No Input from Springfield Headquarters?

So, as of this date, there are 113 registered users of RangerChat. Of those 113 registered users, I do not know of any of them who is in a position to pass on information back & forth from National Headquarters (other than the fellow mentioned below in Paragraph 6).

I was thinking today, "So where is the input from National (or Regional) Headquarters?" to the leaders in the field.

I know that this is not THE "Official" site for Royal Rangers, but I do not believe that there IS any "Official" chat site for Royal Rangers.

Years ago, there was a "Royal Rangers Forum", but they closed down in/about 2009. I'm not going to be nasty and harp about its shortcomings, but suffice it to say that it was overly-policed, allowed only "Happy-Talk", and permitted no one to ask if other leaders were experiencing the same difficulties that they were while trying to implement changes that were being passed down (forbidden speech).

So, my question is this: Why isn't there a chat site for Royal Rangers that has direct (or indirect) input from National Headquarters? And as there seems to be no such site, why don't any representatives from National Headquarters occasionally swing by this forum, to be available to answer CONSTRUCTIVE questions?

Now Mark Jones is associated pretty high up in the Association, but he is like the only Apostle who eats with us sinners.

I did look at the National Royal Rangers web page. They are putting up some pages that give some overall concepts of the Program, but that is all. There is nothing showing a young leader the "nuts & bolts" of running an outpost.

Another thing is that it could give National HQ an unofficial channel for them to see what some leaders believe is working and is not working.

I do not want to believe that EVERYONE in Springfield is such a prema donna that they cannot handle having their fur petted the wrong way, by answering a few questions.

The last administration was pushing the slogan "Mentoring Future Men", but they are not even Mentoring the Current Leaders.

(And please do not move this to the "Complainer's Corner", because it does no good for only the Choir Members to see it.)

Claymore wrote: Of those 113 registered users, I do not know of any of them who is in a position to pass on information back & forth from National Headquarters.

I know that this is not THE "Official" site for Royal Rangers, but I do not believe that there IS any "Official" chat site for Royal Rangers.  

So, my question is this: Why isn't there a chat site for Royal Rangers that has direct (or indirect) input from National Headquarters?  And as there seems to be no such site, why don't any representatives from National Headquarters occasionally swing by this forum, to be available to answer CONSTRUCTIVE questions?  

Now Mark Jones is associated pretty high up in the Association, but he is like the only Apostle who eats with us sinners.

I did look at the National Royal Rangers web page.  They are putting up some pages that give some overall concepts of the Program, but that is all.  There is nothing showing a young leader the "nuts & bolts" of running an outpost.  

Another thing is that it could give National HQ an unofficial channel for them to see what some leaders believe is working and is not working.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, as I haven't had an outpost for way too long. But after 30 years wearing khaki, it's forever in my blood. And I can still see what's happening in my District, which is next to nothing.

Some years back, there was joy and anticipation when it was announced that the top dog was changing. Yeah, some things were modified, but not nearly enough. Like most organizations, it appears that the Springfield brass flies their reconnaissance plane at 10,000 feet, trying to divine what's happening at ground level. What they think they see is shared via the "free content" on their website. All the nuts and bolts intel that we actually need in order to be mission-successful is kept in the training modules, and you have to pay for that. (By the way, whatever happened to their much-ballyhooed initiative to make annual registration free?)

I'm not sure what Ranger Chat is anymore. Ten years ago, it was 80% RR info and 20% misc. Now it's 5% RR and 95% misc, with only 3 people posting on a somewhat regular basis. Ranger Chat won't really live up to its original purpose unless some of the other 110 people start posting their experiences and wisdom. And that's not even taking into consideration all the "guests" who read this site. If only they would register and contribute. Are some of them from HQ? If so, at least they're getting some input, even if it's ignored.

P.S. The Apostle Mark line was a hoot!

joecool wrote:

I'm not sure what Ranger Chat is anymore. Ten years ago, it was 80% RR info and 20% misc. Now it's 5% RR and 95% misc, with only 3 people posting on a somewhat regular basis. Ranger Chat won't really live up to its original purpose unless some of the other 110 people start posting their experiences and wisdom. And that's not even taking into consideration all the "guests" who read this site. If only they would register and contribute. Are some of them from HQ? If so, at least they're getting some input, even if it's ignored.  

