Serendipity at work

[Eamonn]

With Her That Must Be Obeyed not being up to snuff, I had to cut back on the time I spent with the Ship.

To be honest I was beating myself up for not doing a better job of involving more adults before we started.

Our Ship's Committee is made up mostly of Moms who have daughters in the Ship. Great bunch of Ladies, very good at organizational type stuff, but not the sort that would ever want to go out on the water or camp.

I have two Ship's Mate's. One is also our COR and he is also an ASM in the Troop which his two sons attend.

He is a nice fellow, but really doesn't understand how Boy Scouting or Sea Scouting should work.

I'm in his bad books because he wanted the Ship to go with the Troop his Lads are in to camp at Assateague State Park, next summer. While his wife and the parents of some of the Boy Scouts camped someplace near by. I'll admit that I didn't like the idea and may have influenced the Quarterdeck against the idea. But they made it very clear that they just didn't want to go. He now feels that we should tell the Sea Scouts where we are going.

I tried to point out to him that selling a program that no one wants is just a waste of time and us camping with a Boy Scout Troop is not my idea or the Quarterdeck's idea of what we should be doing. He made it very clear that he isn't going to be joining us this summer.

The other Ship's Mate is ex-navy. He looks great in his uniforms, loves to talk about his time in the navy, but never seems to attend anything or get anything done. He loves to attend any training that is offered, is supposed to be a Unit Commissioner?? I didn't recruit him he came and offered his services.

The other night I was trying to figure out what can be done to get more active adult support? So I wrote an e-mail explaining the situation. I very carefully went through my address book selecting people who I knew had been active, who were either doing nothing or doing very little. In all about 25 names.

I of course knew that this wasn't the way to do things. But being tied to the house as much as I am this seemed easy.

I was really surprised when five people got back to me and volunteered.

One is an Ex-District Chairman, who I worked with when I was District Commissioner, he didn't get on with the SE and quit after telling the SE what he could do with his financial goals that he wanted to impose on the District. We have served an a few WB courses together, he has a Silver Beaver and is an all round nice guy. Three all attended the WB that I Directed and one is a Lady who has a son in the Ship but was a Den Leader when I was a Cubmaster.

Sadly the COR / Mate is not as happy as I am.

I think maybe he thinks that he will get pushed out.This is not and never was my aim.

I do think that he thought he had me over a barrel about the summer camp/trip thing.

To make matters worse he missed the Ship's meeting last night and one of his son's said that he doesn't want to go with the Troop! I'm not going to get involved in that one.

I have mailed out Adult Leader Apps to all the adults.

So if all goes well my leader woes are over.

In part this is thanks to Jamie being sick. That and me never removing a name from the address book.

Eamonn.

(One Happy Little Skipper!!)