What would help the Temple Be A Better Place? Suggestions please...

I actually really think Rick D's idea of having the Apprenticeship involve helping the next generation very interesting.

We have the IP team as understaffed. Having Apprentices assist the IP team would easily fix that problem.

Also, it would teach apprentices how to guide, prepping them for taking on Apprentices of their own in the future.

Yes, the IP is horrifically understaffed as I understand it. There's been many calls to get more volunteers, but.... *shrugs*

This suggestion has the capability to be good, but it also runs a risk of undermining the overall stated purpose of the IP (to obtain opinions and thoughts, and not so much to educate), so it would need be extremely well thought out before being implemented. For one, you'd want to make sure that the apprentices are just guiding and not crossing that line into appearing to be teaching. It'd have to be made clear to the novices that what they're getting is feedback and suggestions, not necessarily what they have to do next in order to be considered as successfully completing the lesson. So on and so forth. And I still say that a novice should be able to say "no thanks, I'd rather complete it on my own."

Then there's the thought of, if this is a mandatory apprentice lesson, what happens when an apprentice has been putting effort into a novice and then that novice disappears? Do they have to start over with someone new? Is the successful conclusion of their apprenticeship dependent upon the novice successfully completing the IP? Will they be required to successfully 'guide' one or more novices through the entirety of the IP in order to be knighted the same way Knights must successfully guide so many apprentices through the AP before obtaining Senior or Master knight? All just thoughts to keep in mind.

I was one of many who read them. Much of what they contained was, in fact, the day to day stuff. XXXX Individual up for apprenticeship. Moderation report. This position resigned from and refilled. Etc etc etc Stuff the temple already knew was going on because promotions get announced, resignations and refills are announced, and moderation is assumed.

A few of the things, were either not things the temple really knew about (I'm *still* mildly curious about that whole 'Kenya Pastor' thing) or it was things we were aware of (the ever continuing discussion on the oaths) and were looking for elaboration on, but not quite getting.

Now. Let me pull an excerpt from one of the reports real fast: "Council - The Solemn Vow [year long discussion, various outcomes]"

This, in part, seems to highlight one issue. A "year long discussion". That right there is why I suggested that the Council consider scheduling meetings within Skype or Google Hangouts. When matters are brought up as things which ought to be discussed (use of full legal name in oaths/vows, or alternatives to oaths/vows for those with moral standings against them, the addition of a piece of work to the IP Curriculum, or the AP Curriculum, or the change of responsibilities regarding [xyz] team or office), these are things that could be discussed indepth, at the same time, rather than over the course of a protracted forum conversation. Now, I'll grant you that it's possible in this case, that that 'year long' time period was a result of the topic being discussed, thought finalized, and then some months later brought back up again due to conversations going on around the forum (which seems to often happen in the case of the oaths), but here's my thought on the matter, and this is purely an example:

One thing that seems to come up rather frequently regarding the oaths is that, we might have someone who's additional faith prevents the taking of oaths, or perhaps they might have their own moral conundrum regarding such a thing. The required taking of oaths/vows in order to obtain knighthood has been discussed amongst members exhaustively. Amongst us, there often seems to be a general conclusion that an alternatively worded option that fulfills the role of a 'dedication' or 'promise' would sufficiently meet the same expectations as the oaths/vows while giving those with those moral or religious objections an alternative that could be suitable. However, the most I know of for sure that has ever come out of those discussions is... one individual has been told by one council member that when the time comes, their objections will be resolved in a matter that is satisfactory to the individual so that they can be knighted, if they so desire.

Ok so here's the thing: I know that by talking to that individual. I don't know that by any official word from the Council itself. Say this topic were to be brought up - again - by someone new or who just hadn't ever seen this conversation take place thus far. Older membership might likely just roll their eyes and go "here we go again" (after all, isn't that sort of the reaction this thread as a whole has started garnering from some?), nod their heads, and say "ok yeah." And that'll be that.

- OR -

At a scheduled monthly meeting, it could be assigned as a topic of discussion and deliberation. Perhaps a final idea may not be reached on month one, because that meeting has three other topics to discuss, but in the course of a meeting minutes put out to the Temple for general review, we now see that - Council Members 1, 2, and 3 agree that an alternative could be written up, and Council Member 4 has offered to do so. That new version will be available for the Council to deliberate on before the next monthly meeting. And that's that. The next monthly meeting comes around, a vote is taken, and a final decision made available to the Temple. Then when new person yadayada comes around, the rest of us can go "Hey, this has been discussed before, and here's the report with the decision."

It takes out the need for the vague promise of "We listen to what you're saying and we're talking about it" and makes it very clear that it's being discussed and these are the steps being taken to figure it out. It also leaves the rest of what needs to be done to general day to day stuff that may not need a turn around and feedback to the temple.

Y'know what it also does? Keeps the rest of the Temple from being blindsided by random decisions made that we didn't even know were being discussed (Anyone remember the redoing of the IP from like 2 years ago? Yeah, I do! That was fun to watch unfold!) This, I believe, is the generalized transparency that's been called for in the past and is still being called for. I'm merely suggesting a potential way to consider going about doing so.

I'll reiterate what I've said before. We've never required obtaining rank in order to be a member of the Temple and I don't think we should start doing so now. Like someone else said, the only thing that that stands to do is turn away legitimate potential members who just currently don't have the time to finish a rather extensive training program. And further, if this is decided upon, then there are boards which are currently restricted to members only that need to be reopened back up to guests, because that would take away a lot of conversations that generalized members take place in, and would no longer be able to. So no, I don't think this is the best course of action.

We moved the Application back a week after registering on site already. Could someone with the knowledge and numbers speak up and let us know if that's made a significant difference?

The type of feedback that's been discussed so far should obviously be kept private. However, if the example complaint is accurate - that the individual in question was told that they were not ready for knighthood and the Council would 'know when they saw what they need' - then that's not helpful feedback. Obviously, none of us who have read that complaint know the accuracy of it. I sure hope that it's more of a ranting than a legitimate issue though. But feedback should be clearly defined and give someone, whether they be an apprentice up for knighthood or a seminarian missing the mark on an assignment, a very clear step of what they need to do next and where they need to go from there. I really do hope that this is already being done though, and we're merely discussing a few random flukes that have fallen through the cracks from time to time rather than the standard course of operation.