GIR Update 2013

Well our 3rd year as a coed outpost has come to an end.  Our outpost size has been steady at 8-9 all year. We lost 1 Expedition Ranger in December whose family moved to another church.
We currently have 8 Rangers.

Ranger Kids              1 Girl
Discovery Rangers     2 Boys 2 Girls
Adventure Rangers    1 Boy 1 Girl
Expedition Rangers    1 boy

1 Discovery girl will be moving up to Adventure Rangers in September.  Our Expedition Ranger serves as Senior Patrol Leader/Top Ranger.  He leads opening formation. In addition he helps keep order & assists with teaching skills to the younger Rangers.  He is reliable & is a far better leader than I ever expected.   One of the best Jr. Leaders we have ever had.   He will be a Senior this year & I have some hope he may stay on after Graduation.

Behavior has been surprisingly good the last 6 weeks. Which is odd for spring/summer.

In another few weeks we will have our yearly Planning meeting where the Rangers get to have a say in what we do for the next year.
I plan a couple of required merits & then give them a list of merits that I can realistically teach & they vote on what they want for electives.  
Our new advancement system will take effect in September.
For details see this thread https://rangerchat.forumotion.com/t27-our-new-advancement-trail
Most of our rangers are happy with this as now they can count all of their skill mores towards current advancement.  
They are all working on Bible merits at home over the summer to try & put themselves ahead a bit.

Today I had my annual meeting with the Christian Ed Director. We discussed the usual like events etc.

One topic I didn't expect was GIR. She favors a group effort and coed environment. She was very interested when I mentioned RRI and other nat'l Royal Rangers ministries operate coed but also allow for gender specific time of bible study. Its not happening now but maybe we're going coed in a year or two.

I never expected that. Hopefully, nat'l A/G catches up to the rest of us in RR3.0.

Interesting.

I guess that the jury is still out with me. Other than camp-outs, we haven't done anything that would really have been more dificult with girls involved.

The girls were outside when we were doing Pugil Stick Matches, 2 weeks ago. I did notice that the girls seemed more interested in Spectating than in Participating.

With the great national push to emasculate boys, I really like the idea of giving the boys something that makes them feel special.

In fact, in our meetings, we call each other by our FULL Names: Ranger Jackson, Ranger Drent, Ranger Nathan, etc.,
and you're not called "Ranger", until you've fulfilled the Recruit Requirements.

I think culturally we've set boundaries. Girls know thats boys program and we're girls ministry. I'm not sure where the idea of nat'l emasculating boys is from. They seem to work hard keeping Royal Rangers and M'ettes apart. Focus $ on building boys into leaders.

I do have concerns but if its a group effort we can pull it off. There maybe some events we split up for. Many events I don't see the reason to separate. I feel some people don't (not saying you) want a boy or man to be beaten by a girl. It bruises the fragile male ego or how come there's more girl GMA's than boys.

I'll just wait and see for now!

RRCmdrBennett wrote: I'm not sure where the idea of nat'l emasculating boys is from.

I'm not talking about anything in the Ranger Program.

I am referring to the New-Age Politically-Correct emasculating, "Boys shouldn't play soldier, boys shouldn't wrestle, dolls aren't just for girls, ete, etc."

Boys got their dolls we just call'em action figures  

I do know what you mean by the other garbage. If you had girls in your Rangers would you still run it with a military flavor?

Yeah.

But we would use the Scottish Regimental Model, as we would all be wearing Kilts!!!

Interesting... (Arching the eyebrow).

WOO-HOO!

Dan's going rogue!      

Claymore wrote:Yeah.

But we would use the Scottish Regimental Model, as we would all be wearing Kilts!!!

Since my Grandmother's maiden name was MacGuire, we would have to use this Tartan design:

http://www.lindaclifford.com/MacGuire.html

Chris, you were the kid that when your mom said maybe you thought it meant yes!  Nothing set in tablets yet. We have had Royal Rangers and M'ettes for over 30 years. There needs to be baby steps if that happens. I know at least two men that are old school on Royal Rangers neither are classroom cmdr's.

Do some coed events first. Merit teaching day coed or something. Wade into the waters is best.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Hopefully, nat'l A/G catches up to the rest of us in RR3.0.

One of the video clips we watched at RE was Doug Marsh talking about the "new and improved" Rangers. I didnt remember until just now but he did mention that some churches are now allowing girls in their outposts. He made it sound like a positive change, but only if it works in your church.

sreidelberger wrote:

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Hopefully, nat'l A/G catches up to the rest of us in RR3.0.

One of the video clips we watched at RE was Doug Marsh talking about the "new and improved" Rangers. I didnt remember until just now but he did mention that some churches are now allowing girls in their outposts. He made it sound like a positive change, but only if it works in your church.

 you're seriously joshing me? Unbelievable!