Much of that is "By Design".

The "Official" Royal Rangers Forum of 15-16 years ago was almost tyrannical in their policing of any opinions other than the official "Party Line". When Chris and Dan formed RangerChat, they kind-of made it the complete antithesis of that lack of independent thought.

Maybe (as often occurs in the course of human history) when a system is set up to correct previous abuses, the pendulum swung a bit overly far in the "Liberty" direction. However, as THEY did the work and built the machine, I'm not going to be too critical that 3% of the parts aren't the ones that I would have used in the machine.

Hey, the machine has run a lot longer than the model that it replaced.

Claymore wrote: Maybe (as often occurs in the course of human history) when a system is set up to correct previous abuses, the pendulum swung a bit overly far in the "Liberty" direction.  

Hey, the machine has run a lot longer than the model that it replaced.

Ranger Chat's goal was to provide an open forum for those who had concerns about where RR was going. It succeeded in the short haul, providing good advice based on past success, but it is running out of that original head of steam. Successes are clearly fewer and farther apart. Why is that?

As I see it, the problem is that the culture is moving and changing things at a high rate of speed, for ministry and just about everything else out there. We, as individuals or teams, aim at a target and fire away, not realizing that we have to lead the moving target in order to hit it and achieve success. How far ahead can we plan? How prescient are our guesses? Not very good, unless we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us. If we do, we can...

...lead our outposts, churches, families, etc.

joecool wrote:

Claymore wrote: Maybe (as often occurs in the course of human history) when a system is set up to correct previous abuses, the pendulum swung a bit overly far in the "Liberty" direction.  

Hey, the machine has run a lot longer than the model that it replaced.

Ranger Chat's goal was to provide an open forum for those who had concerns about where RR was going. It succeeded in the short haul, providing good advice based on past success, but it is running out of that original head of steam. Successes are clearly fewer and farther apart. Why is that?

(Definition) "Deflection shooting is a technique of shooting ahead of a moving target, also known as leading the target, so that the projectile will "intercept" and collide with the target at a predicted point."

In other words, aiming not at where the Target is at this moment in time, but rather, aiming at where you EXPECT it to be at some point in the future. Two problems are that: #1. Not all of us, myself included, are imaginative enough to be successful in this technique, and #2. The target often deflects and changes direction, and so is not where we expect it to be, years from now - - often having progressed much faster than we had expected.

Claymore wrote: The target often deflects and changes direction, and so is not where we expect it to be, years from now - - often having progressed much faster than we had expected.

progressed...regressed

There, fixed it.

Well,

One way or the other, we ain't hitting the danged thing.

Well in part there is still a lot of Royal Ranger Ministry going on.

In So Missouri were still doing most of the program and it's camps and FCF as well as Junior Training.
Tommarrow night we will have a Leaders Christmas Party where the leaders and their wives have a fun time playing games and exchanging while elephant gifts. It's a hoot and we have a great time. Attendance is down to maybe 25 couples.

Leaders Conference is about 85 people showing up each year. Training about 30 people in several classes.

Pow wow has us at around 500 some years were up 50 some years down 50. We have been as high as 930 in 2002 ish.

I personally am still hard at it. Wednesday night with the AR ER boys. I have 7 boys in this group with 2 leaders. WE have another group of DR boys about 6 with 2 leaders and a Ranger Kids group of 3 with one leader. We are doing most District Events and a few outpost events maybe 4 a year. Still doing BIG Batcave with last year maybe 30 there. We have had as many as 85 average 75 for many years before Covid hit.

Our Ranger Derby at the Division Level had 150 cars with Lego cars adding about 43 or so to that count.

Over all were doing pretty well here.

However in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas their Districts are in well need of a miracle God. Almost nonexistent leadership there sad to say. Many of these neighbor states Rangers come to So. MO for FCF and Junior Camps.

