Teasing -Banter - Good Times - And

[Eamonn]

The Lodge held the OA banquet yesterday.

This is an all day activity.

Along with the meal the activities committee organizes different activities, meetings are held, training's are offered.

It started about 1000, with the meal served at 1800.

Since Her Who Must Be Obeyed got ill, I really haven't been out and about much. But She ordered me to go and I obeyed.

I think just about everyone in the Council knows me!!

As ever I seemed to meet up and hang out with old friends. As ever in next to no time we were teasing each other!! This year I seemed to get more than my fair share as I went in my Sea Scout uniform. That's fine!! I'm a big enough to take it and dish it right back.

The meal was OK, in fact the menu doesn't seem to have changed for as long as I have been around.

Meeting old friends and catching up was really nice.

I got to meet our new SE. He seems like a nice fellow. I had a really good time.

I bumped into the Council Training Chair and was sad to hear that he was no longer the Training Chair. It seems his term had ended.

I'm all for term limits.

But no one has filled the spot!

In fact from talking with him it seems that we no longer have a V-P of Program and the Council Advancement Chair and Activity Chair spots are all open with no one filling them.

As I looked around the room at dinner, I didn't see very many new adult faces, I did notice that some of the faces that are always there, weren't there!! When I inquired about some of the missing faces, I was told that they were ill, had moved or had just stopped being active.

Kind of sad.

But I ate my chicken and went back to my teasing.

Ea.

[oldsm]

Term limits are fine IF there are people willing and able to fill the vacated positions. In my district, term limits have compounded the problems caused by people whose sons age out and then want to end their involvement.

 

For 2 years now we have had no BS or CS Commissioner. RT's are now joint with "featured speakers". They are boring and poorly attended. We used to have separate BS and CS RTs. The BS ones were interesting and dynamic. Then term limits got in the way.

 

Our long-term training chair is now out of the picture. She needed help, but didn't get any, and finally gave up. The new TC is not very effective.

 

I just learned that our Activities Chair is resigning. Partly because he can't do everything himself, and partly because he's gotten flack from certain other key distict people (DE and DC) about his lack of writing ability (what he puts out is better than the nothing we get from anyone else), and partly because our DE didn't follow through with the support that was promised.

 

I ran a Leadership Seminar 2 years ago for the district to identify new sources of support and involvement for the district. It would have had a larger impact if the district powers-that-be had chosen to follow through. Instead, they basically approached the same old people again - just shuffling the deck and not taking advantage of the new people we identified.

 

I don't volunteer for District activities anymore. I'm busy being SM to my busy troop of young men. That's where my first allegiance in scouting lies. And there are no term limits there.

[jr56]

Yes, I can identify. I don't think term limits should be in place, as long as the people doing the job are happy doing it, and there is no drive to replace them with somebody else.

I've also noticed the districts reusing the same people and not utilizing new faces that want to come up.