Field crew
From Community
Field crews are often dispatched to execute Task force directives for community mapping projects. These directives are the civil counterparts of military orders. Serious community builders approach vital service to a community with a command and control attitude and the field crew is the primary building block in a well-built community.
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[edit] keywords
Task force, directive, community map, community builder, command, control |*| volunteer, expedition, canvass, survey, outing, project | office detail, culture, society, religion, politics, education, tradition, convention, gender, mode, role, identity, change • courage | mainstream • unit, build, base | built environment, United States, USGS | map, agent, scratch, hand • radio, budget, event • ...
[edit] Characterizations and roles
Every community development project needs a well equipped and informed core field crew that is ready to lead less experienced volunteers on expeditions, canvasses, surveys, and a host of other outings. A field crew may do physical work for a number of projects as it goes out to work. In any case the field crew must plan its activities and manage its resources in a tactical and strategic way.
When is planning mode, the field crew puts on dress clothes and disguises itself as an office detail. Like it or not, culture, society, religion, politics, education, tradition and convention work together to force our minds into gender roles that effectively characterize the office detail modes as female. Mature individuals have transended role identity and translated mainstream paradigms into a framework for change.
[edit] Field crew guidelines
These guidlines are not so much geared toward project management as they are oriented toward personal behaviour. Practical situations carry with them opportunities to grow as a person while shaping attitudes, sensitivities, and responsiveness. It's about courage.
Doing work on a physical task with others can be rewarding if you focus on the processes and learn to enjoy others. Leave matters of life and death to the fearful. Get over the pride-infested, zero-sum, pass/fail mentality of the mainstream. We'll start where they live...
[edit] Know your territory
A field crew is a mobile unit that operates from an established home base. The local hospital or clinic is usually a good first choice even if it's just a designated spot in a far corner of the parking lot. The public library is an excellent second choice. If your locale is a small town or village with no clinic, you may have to build one. You'll need some sort of Internet connection.
In larger towns and small cities, you may need to unbuild the built environment in order to see what you're doing. Either way, no matter where you are, you should obtain a good topographical map of your locale. If you live in the United States, the USGS has already produced an excellent map for you to start with.
Though a map is a handy tool, you don't always have the one you need available. It is up to the resourceful agent to memorize this map and be able to reproduce an approximation of its major features from scratch by hand.
[edit] Optimize your vehicle
An old pickup truck with a diesil engine is an excellent choice, especially if you have or plan to build a bio-diesil plant. An open flat bed with removable rails is nice. You need a gangbox with a lock and/or some side boxes for things that need to be secure and dry. A generator/welder is handy. You need a radio, preferably a Ham but a CB will do if you're on a budget. Be cautious not to depend exclusively on cellphones. They can exhaust your budget and can fail in a catastrophic events.
[edit] Set an example
Identify your behaviors:
- Belief in what you're doing
- Ethics for driving projects
- Tactics for recruiting help
- Strategy for achieving results
- Method of organizing work
These correspond to you hand. Putting your hand in play within a community is a matter of will.
- Thumb • If you believe in what you are doing, you will be more convincing and honorable to those with whom you are activated. You are no longer under the thumb of The Man... You are the man (or woman if you are)
- Index • Be a catalyst for change, not a pain in the ass. Don't abuse this finger by pointing it at others. Let your ethics be grounded in genuine care for others.
- Middle • If someone "fails" to join your project or opposes you, don't simply give them the finger and walk away. Learn from them by becoming more sensitive. Tact is about Feelings.
- Ring • Commit yourself to results that matter. Don't be married to your own ideas and bogged down in layers of dismay from your own past failings. Stratify things according to consensus and reason.
- Pinky • Use finesse to develope and refine your methodology. Community-oriented activities must be non-violent, consensus-driven, goal-oriented and delicately handled. Down plow into things that get in your way. Manouver around them swiftly with grace. Seek answers to questions not advantages over others.
Behaviour is the toughest challenge when you're in the light. Friendly advice should be passed on. That's how it got on this page.
[edit] Chiefs and outsiders
Everyone who learns good behavior is a crew cheif. Leading and following is kindof dumb. Moving together is the key to consensus-driven processes.
Heres a situated learning exercise: :Identify two allies and listen carefully to what they say. If they haven't met each other, introduce them. If they already know each other, observe carfully how they interact. Don't speak unless you're spoken to and resign from any impulse to interject your own thoughts and suggestions. Pay attention to their focus and learn their syntax and dialog. This is the primary nuance of community building.