NNRC is being held every other year with the Regions hosting the inbetween Councils.

I will agree with you guys. It's not what it was pre 2002 before all the changes. It's still a vital ministry and is working well here. It takes lots of work and dedicated people to carry it through.

Todays young men face a hard economy. Cost of living is hard to meet. Less and less companies giving out benefits of vacation time and retirement. Longer hours and in many cases lower pay.

These are just a few of my observations and in my opinion, it could get a lot worse as the Bible says it will. So It's not surprising to me that we are heading this way. As for me and my house we will keep on keepin on Rangering. it's in my blood. Holy Spirit leads me in this and gives me what I need to get er done.

Mark Jones wrote: Almost nonexistent leadership there sad to say...

I decided to look for what's left of my state's leadership. With only 1 "official" outpost, I wasn't holding out much hope. Nothing on the national website. Went to the NW Region site and stumbled upon a podcast featuring my state's Boy's Ministries District Director. (Who knew we even had one?) He was wearing a Ranger uniform. But I didn't find him or his "title" anywhere on the District website. Then I began a long and laborious internet search and finally found the guy on a church's website. I e-mailed there and hope to get a response next week.

When different levels in the chain of command can't communicate effectively, the mission doesn't stand a chance. It doesn't matter what initiatives or changes come from on high. If input or feedback isn't sought, buy-in comes at too high a price. No sale.

I remember seeing a Recruiting Poster, about 45 years ago, in the office for company staff. It was aimed at Officers and NCO’s.

It read,

“Ignore your troops, and they’ll go away.”.

(Any relevance here?)

Claymore wrote:
I was thinking today, "So where is the input from National (or Regional) Headquarters?" to the leaders in the field.

I know that this is not THE "Official" site for Royal Rangers, but I do not believe that there IS any "Official" chat site for Royal Rangers.  

Well, there is no channel of communicaton between HQ & the outpost level...anymore.  

There used to be.

There was another forum dedicated to Rangers (now defunct) with thousands of registered users including a National Staff member, 2 National Council members, 2 National FCF staff, & multiple Regional & District staffers.

I was a member of this forum, so were Mark & Dan.  This was during the early days of Doug Marsh's tenure at HQ.

The main problem was, that they didn't like what we had to say. We had some really lively debates about the direction Marsh was talking us.
We were eventually told to "get on board or get off the bus" by Doug Marsh himself.

they wanted to hear what we had to say if we were going to be yes men. But, if we pointed out OBVIOUS flaws in thier program, then no.
That forum eventually died because most of the moderators were also staff members, including the national staff member.  They began deleting people's posts. reading private messages, banning people who spoke out against anything.

That is how this forum came in to being, as a secret base for those who were being censored on the other forum.

One of the staff from that forum (a National FCF councilman-to this day) even tried to infiltrate this forum under a false name. (but Dan & I busted them quickly)
A lot of people left that forum since the staff chose to take sides & eventually the owner pulled the plug.
So there has been no communication since then.

Claymore wrote: “Ignore your troops, and they’ll go away.”

Post-Marsh, how many men would have stepped in to try and fix Royal Rangers? Not me. I'm not a glutton for punishment. I appreciate that someone did, but there was just so much to fix, it was likely overwhelming. No doubt, some of the fluff from that era was never going to be allowed to go away, due to the amount of financial investment in it. Yet, that has cost us a whole lot more, year after year. Why keep adding layers of paint when you haven't dealt with the underlying corrosion?

I think it's in the revitalized 9-year old thread, but someone said that we need to go back to what worked. Johnnie Barnes' creation was nothing short of anointed brilliance. Now we have waaaaaaaaay too many administrative layers, adult medals, training courses, books and more. KISS. Keep It Simple and Sensible.

My LMA courses and instructors were awesome and inspired me to 30 years of RR service. I'd love to do another decade. But the District's RR command structure is long gone. And it appears that pastors have moved on. How to get them back onboard?

Our Christmas party was a hit last night. Lots of fun and laughter.
Here is one of the projects (woodworking) that I use to help raise funds for Royal Rangers in our District and Territory.

