Surprise Initiatives in Charlotte County, Florida

Having a plan with goals is great but a leader needs a team with enthusiasm and initiative in order to work wonders.

Deborah Gard, District Captain HD 75, celebrates the ideas and actions of her small, energetic team. She recognizes that people tend to volunteer for COS when they feel urgency to do something to help save our country. Letting people follow their passion can deliver unexpected results.

The most recent surprisingly successful undertaking was proposed by Linda McGreevy. While Debbie was skeptical, Linda was persistent in her desire to set up a COS table at the Charlotte County Administrative Services Center. Debbie thought permission would be unattainable, Linda wanted to try.

Without much effort Linda charmed her way to approval. Outside the government building on Murdoch Circle, during an hour and a half lunch period, this duo gathered ten petitions. That’s a good return when you include awareness raised by random passersby.

Though District 75 had some turnover in the DC role, a few volunteers waited patiently for opportunities to materialize. Bill Clapp is another creative team member who acted on his own idea, with DC approval, of course. 

Bill ordered four magnetic COS plackets for his cars. When out doing errands, he now comes home with signed petitions. How’s that for creative? Bill is a friendly, outgoing fixture in his neighborhood, so a little casual COS block-walking also yields rewards.

After being HD 75 District Captain for about ten months Debbie is now also Florida’s COS Grassroots Coordinator. It’s common for new volunteers to move quickly from one role to another until they find their groove. Some of us are outgoing people-people, others are behind-the-scenes process organizers. We all work to our strengths. 

As Grassroots Coordinator Debbie’s two main jobs are assisting with recruiting and managing the database of new leader volunteers. She considers herself an outside-the-box thinker who likes to analyze problems and processes. For example, she’s working on how we can increase district captain coverage up to about 80-90% of our 120 Florida districts. 

That’s challenging because many people think Florida’s work is done as a passed state. Not so. Our new role is to be a leader and helper for non-passed states. Tele-Patriots are very active in helping other state initiatives. We just need to offer appropriate tasks for new volunteers who want to engage. Debbie thinks good systems and documentation will get us there.

If you feel the urge to take action, consider signing up as a district captain to see if that’s a good role for you.