People barbequing, soldier with children, cornhole board and person giving presentation ()
Just over a year ago, my spouse and I arrived in Germany for his first overseas assignment. About a month in, he officially took over his new position and within three days I was voluntold to be the new company Soldier and Family Readiness Group (SFRG) leader. Until 2019, SFRGs were known as FRGs but the change has allowed soldiers to take more active and social roles in the organization.
The SFRG is the Army-based organization, but it has equivalents in other branches. According to military.com, “The Air Force has its Key Spouse Program while the Navy sports an Ombudsman Program. The Marine Corps uses a Family Readiness Program and those in Coast Guard turn to the Work-Life Program.” No matter what you call it, the SFRG is a support group at the company-level for service members and families. They usually host social events and provide informational and educational meetings about TDYs/deployments and on-post resources.
For seven years, I had successfully avoided being compelled into these types of positions and only attended a few events. I have opinions about previous events I’ve attended. I found SFRG meetings to be repetitive because my spouse had already told me everything they covered. Now though, in my newly found position, I’ve learned to have fun and make the SFRG something that everyone can enjoy. Here are some tips I picked up along the way.
1. Set Boundaries
One of the reasons I had avoided being in a leadership position (or even involvement) with SFRGs were the horror stories friends and leaders have shared.
One story involved a former SFRG leader who dealt with random phone calls from spouses at all hours of the night asking questions on how to deal with marital issues (even though the leader had shared that they were not a lawyer or counselor and could not help with issues like that). Another was spending an additional 20 hours a week handling SFRG things on top of their 40-50 hour-a-week job. These experiences inspired me to establish boundaries early on.
SFRG members only have my email address.
When I started a new job that required 32 weekly hours of my attention, I sought additional help from soldiers and families and explained that my role would be more behind the scenes when I could work on things in my free time.
2. Just ask
One of the first things I did was create a survey for the soldiers and family members to fill out. Over the years I had been frustrated by SFRG events that hosted “Mommy and Me” playdates and solely kid-centric events. I have also had fun at SFRG trivia nights and unconventional Thanksgiving celebrations. I assumed others had faced similar frustrations and wished someone asked me how I wanted to spend my mandatory fun time.
I created a simple Google Form.
The form asked questions like what they wanted from the SFRG (i.e. social events, educational events, information about resources, etc.) and what kinds of social events they wanted (i.e. game nights, BINGO, cornhole tournaments, craft days, etc.).
It turns out that a lot of people want to play board games and learn about the educational opportunities available to them.
3. Diversify events
Use the information you gather from the above questions to plan your events.
No one is going to be 100 percent happy at 100 percent of your events 100 percent of the time. But I’ve found that people tend to enjoy the events because we try our best to cater to all types of families and situations: single soldiers (which make up a good chunk of the company), childless couples, parents with children and pets, etc. Max the dog cannot come to movie night at the theater, but he is welcome at the summer BBQ. The springtime egg hunt has eggs hidden in easy spots for tiny hands and eyes and in more challenging places for adults and older children to find.
4. Play to people’s strengths
No one wanted to volunteer to be in charge of handling money and gathering data, but that didn’t mean I was left helpless. I have had plenty of help when it comes to things that I may not be the best at. Soldiers and family members have shown up at an event space two hours before I even got there to decorate. Volunteers have stepped up to organize games for the winter party: One led a Dungeons and Dragons competition during the party and another shopped for gingerbread house materials.
I’ve found that the more people get to be involved in their own way, the better the organization becomes and the more SFRG members feel ownership and responsibility for it.
The soldiers of the SFRG now feel pride in their day room which houses board games and a 100+ book library (all books donated by the soldiers and families) which they have access to 24/7. There is even a company fish named Spartacus whose feed and care are maintained by a small group of soldiers who live in the barracks.
5. Sneak in the logistics during the fun and provide food
I cannot oversell how often people will show up simply for free food.
Rather than hold separate SFRG meetings every month, we simply sneak the meeting in during whatever event we are holding. Halfway into the winter party, wings and sandwich platters arrived, and while everyone was munching on food we put on the PowerPoint presentation and got through the information we needed to disseminate. By the time we were done speaking, people were finishing up their food and we moved on to the next game.
Whether you were voluntold or willingly stepped up to lead, I believe these tips can help you run an SFRG.