Now that I am retired I have lots of time to donate. Just got through unloading 12 cedar logs in my driveway to resaw into lumber for more RR projects. This build video is a bit long but it goes from start to finish out in the shop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL98viKpOuo

My backpacking trips are slowing down... (I am getting older) RV life is making me spoiled (soft) yet one of my legs doesn't want to help get me up out of the bathtub so my 50 pound backpack is going to have to get repurposed!!!!
 Winter Outing and Bat Cave campout is coming up in January.

Still loads of ministry out there. Springfield is full of changelings. They have a product to sell and often change what works out for something that flops ..... As long as our faith is divided between the Holy Spirit and the Maxwellites/Warrens/Collins-theology it may very well not change anytime soon. One thing I know. We are at end of days for this system. I expect it to get worse and not better. Yet in that I will keep on Keeping on for Jesus in RR ministry.

Hindsight is 20-20. We can complain all we want, but it's time to move on. By looking to our roots. I wish I had kept all my RR materials from the 80's. If Springfield can't/won't fix things, it's time to throw out what isn't...

Helpful
Honorable
Heartfelt
Humble
Here (versus "World-Class")
and Him-centered

Keep and use the rest. Very, very few boys know how to set goals and work towards them. It's all about instant gratification. So, work with that and give them short-term victories. Forget about the medals and RROY bling. It's about salvation in the here and now, not corporate buzz-words like 'lifelong servant-leaders.' There's not that much time left, guys.

Lot's and lots and lots of red tape for changes to take place. If they make a change it take 6 months for it to flow through the edits....sifts....lets sit on it until the due date and then chop it up... kinda things.

I will say we are doing some good things in our District. Putting back things that worked in the past. We have several things we are fixing on a District Level.

National is about to revise the advancement program to from merits to attendance. If you want the GMA you will still need to do merits. However if you just want to earn patches you can do the attendance program. If you attend you get credit for it and it adds up. If you only attend every few weeks it still adds up just not as fast. They plan on having a app to do all the talleys and spit out the nightly meeting plans.

I personally could fix most of this by just allowing for a outpost to teach the merits they like to teach and if they repeat that same merit every other year then the boys get credit for a new merit. Firecraft 1 Firecraft 2, Firecraft 3 and so on. They would get credit for a merit completed and acutally get good at it again instead of one and done that has a end result of "oh ya I already did that...but I can't do it and don't remember much about it"

If they went back to the program we had in 2000 it would pick back up as well.

Mark Jones wrote: National is about to revise the advancement program to from merits to attendance...I personally could fix most of this...If they went back to the program we had in 2000 it would pick back up as well.  

I'm sure there's more to it than just attendance, but it sure feels like bumper stickers and a participation trophy for everyone.

I don't know know much about surviving at high altitude (although my two Ranger sons ascended Mt Whitney with me), but does National bounce their plans off the Regional leaders?

joecool wrote:

Mark Jones wrote: National is about to revise the advancement program to from merits to attendance...I personally could fix most of this...If they went back to the program we had in 2000 it would pick back up as well.  

I'm sure there's more to it than just attendance, but it sure feels like bumper stickers and a participation trophy for everyone.
 

JoeCool, While I can see your point, what Mark is passing along feels like it might be in the right attention. Do you remember, a few years ago when it was "GMA FOR EVERYONE...."?. That was an impossible goal for a slew of reasons. A big one is that 70% of the boys came from split marriages, and so you only see many of them every other week.....

Maybe this will be getting back to basics, a bit. It is nice to have a bunch of subjects for the boys to get merits in, but it needs to be woven in with learning the direction or "theme" of the outpost. If a post is into survival skills, then they can concentrate on those merits. If a post is big into aviation (like we have a flight simulator set up), then they might want to work on Aviation, Weather, Rocketry, etc.

And to tell you the truth, I did like the old "slide-on" merit ribbons of 20 years ago. There's nothing that the boys liked more than looking like a bunch of Bolivian Generals when they had their dress uniforms on, with three decks of merits. I think that the biggest problem was, when a boy quit Rangers, we could just put the ribbons back into the awards box to re-use, and GPH didn't make money off of it.