So they're being flexible on allowing girls in but what about top group medals have a gender requirement? Many districts don't allow coed camping. Some like MI won't do coed events at all. Recall Chris said something about Scott flipping a lid over a female fa/cpr instructor teaching at a camp.

I truly believe Doug would take us to RR3.0 inclusion with girls if politics from above didn't stop him.

RRCmdrBennett wrote: you're seriously joshing me?  Unbelievable!  

So they're being flexible on allowing girls in but what about top group medals have a gender requirement?  Many districts don't allow coed camping. Some like MI won't do coed events at all. Recall Chris said something about Scott flipping a lid over a female fa/cpr instructor teaching at a camp.

I truly believe Doug would take us to RR3.0 inclusion with girls if politics from above didn't stop him.

No foolin! He said it! I was shocked at first but then after I thought about it, it makes sense. Doug is a missionary kid. He spent his youth overseas where GIR is commonplace so it's not an alien concept to him. It's the people above and below him that need convincing. Don't forget that for all of us who oppose "some" of RRv2.0, there are many opposed to "ALL" of RRv2.0.

I'm gonna have to login to A/G passport and download the most recent RE videos. I wanna see if it was referencing the 2gether plan or full-blown coed setup.

For my country (Singapore), we have rangers (both boys and girls) in our weekly meetings. Most of our rangers when on to attend JLTA camps and some whom have graduated even attended NTC.

It is interesting to here the different perspectives from both genders during our weekly meetings but what i could concurred that the current rangers programme is more than capable to be used to mentor both guys and girls.

Some of the girls that i've taught from ARs are now serving alongside with me as commanders in my outpost and as staffs in JLTA camps!

Awesome to hear a foreign perspective. Does Singapore ever split up for bible studies that are gender specific in topic?  Do you allow for a, "boys day/night out" or a, "girls day/night out"?  I think if we did crossover to being coed we'd should reserve a little time for gender specific mentoring. That might be a good compromise for the old rank & file set on boys-only. In American scouting I've heard of mother/son and father/daughter events as well we historically have put on father/son camp-outs.

Do you know Erwin Chan? He was from the olde Rangerforums and we met at USA Camporama last year. He's from Singapore too.

Arcliner wrote:It is interesting to here the different perspectives from both genders during our weekly meetings but what i could concurred that the current rangers programme is more than capable to be used to mentor both guys and girls.

I have found that to be true as well. After 3 years of running coed, I can say its the best thing to happen to our outpost.  

Arcliner wrote: Some of the girls that i've taught from ARs are now serving alongside with me as commanders in my outpost and as staffs in JLTA camps!  

That's great to hear, we hope to get to the level of growing our own adult Leaders some day.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Awesome to hear a foreign perspective. Does Singapore ever split up for bible studies that are gender specific in topic?  Do you allow for a, "boys day/night out" or a, "girls day/night out"?  I think if we did crossover to being coed we'd should reserve a little time for gender specific mentoring. That might be a good compromise for the old rank & file set on boys-only. In American scouting I've heard of mother/son and father/daughter events as well we historically have put on father/son camp-outs.

It is up to the discretion of the commanders to decide what is appropriate for the outpost meeting and most importantly those they are mentoring.

We do camp together as a whole most of the time to build the patrol and group spirit but we do meet up from time to time within a gender or specific age group outside rangers for activities or outing which in the mist of the event, it usually turns up to be a mentoring session. A good lesson learnt from my Commander who taught me during my pioneer and trailblazer time is that you have to make an intentional effort to spend time (not limited to weekly outpost meeting) and to talk about other areas in their lives apart from Rangers.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Do you know Erwin Chan?  He was from the olde Rangerforums and we met at USA Camporama last year. He's from Singapore too.

Yes, he's our National Communications Coordinator!

ccm2361 wrote:That's great to hear, we hope to get to the level of growing our own adult Leaders some day.

Rather than hope, lets commit to God and put it into action plan and execute it!

Arcliner you sound like Mark Jones take those kids outside the four walls of the church.

I was noticing a little "Mark Jones Wisdom" in Arcliner's words, too.

I guess to be relevant to the rangers we mentored, we have to be not just their commanders but as a friend, to be within their inner circle and thus sharing can be more opened and not "restricted" or "masked". That's just my thoughts.

Definitely, TIME=LOVE. When kids see us willing to spend our weekends with them it means more than all the 1.5 hrs each Wed put together. Many kids are without a father or he's erratic. The wed meeting is important for prepping for those events but if all we do is teach skills we never put into real life practice its worthless.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Definitely, TIME=LOVE. When kids see us willing to spend our weekends with them it means more than all the 1.5 hrs each Wed put together. Many kids are without a father or he's erratic. The wed meeting is important for prepping for those events but if all we do is teach skills we never put into real life practice its worthless.

Agreed totally, especially so when learning is not just by words but by practicing. More so than ever when these days kids learn more by seeing, observing and imitating the person that earned their respect .

If we are not there to set the example, who will?