Our First Advancement Ceremony

Seven of our scouts advanced to Apprentice rank during a ceremony they organized. Our ship's flag happened to arrive the day before, just in time to be included.

Our teens learned and accomplished a lot in preparing to be Sea Scout Ship 7916's first Apprentice scouts. I reminded them that they are young, capable, intelligent people who are not in school right now, and appointed the lot of them to the ad hoc committee for advancement. They were allowed to create whatever they wanted, so long as it is within BSA and Sea Scout guidelines.

Mark created beautiful certificates; Aaron selected music to play on his iPod and his family provided a chocolate cake with cream cheese icing; Sarah brought cups and drinks; and David came up with a landship ceremony.

Given the level of advance communication (it was sketchy), I was pleasantly surprised by how well the scouts pulled together our premiere advancement ceremony. By the time I arrived, they had the chairs, table, and landship set up, and my heart did a little happy dance when I saw them rehearsing from across the room. The scouts' individual contributions and collective creation showed that they took the event with due seriousness. As I have said, they have done me proud before, and they did so again tonight. They showed me that I am not crazy for doing this thing that has taken over my life, reminded me that they are the reason. I am looking forward to seeing how they will use this experience to make things happen even better in future.