RR was front and center in my mind and heart this weekend. I sure hope the "unknown" District Boys Director gets back to me. I'd like to know if there's a plan to revitalize RR in this state.

But it's not the only weak area. It's been two months since I reached out to the new Men's Ministries director. No response. I haven't seen anything about MM for some years. Hmmm. Is there a link between the two? No men, no boys?

I too loved those ribbons. They were cheap and the boys liked earning them and changing stuff out about once a month or so to be uptodate.

The attendance advancement is indeed almost ready for release. It does allow you to switch out program feature stuff. I like the part just like the Bible Studies and the Leadership Merits it doesn't matter which you teach they get credit for a merit as the steps add up instead of a completed merit. So you can have missed 3 from one leadership merit and 2 from the other and still when you add it up you have one completed leadership merit with 5 sections. Same for the Bbile merits it just takes more Bible studies to add up to a merit completed.

They could easily fix the whole program and go back to the 2002 program. It had worked for 20 years with 126,000 folk involved in it...todays numbers are not even a quarter of that number...I don't have those numbers for today but that is my best guess from just looking around.

They took camping our of NRMC National Ranger Ministry Camp so you don't have to camp you can stay in a building and have meals cooked for you. (I hate to say this but these guys need to look long and hard at their logic...guys that don't camp are really not Ranger Leader Material...they are great sunday school leaders but to expect them to take boys camping or go out and do the many outside things Ranger Boys love to do...it's just not in their makeup) So with them taking camping out of the NRMC I EXPECT less outdoor type leaders. I laugh because the whole reason for Royal Rangers was to give the men in the church something besides Sunday School and sitting in a Church Pew to hang on to... Most men need a un documented challenge. To make it milk and toast cookie cut out stuff well it's not much of a draw for me. Until they relearn what they have completely forgotten EXPECT decline.

I do have some say in our local District. As long as I am able we will promote the Johnie Barnes style of Royal Rangers in our RR Ministry as it still works today. Yet I will tweak that to work with todays program requirements so my boys won't miss out on the objectives and dashboards.

Mark Jones wrote: I laugh because the whole reason for Royal Rangers was to give the men in the church something besides Sunday School and sitting in a Church Pew to hang on to... Most men need a un documented challenge.  To make it milk and toast cookie cut out stuff well it's not much of a draw for me.   

I see parallels in my military experience.  I was in a Special Forces Team in the Army Reserves for over 8 years.  We were expected to study in the previous weeks for our upcoming training.  We were to have our equipment packed and ready to be issued weapons, put on parachutes, board a C-130 aircraft on Friday night, jump into south-Texas at 2:00 AM, train all weekend, and fly home, tired & dirty on Sunday night, then go back to our civilian jobs.

I also spent about 9 months in a National Guard engineer outfit.  On Saturday, they trained for a half a day, and then went to the Day-Room, where they drank beer and listened to the juke box.  On Sunday morning, they released you for 2 hours for church, then trained for 2 hours, then drank beer and listened to the juke box.

And you know what?

The engineer outfit was unable to keep the company up to full-strength, even though the sergeants made just as much money as the sergeants in the Special Forces unit.

And the Special Forces Unit?  It was always at 100% of full staff.  In fact, for a while, the Army allowed us to carry 200% of full-strength, because it took so long to get a soldier completely Special Forces qualified.  Now I won't say that we were always at 200%, but we were definitely over 100% during that time period.

And it wasn't for the green beret or the fancy wings on our uniforms.  It was because we knew that we were working with people who wanted to be their best and put their full capabilities to work.

At the end of that three-day weekend, you landed back at home, and got off the airplane tired, dirty, sore, and looking forward to your next training mission.

Mark Jones wrote:
National is about to revise the advancement program to from merits to attendance.  If you want the GMA you will still need to do merits.  However if you just want to earn patches you can do the attendance program.   If  you attend you get credit for it and it adds up.  If you only attend every few weeks it still adds up just not as fast.  They plan on having a app to do all the talleys and spit out the nightly meeting plans.    

