FRG Meetings

[MrsAggie]

Our FRG is notoriously terrible and the new commander is stepping in and trying to change that. One of the other LTs hunted me down and suggested that I sponsor a meeting (they're normally on post with no themes or anything). She wanted to do a Pampered Chef or Mary Kay meeting but the Army has a strict no soliciting policy. I suggested someone coming in and giving a makeup tutorial or doing makeovers and then leaving their business card. I'm not sure if it'll be allowed but she's checking on it.

Anyways, I'm making a list of fun FRG meeting themes/activities. Do y'all have any suggestions?

[bigmamma]

Just be careful that they don't morph the FRG into a social wives club. It has a bigger purpose and can really become a great source of support and information for families. We use themes to focus the party, but always include about a 15 minute training session on tips and resources specific to where were at in deployment/training or the time of year.

HTH

Hurricane/Severe Weather Party:
Kids have fun in a room with fans, blowing bubbles and packing kid appropriate emergency packs

Parents/Adults in another room learning legit Hurricane/Storm safety, evac routes, packing their kits w/ a pot-luck and hurricane punch (non-alcoholic of course )

Light My Fire:
Kids: learn fire safety, make indoor smores

Adults: make fire safety plan, talk briefly about fire safety... then switch gears to keeping the fire lit in your relationship. Fun tips for deployment, staycations... etc.

Family 2 Family:
Toy, Clothes, gear swap!

Spring Fling:
Plant flowers, start mother/father day gifts/projects

Beach Bum:
Kids, water/pool/beach safety, fun with zink sticks, beach ball fight (every kids takes one home)

Summer/Boat safety followed by summer skin care and beauty tips

Survivor:
kids, resilience exercises to get through deployment, kiddo obstacle course

basically the same thing... except in addition to the obstacle course better than sex cake, pedicures and a dessert driven pot luck to celebrate deployment almost being over

[MrsAggie]

Those are great ideas! Questions about "Light my fire"... What would you discuss for keeping the fire lit in the relationship? How would you make indoor smores? We don't have access to a microwave in the building we use.

[Dory1988]

We wrapped s'mores in tin foil and put them on an electric griddle last week at work

[ilovelamp]

Such cute/fun/informative ideas! I never got to go to anything like that because I was "only the fiancee" at the time and didn't have kids. Sad panda...

[amaristella]

I'm sorry can you clarify what you mean by meeting? To me, a meeting is an information/business night that we have once a month to plan activities and get the command update. We have totally separate days for activities and gatherings otherwise people would rebel. Our meetings don't have themes or activities except the time we made posters for homecoming.

For activity days:
We like to do things like going out for ice cream, going to the aquarium or kids' museum, pot lucks. The less formal the better. Oh, and we do crazy bake sales to raise funds for activities. We made cards at Christmas time and sent a couple cards to the White House I think. We're pretty good at having holiday themed parties when there's enough interest. We try to do adult-only events but the success is highly dependent on securing babysitters. Even just agreeing to meet at the mall food court at a particular time to eat together and then walk around sometimes serves as a nice activity for our group.

[MrsAggie]

Well it's a little complicated. We have an FRG leader who doesn't even send out emails to let us know when meetings are scheduled. The soldiers are responsible for telling their families when the meetings are. The LTs actually choose what days the meetings will be on and then spread the word. I just learned this yesterday but apparently the CPT has some of the guys selling Gatorades on Mondays to raise money for the FRG. Our FRG meetings are always on post. Yesterday the CPT spoke to the adults and in another room his wife was dressed up as a clown and did face painting and things with the kids. They tried a potluck last time and ordered pizza for this past one. One of the LTs cornered me and asked me to sponsor a meeting. She basically wants an activity because there's no interaction at meetings so with an upcoming deployment, they want the families to get to know each other so they'll have some support. Am I making sense? I'm not sure but I think our FRG might be a bit unusual...

[amaristella]

That makes perfect sense. It really does sound bad. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. We send out emails and facebook event invites and then remind people the day of and they still sit there and act like nobody told them about the meeting! For the record, as much as we love our sailors, we would never trust them to notify their families about meetings. They're simply terrible at passing on info.

The date of our meetings is actually laid out in our FRG's bylaws which most people don't give a rat's ass about, let alone notice the pattern. (For example, every second Tuesday of the month) People also generally seem to form friendships outside FRG activities and get enough social activity without us. Some people only come for command update so we put that at the beginning.

