The Horns of a dilemma
Good Morning all,
This is shaping up to be an interesting day. Just late last night, early this morning, our vessels JAG officer dropped us a line, saying that it’s time for the ship elections. For our ship, that means the election of the CO and XO, and that the rest of the Senior Staff serves at the discretion of the CO.
What, you ask, is this great dilemma that has you so perplexed? I’ll give it to you and throw it out for your general consideration.
I have been thinking of starting my own chapter, but in the absence of that, I have also been thinking of running for the office of CO of my home chapter. It would give me the chance to promote the changes that I felt have always been needed in my local chapter. It could give new people a chance to prove themselves, and might make it more fun as well.
I have two problems, off hand, that I need to check on. Firstly, my chapter is 150 miles away, and it’s a meeting chapter, and most of the members are ….well….local to the chapter. With the advent of technology, I can work around it being a meeting chapter, via Skype, or any other mass communication means. I could open the chapter up to regional and/or international membership, and draw more members. I suppose I could try to create a hybrid chapter, where I can serve as CO, and still allow the local members to meet when they want to.
Secondly, and this isn’t so much a concern, as me having to step up and honor my beliefs; namely that a ship’s CO shouldn’t serve on a regional or fleet position while trying to grow the chapter. This doesn’t bother me so much, since the only other thing I’m a part of, is almost dead, and I’m not in the CO’s position there.
Some of the things I could do, as CO of my home chapter are: I could do the aforementioned change in format and make the chapter a hybrid chapter, and I could get our other departments on track, such as Communications, science, medical (community service) and security. Since my CO and JAG went to work on fleet level positions, these other departments have fallen silent, and maybe new leadership would energize the ship. I’ve also been thinking of maybe starting up a ship sim of our local chapter. For some it could be fun, and others wouldn’t want to take part.
Also, I think it might be better served to have the meeting online, and have the physical part of the meetings back in public, and not in the CO’s house, where they’ve been meeting.
What do you guys think? Should I throw my hat into the ring and do this?
(5 votes, average: 1.6 out of 5)
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August 3rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I went back to where my local chapter is located and somewhere along the way, I decided that it wouldn’t be fair to make my chapter move it’s charter from where they are, to where I am. It is a thriving and established chapter, and if we had to recharter it, it would lose some of the establishment.
Now for the kicker, after I told them that I, in good conscience, couldn’t run for CO, and cited my reasons, they dropped the bombshell, that if I had run and won, they would have gladly followed the rules and changed the city of charter to where I am.
Also in this election cycle, the XO is in the running to, and I was quiet willing to sit that one out too. However, I was surprised when I got nominated to be one of the people that could run for the XO’s position. I had to really think about it, and in the end, decided that I could do the XO job remotely. I also got more interesting news. The MGS that we had decided to disband, (mainly to do the Brigade Commander’s insulting my whole MSG,) has decided to reform. I was also asked if I’d come back if they reformed it. I said I would, but wouldn’t be the OIC. I told them that I’d be happy to take the billet of Warrant Officer, and would advise the new OIC on what they needed.
Who knows, I might actually win the XO’s election.