Oh boy. "Seek & Save" all over again. in a way I am glad I dont have a horse in that race anymore. But at the same time I still miss it.

Mark Jones wrote: I personally could fix most of this by just allowing for a outpost to teach the merits they like to teach and if they repeat that same merit every other year then the boys get credit for a new merit.  Firecraft 1  Firecraft 2, Firecraft 3  and so on.  They would get credit for a merit completed and acutally get good at it again instead of one and done that has a end result of "oh ya I already did that...but I can't do it and don't remember much about it"     

That is a great idea Mark!

Mark Jones for National Commander!!!!

Mark Jones wrote:

The attendance advancement is indeed almost ready for release.  It does allow you to switch out program feature stuff.  I like the part just like the Bible Studies and the Leadership Merits it doesn't matter which you teach they get credit for a merit as the steps add up instead of a completed merit.  So you can have missed 3 from one leadership merit and 2 from the other and still when you add it up you have one completed leadership merit with 5 sections.  Same for the Bbile merits it just takes  more Bible studies to add up to a merit completed.  

 

"IF NATIONAL DOES SOMETHING RIGHT, GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR IT"

Badda-Bing!  Now, THERE is something that we can implement at our outpost level.  

Our attendance is sporadic (again, because of joint-custody with Mom & Dad), so I do not know, from week to week, who is going to attend.  I don't have enough boys to do the week-end "Lock-In" Leadership Merit, and if I attempted to spread a course out over 5 meetings, only 1 boy would obtain the merit, because there is only 1 who makes every meeting.

This format would make it possible for each boy to obtain one, or maybe two, leadership merits in a year.

Claymore wrote:

Mark Jones wrote:

The attendance advancement is indeed almost ready for release.  It does allow you to switch out program feature stuff.  I like the part just like the Bible Studies and the Leadership Merits it doesn't matter which you teach they get credit for a merit as the steps add up instead of a completed merit.  So you can have missed 3 from one leadership merit and 2 from the other and still when you add it up you have one completed leadership merit with 5 sections.  Same for the Bbile merits it just takes  more Bible studies to add up to a merit completed.  

 

"IF NATIONAL DOES SOMETHING RIGHT, GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR IT"

Badda-Bing!  Now, THERE is something that we can implement at our outpost level.  

Our attendance is sporadic (again, because of joint-custody with Mom & Dad), so I do not know, from week to week, who is going to attend.  I don't have enough boys to do the week-end "Lock-In" Leadership Merit, and if I attempted to spread a course out over 5 meetings, only 1 boy would obtain the merit, because there is only 1 who makes every meeting.

This format would make it possible for each boy to obtain one, or maybe two, leadership merits in a year.

This is already in place and we are using it for 2 years now. It works great. You can teach a discovery leadership merit and the AR and ER boys get the same credit for a leadership merit on their level.

Mark,

How will the new guidelines be put out?


Will we have to purchase a new Leader’s Manual? I just bought one, 7 months ago for WCO.

ccm2361 wrote:

Mark Jones wrote:
National is about to revise the advancement program to from merits to attendance.  If you want the GMA you will still need to do merits.  However if you just want to earn patches you can do the attendance program.   If  you attend you get credit for it and it adds up.  If you only attend every few weeks it still adds up just not as fast.  They plan on having a app to do all the talleys and spit out the nightly meeting plans.    

Oh boy. "Seek & Save" all over again. in a way I am glad I dont have a horse in that race anymore. But at the same time I still miss it.

Mark Jones wrote: I personally could fix most of this by just allowing for a outpost to teach the merits they like to teach and if they repeat that same merit every other year then the boys get credit for a new merit.  Firecraft 1  Firecraft 2, Firecraft 3  and so on.  They would get credit for a merit completed and acutally get good at it again instead of one and done that has a end result of "oh ya I already did that...but I can't do it and don't remember much about it"     

That is a great idea Mark!

Mark Jones for National Commander!!!!

Mark is too competent for that position!