Popcorn and YHC led a second iteration of MQ School. Notes from last year's version here: https://f3lakenorman.com/jerky/mq-school-on-17-jun-2021
Additional MQ information found here: here.
Here is roughly how it went in 2022:
WARM-O-RAMA:
- Our mission is to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
We spent time discussiong the mission statement ^ and how it relates to what an MQ does.
We laid out some of the ideas we wanted people to walk away with, including:
- As an MQ, love your Pax.
- Current MQs feel like they have the tools to succeed. And by succeed, we mean “Your AO has a Q every week and most weeks it is NOT you”
- MQs know how to identify a potential replacement
- MQs feel comfortable passing on info to their replacement
Discussions:
First off, we had a GREAT mix of Pax that included:
- Several current long time MQs
- Former MQs
- Several newer MQs
- Multiple Pax about to be MQs
We touched on many topics, including but not limited to:
- Ways an introvert can overcome hesitations about being an MQ
- What does success look like for an MQ?
- We need not measure success by the average number of Pax at an AO.
- We can measure in other meaningful ways including: Is there a Q each week? Is there an early enough Preblast? Is there a variety of Qs? Convergences discussed well in advance. Etc.
- Having a monthly special workout at an AO can lead to excitement. For example, The Murph, The Vern, The Horseshoe, Samson Suicides, the Night Ranger 5 Miler, etc.
- We discussed having a social media presence and effective ways to ask Pax to Q for us. Not having social media wouldn't necessarily prevent someone from being an effective MQ, though it would be more challenging.
- We discussed the pool of Pax we can ask to Q:
- The answer isn’t limited to “only those Pax that attended today’s workout at my AO”. And it’s not limited to “only those Pax who attend my AO more than 50% of the time”.
- And it’s even not limited to “only those Pax who have attended my AO at least once!”
- You can ask, AT LEAST, any Pax in our sub-region.
- You don’t have to limit it to our sub-region. You want to invite someone from Denver down to Q? Do it! There’s plenty that would love to.
- Even though many MQs present are brand new to the job, we discussed the importance of thinking about a successor.
- Related, we discussed the MQ change-over method in Race City. Each MQ holds that role from Jan 1 until Dec 31, I.E. 1 calendar year. We agreed that seems like an effective model. How we can get there is probably a larger discussion, as Popcorn said "We probably won't solve that here, but we can take it away".
- YHC expressed my love for F3 and mentioned I hope we're still doing this in 10 years! (Even longer) And, we hope to continue to offer the huge variety of AOs we have everyday. To accomplish that, Pax will likely need to step up and be MQs multiple times over the years. To put my money where my mouth is, after learning Crab Legs is looking to pass the torch for Fartlek; I will be taking the keys there.
Probably missing a few things we touched on, sound off in the comments.
Popcorn and I were thankful for such an interactive session.
It is exciting that Isotope has so many up and coming new leaders. Aye!