RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany -- The 86th Civil Engineer Group hosted the enlisted club’s monthly First Friday event April 7, on Ramstein Air Base, Germany. A frequent event on Ramstein, leadership felt a better turnout would come from a unit hosted event.
“The enlisted club has teamed up with the group commanders to have the different units host the First Friday and the purpose of it is just to bring awareness to the enlisted club,” said Tech. Sgt. Michael Elmore 786th Civil Engineer Squadron section chief of material control and First Friday committee organizer. “The wing commander was under the impression that it was pretty good when the units were hosting it because we have the people, everyone can speak to their peers and invite them. However, this time we want to set the bar. Since our group is hosting it we want to set the bar high.”
First Friday’s have occurred in the past on Ramstein, off and on for a little over the last two years, with the purpose of building camaraderie between Airmen outside of the work environment.
With an average of 150 attendees at the last First Friday, Elmore has confidence to exceed that expectation.
“We wanted as many people as we could get the word out to, to come out and show up to the event,” said Elmore. “I formed a committee within our group, so we were responsible for the theming, brainstorming, marketing, and advertisements. And as for our committee we just started knocking on doors because we wanted to get everyone involved to get the word out.”
Marketing the event extended to soliciting the assistance of the Armed Forces Network Kaiserslautern.
“We were all about it,” said Airman 1st Class Lauren Silverthorne, AFN Kaiserslautern broadcaster. “We love getting out into the community, meeting our listeners and being a part of things in person, it’s a lot of fun.”
The event brings the community out. It gets everybody together, socializing, and relaxing on a Friday evening. It’s a way to just kind of unwind after work, said Silverthorne
“The First Friday event just gives everyone a nice safe environment to get together and talk,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Jose Ramirez AFN Kaiserslautern, broadcast journalist and afternoon disk jockey for AFN the Eagle. “Because you can’t exactly do that if you go eat at Chili’s or if you just go to the enlisted club by yourself. This is specifically for everybody and anybody to come, get to know new people, build new friendships, working relationships, and have a good time.”
The event is meant to boost comradery for enlisted members. Making sure the enlisted members know that there is somewhere that they can come and socialize with amongst their peers and have a good time, said Elmore.