Again, I'm sorry that you're in such a tough position. There's so much that I would recommend if you only had an FRG leader willing to put out the info. but without that you're in a really tough position. How often are new leaders elected? Maybe it's time for someone new to take over.

[MrsAggie]

I actually told the commander last night that we needed emails because the soldiers can be forgetful. He took what I said into consideration but the FRG leader bitched about how she can't send out emails because she needs permission. However, she has permission but she was giving us a warning that if the soldier gave permission to email the spouse then she's going to start emailing. Um, why are you warning us? Just send the damn emails!

H arrived at this company a little over 2 years ago. There was an FRG leader already in place. During the deployment last summer, she brought on another woman who I believe was just a friend in the company. There was no voting and I didn't even find out about the new FRG leader until well after she was "chosen". I'm not sure that I ever saw the old leader again. H just informed me that her H changed companies (she never informed us) and the "chosen" FRG co-leader is now our sole leader. She had the nerve to make bitchy comments about no one volunteering immediately after saying that she doesn't send out emails about anything. We have no voting schedule and I'm not sure if anyone would volunteer. We're leaving the company in a few months so I can't step in even though I'd be willing to.

[amaristella]

Interesting. Although it really doesn't sound much like your FRG leader has been through any formal training, for our FRG we're not allowed to send any emails to a person until they have first given us their consent, either written or electronically. I don't know if it's a Navy thing or just our command but they're dead serious about it. First contact is always difficult to establish for this reason because we can't contact them directly and say "hey, come join us". We're entirely reliant on the sailor to give the authorization page to their significant other or family member. Meanwhile the sailor also must designate on a separate piece of paper who is "allowed" to be given information and sometimes the sailor checks "no" without even reading the paper.

Maybe there aren't any official bylaws or voting procedures for the group but it sounds like there needs to be.

[basilosaurus]

I've never been to one, but they're all just social events, either at someone's house, a restaurant, even the bowling ally. I thought that was the whole point. At least it is with the air force, so it didn't surprise me that our frg here would be the same way. H is in a weird place, at a marine base, in an army run unit, in a joint position, so we never really know which traditions they'll follow. I'm pretty sure the monthly meetings are childfree (or at least no specific child entertainment), but they also do child friendly events fairly regularly.

I think H gave them my email address. I guess that's consent enough? I've never told her that I'm not on the evite list b/c I seriously don't need more spam. My desire to go to any of these things is zero. It might be less than zero if it wasto teach me some bs like fire safety. I used to actively avoid the meetings that involved making diaper cakes. I'd rather clean my bathroom, and I loathe cleaning.

[sweethurricane]

I don't post here very often, but I feel like we have the same FRG leader. Ours is absolutely awful. I do trust my soldier to tell me when events are happening, but all it takes is for him to miss one formation and he has no idea that there's anything planned. Despite our leader having the entire battery's email addresses, and having a FB page, we are constantly receiving less than 24 hours notice for mandatory events. All suggestions go in one ear and out the other. The Commander set up a "how can we make our FRG better" meeting and then did not come to it. This next deployment is going to be a very long one if things continue this way.

[pennylane]

Our actual meetings are held on the same day every month (the 3rd Tuesday or what have you). They rotate around peoples houses (because the meetings are usually only <20 people). We just pass around a list and people sign up to host it. The meeting is usually just dinner/snacks/drinks and chit chat and then maybe 20 minutes of actual information/discussion regarding events. It's pretty casual, but there are a set of bylaws to be followed. We have separate activities as well, and we get plenty of emails.

But it's the same in that, the contact info we have for people is only from the people who contact us, which means we rely on the SM's to pass along the email address/phone number to their spouse.

[basilosaurus]

How can they make anything for spouses mandatory?

[MrsAggie]

Our FRG leader has our email addresses. People who arrived in the past seven months after the deployment may not be on it but the majority are the same. She has consent because it was needed during the deployment. She basically sucks as a leader and is trying to play it off as "Oh ya, I just wanted to give y'all a heads up that I'm going to send out emails so you have notice if you don't want your spouse contacted"....seven months later. To sum things up she's full of shit and really rubs me the wrong way.

The last deployment was truly the worst as far as rumors and the date they were getting back kept switching around by 3 or 6 months. The FRG leaders apparently talked with the commander every week but the only meeting we had during the entire deployment was not long before the soldiers came home. I lived two hours away and was friendly enough with one wife to talk about anything deployment-related but I felt so far removed from everyone and all of the information. For the sake of all of the other wives, I'd like things to be better for this deployment so they don't have a similar experience.