role to the list: Community Representative (CR). As the team’s CR, it’s my job to find things to do that everyone can enjoy. We are the moral boosters of the team. Although having fun sounds easy, finding something to do that everyone will like can be pretty tough sometimes. However, Eagle 6’s eagerness to do anything I suggested made the job pretty easy for me.
For our first official CR event, we decided to watch the critically acclaimed movie “The Interview.” Although a stressful night caused the event to be cancelled the first time, we eventually re-scheduled it and decided to watch it on a Thursday night to welcome the weekend. The movie was a little crazy, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. In fact, the movie night was such a huge success that I got a few suggestions for another movie night in the future. It was a fun and relaxing night overall!
For our second CR event, we decided to make it a team lunch instead. We all took a vote and decided that Potbelly’s would be our winning restaurant. Although Potbelly’s was packed and the food court even more so, we still managed to find an area where the entire team can sit together. It was a great way to unwind for a bit after being stuck in a small office for hours. Potbelly’s was actually paid with our team budget as we had a lot of money saved, so it was an awesome way to spend it as it doesn’t roll over.
To the future CR’s reading this: it doesn’t end with movie nights or eating out! Your possibilities for some fun activities are endless! Always take any suggestions you get into consideration! Often times, your teammates will be more willing to participate in events if they are cheap or free. It’s all up to what you and your team can think of together! I’m so stoked to see what cool things my team and I will get to do during our final round!
Fitness Trainer, Vincent Sullivan
Being the FT this round for my team went much better than expected. Last round, I struggled with getting everyone on my team on the same page. It was very difficult to please everyone, let alone, actually find things to do for PT. This round had none of that. Within a couple of weeks, I found a local YMCA that was kind enough to allow us to use their facilities for free. This solved any issues I had previously, and provided me and my team with an outstanding channel to achieve our fitness goals. People no longer had to worry about what we were doing because the possibilities were limitless and I gave them the freedom to choose what they were feeling on that particular day. Weight lifting, cardio machines, basketball, track running, and various classes were all at our disposal. This round was a great success and I look forward to the challenge of finding another gym for the next round.
Health and Wellness Liaison, Kristen Lalley
Round 2 began with a noticeable decrease in team members, which left it as a question mark in my mind as to how the team dynamics would change. This also meant that I assumed the HAWL role and responsibilities. In the spirit of positivity, I decided to use the changes as an opportunity to grow as a team. We sat down at the beginning of the round to discuss what boundaries each individual needed to be respected in, and the ways in which we like to be encouraged. Overall, I think this helped to reaffirm how each person wanted to be appreciated, especially as rooming situations grew more cramped, though I did discover some downsides to the discussion. As a HAWL I also planned a birthday celebration, completed with a piñata and a game of “pin the beard on the lumberjack”. Since our days were long with routine overtime days, long commutes, and the far distance to the YMCA, I decided to plan minimal team events. Personal time proved a rare and valuable resource to us, and I wanted to respect everyone’s need to unwind. I did bring in some puzzles and games from home that provided good opportunities to de-stress and bond with each other, which is ultimately what we needed most.
Media Representative, Cathleen "Cat" Skelton
On my second spike as a Media Representative I satisfied all of the requirements for my role. The things I did well was stay on top of the weekly goal of 1 Facebook post and 1 tweet each week that included pictures majority of the time, submitted those posts in a timely fashion, and posted those same posts to the AmeriCorps group page to keep all the other teams informed of what my team was doing. Some challenges I faced was staying in contact with my Media POC from campus and having things to post about during the slow weeks. For future Media Reps I would advise to create some sort of drive that is accessible to your entire team in the beginning of the spike where team members and you can upload all the pictures taken and write captions for them. Also, be sure to check out what other Media Reps are posting for ideas on what to write. Maintaining organization and distributing photos in a timely manner are the biggest challenges but are easy to overcome if you are prepared!
Project Outreach Liaison, Kristen Lalley
The round started with an ISP marathon weekend. We had three straight days of volunteer opportunities in which we earned around 20 hours of ISP hours. To be honest, it was pretty exhausting and I think we all felt pretty burned out by Monday. Unfortunately, we did not have any other team ISPs after that first weekend. The short length of the round did not leave many weekends for ISPs with other team activities. Working 10+ hour days also left people with little personal time and most people preferred to keep their weekends as a much needed time for errands, rest, and relaxation.
Recruiters, Joshua Bowman and Adriana Sandino
As with every kind of job, sometimes you are going to have you high points as well as your low points. Unfortunately, this round proved to be very difficult when it came to our recruitment efforts. Heavy work days and not being able to contact the right people at the colleges we reached out to negatively impacted some our goals we had set up for this spike. However, we did attend an event at Georgetown University! This event was very successful despite feeling somewhat embarrassed whenever we spoke to potential applicants. The Georgetown event was a nonprofit and government job fair, everyone in attendance was dressed so eloquently except us; which made us feel very out of place. This also made us feel inadequate in front of other perspective employers. Not looking the part is not the only concern we have when it comes to recruiting. We are still having trouble understanding why we are being scored for a specialty role that is supposed to be second in our priority list as FEMA Corps Members. We understand that this is probably just a way to make sure we are doing something productive during our round, but at the same time we are not a marketing or sales company. We just want to tell potential members about the amazing things our team and others in AmeriCorps are doing for America; if talking to them inspires and motivates them to get things done for their community, then that means we have done our job as recruiters.
As mentioned earlier, this round was extremely challenging due to the amount of work we were tasked with at our assigned office. Although we did not reach the three events minimum goal, we did have many contacts with a wide variety of people. People ranging from our hotel staff to waiters at restaurants in the surrounding area have all been intrigued with AmeriCorps and what we do as a part of FEMA Corps. Nevertheless, some goals were still met. We actually had our one application submitted goal met before we even headed out for VA! We have also met our goal of having one alumni interaction. Our Point of Contact, David, is a FEMA Corps Alumnus from our very own region! We were very lucky to have an alumnus as our POC as he knows the struggles we’ve gone through during our year of service, and he has shared many stories with us about his time in FEMA Corps.
Although this round was difficult, we want to let future recruiters coming to Crystal City know not to give up. Even if you don’t think you’re doing well within your role, chances are that your elevator pitch has gotten someone off their seat and onto their computer to start the AmeriCorps application process. Stay optimistic! This may not have been a great round with recruitment, but we have a good feeling that the final round will be even better!
Service Learning Initiator, Stephanie Guerrero
Round 2 was my first round as the SLI. I definitely have a lot to learn as demonstrated by this past round. There is a certain art to finding appropriate service learning activities for teams while keeping their interest. Personal time is sacred and we dislike having it taken away. I struggled as I did in the first round as the POL. However, I was able to set up 1 external event and 2 internal events for my team. . I learned that they enjoy interactive museums, that I should give them more options for SLI events, and that they enjoy burritos after SLI events. Another lesson I learned, was to constantly ask for feedback. Feedback is something I will utilize to find better events in Round 3.
Vehicle Safety Tools Officer, Dustin Cardoza
This round was relatively uneventful since it was shorter than the previous round we only really cleaned the van once. I also inspected the van mainly on the weekends when the team was away and the van was available. Unfortunately I did not get around do doing a fire drill and a few other activities due to various reasons.
