First Silicon Valley ARC Chapter Disaster Volunteer Meeting

The first meeting of the disaster volunteers from the new Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross took place on Tuesday Jan 27, 2009 with about 70 people in attendance.

It was, in part, a "Meet and Greet" for the volunteers from the two former chapters, but was also intended to seed the new chapter mantra of "Excite, Engage, and Empower." In this case, that meant starting volunteers thinking about preparedness needs, and understanding that they do not have to wait to be told what to do, but should feel able to take initiative and come up with suggestions when they see that actions need to be taken.

Specific attitudes that need to be overcome:

• "I don't have the authority to do that"
• Well, if not you, then who?
• If you don't know, maybe you d0. Find out.
  
• "'They' have to ..."
• Sorry, you can't assign action items to others. You can take an action item to ask them if they can and will take it on.

Mistakes were made:

• The food was in the center of the room, splitting attendees into two large groups, and leaving speakers talking to the food.
• Meeting purpose and process was not made clear from the outset.
• It was not made clear up front that this was to be a working rather than an informational meeting.
  
• Lost teaching moment: A public, flat-out answer of "No" was challenged only on the underlying reason, and not on the unacceptability of a "No" response.
• Follow-up plan was not clear.

However, a lot of energy, good ideas and momentum were generated. I hope to be able to channel this into an opportunity to develop and experiment with the Participatory Preparedness Planning Process methodology.