Greetings from Canada

Hello everyone!  

My name is Jeremy Shirran and I am from Campbell River,on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  We are in the process of starting a Rangers outpost in our Church.    I am a father of 4 2 boys and 2 girls. Married for 13 years and working for a Major Grocery retailer.

I am really excited to see what God is going to do in our community with Royal Rangers and eventually across Canada.

Welcome to the forum, Jeremy. From Singapore to Canada to Germany, we're going global. Just thinking about how awesome God is, being able to understand all our accents, eh? Especially from those guys down in our southern states.

Hey now! We talk normal. Y'all are the ones that have it all messed up!

Yes, welcome to the forum Jeremy. Is this your first experience with Rangers, or have you been evolved before? 

I know the outpost has been a great outreach tool in our small community.

Phillip Gross wrote: or have you been evolved before? 

What are you teaching in that new school of yours, Phillip?

Oh all kinds of stuff like evolution, self-empowerment, etc....  

I was typing fast.... 

I saw that too, but I didn't want to rub the Kid's nose in it.

God bless you, Jeremy, and welcome to the Forum.

Our Administrator, Chris, lives in Michigan and is a truck driver. I think that he drove to Canada a couple of times per week on his old route.

Proper language like "Jesus ain't ever done me wrong..." Philip? Throw in a few heehaws and we all sound better! J/k. All kidding aside when things go south (pun intended) I'd rather stick close to the rednecks and southerners they know how survive and have a good time.

Welcome to forums. I recall the Canadian pin at camporama was highly sought after in 2012. How are you guys organized? Do you participate in US district events?

Welcome from Springfield Missouri! Whoo whoo your in for a wonderful time in your life. Ranger Ministry.

Mark Jones

Welcome Jeremy!

I drove truck in Ontario other end of the country

hello from Iowa. I only have visited Canada, but 2/3 of my family are Minnesotan, close enough.
Makes me wonder, what's the pledge to the Canadian Flag?

Phillip Gross wrote:Hey now! We talk normal. Y'all are the ones that have it all messed up!

Yes, welcome to the forum Jeremy. Is this your first experience with Rangers, or have you been evolved before? 

I know the outpost has been a great outreach tool in our small community.

This is my first foray with Royal Rangers. I grew up in Salvation Army Boy Scouts Canada. Loved it. I had never heard of Royal Rangers Before January when I started looking for alternatives to boy scouts. As far as I know there is only one other active Rangers outpost in Canada. Because of our location, we are closest to the Northwest district and we will participate as much as we can with them. My Sr. Pastor is a US citizen, and he grew up with Rangers so he is 100% on board. He has a cousin in southern California that is on staff with their rangers district.

We are organized just like any other outpost. The major differences are that we pledge to the hockey rink vs the US flag ok maybe not. We sing our national anthem and do the Christian flag pledge. Looking through the advancements and merits we have to "Canadianize" them as much as possible. I am hoping that I can have a Canadian flag on our sleeve below the rangers symbol.

I am looking forward to our Ranger Basics and Essentials weekend in June. Then we are going to plan some activities in the summer to generate some excitement and awareness of the program, and then hard launch in Sept. Our church's largest ministry is the largest daycare in our city, so we have lots of boys to potentially draw from and that would be just one more way to bring people into the church on Sunday and hopefully lead them to Christ.

Jeremy

Oh and the biggest difference that we have to deal with is a cultural difference. We Canadian have very different gun laws, way more strict. Other then guys that I know that hunt, I don't know anyone who owns any firearms for any other reasons. Even our off duty police officers are not allowed to carry their sidearms. So there maybe some merits that we just cannot do, but they are not any of the required merits so it won't make a big difference.

If you by USA uniform guidelines we don't use a geo patch anymore. If you want to all power to you. Too much controversy led to nat'l nixing the US flag.

That is unfortunate that many fun merits cannot be enjoyed north of our border. Not to get overly political in a different topic but what is your view on having guns for defense and sporting purposes? Several of us here carry openly/concealed and only two are former lawman.

Where to start

some prior discussions on where to start.

As for guns, I am familiar with limiting gunpowder arms. What about BB guns & Archery. LOTs of fun there!

If you are reviewing merits for "Canadianizing"
Here is a list of the merits
Blue = Discovery = 3rd - 5th
Green = Adventure = 6th-8th
Silver = Expedition = High School

BB gun and Archery are definitely legal here for anyone to own, no restrictions as long as it is below a specific velocity I believe.

Thanks for all the advice guys. I am really looking forward to getting this going. Maybe I'll get to shake your guy's hands at Camporama next year!
Jeremy

RRCmdrBennett wrote:If you by USA uniform guidelines we don't use a geo patch anymore. If you want to all power to you. Too much controversy led to nat'l nixing the US flag.

That is unfortunate that many fun merits cannot be enjoyed north of our border. Not to get overly political in a different topic but what is your view on having guns for defense and sporting purposes?  Several of us here carry openly/concealed and only two are former lawman.

My personal view.... for sporting/hunting purposes I have no problem with Guns. I spent time in the Canadian Armed Forces so I have used many high powered, high volume, weapons for their intended purpose. For personal defense purposes...It's not something I have ever really had to think about. As an MP I never had to draw my sidearm in a real life situation. I don't walk around any place that I have lived in Canada and worry about who is or isn't packing...I have no desire to own any type of weapon in my house. My boys on the other hand drool over the Cabela's catalog when it arrives and dream of setting up a gun range in the back yard.

Definitely a lot of fun if used responsibly. Speaking of Cabela's its announced they are building an 80k sq ft store 25 mins away from me in N Central Ohio. In my outpost we have done shooting days with a camp-out. We are looking to set another one up for late July or early Aug. Bring the boys down you are welcome to join us.

You come to camporama I want a pin!

Yes, I want a pin as well. I may just go again to meet up with old friends and make a new one.

By pin I assume the you mean hat pin from Canada? I have some flag pins but I will have to get some other to bring.

Guys we forget we're talking to a new guy. A Camporama tradition is for Rangers to have pins of their state, and to trade those with others. It's fun and fellowship. Get to know new people. As Canada outposts are few, and there is geography involved that pin was quite popular last year

I hate being a newbie....

Canadarangers wrote:I hate being a newbie....

Only a couple hundred more posts before you lose the "rookie" tag.

You haven't yet made the silly mistakes that the rest of us have.

The best is yet to come......

In tonight's Ranger class, the kids were ALL cranked up.  I wouldn't be surprised if their moms gave them each 2 Snickers Bars & a Mountain Dew for supper.

As I had that rowdy bunch, I thought, "Well, this isn't much worse than being shot at."