Mobilization includes all activities that get TR volunteers to operations and back home. In Field Operations, we work alongside the planning, logistics, incident management, and mission planning teams to support the human element of operations. Success in this depends largely on collaborative efforts by everyone in the organization.
There are mobilization managers on the territory, regional, and state levels as needed to support operations. National mobilization maintains the tools, processes, training, and support for mobilization of Greyshirts to disaster sites anywhere in the world. Together, we make up the Mobilization Cadre (“Mob Cadre”).
The Mob Cadre is a group of people trained on notifying, dispatching, projecting, and tracking Greyshirts to and from operations and training events domestically and abroad. The Mob Cadre works with mission planning teams to forecast volunteer availability for operations. They also provide support to national and other areas to increase capacity for large scale mobilization efforts. The team tackles op notification emails and texts, dispatch instructions, hotel rooms, flights, and personnel tracking during operations.
Now that you have a good understanding of what we do here are a few tips to help you, help us. Under the current mobilization process, if you sign up for an operation, please don’t sign up a second, third, or fourth time in a row thinking you may increase your chances of deployment – you are invalidating your previous sign-up. Only your most recent sign-up is counted.
When you get your dispatch email, please respond to the email saying, “Confirmed” to let us know you got it. When you list your top three airports, only list airports you would really fly from. If you are hoping to fly from Hawaii or Alaska, please be prepared to leave one day early to get to the operation if it is near the East Coast. This is to ensure you arrive at roughly the same time as other volunteers for an efficient airport pickup by operation staff.
Lastly, if you need to withdraw after being dispatched, it is best to do it as soon as possible. Please call the Gant phone number and cancel your flights yourself to expedite the process and let our team know by emailing Mobilization@teamrubiconusa.org.
Keep in mind, the process is built around getting a Greyshirt from their home to a disaster site and back home. If there are situations outside of that, please email Mobilization@teamrubiconusa.org with more information about your crazy out of process request.
The goal for Mobilization is to send as many Greyshirts to the right place, at the right time in order to provide the most help and hope for people negatively impacted by disasters. As the Mob Cadre, we are like bartenders at the TR bar. We serve our patrons by connecting them with the opportunity to drink this life-altering TR brew. It won’t increase your lifespan, but it will improve the quality and nature of your life through collective service in a team setting.
