Commissioner Catharsis

Commissioner Meetings are historically dull and review the calendar, some council activities, and specific difficulties with units.  Bob Ansel leads the meeting and his giant heart leads him to often do what I consider anathema to promoting responsibility in covering the mistakes of others.  Council is running a suboptimum training event and Bob has gone to exceptional effort to have the event happen.  I asked to speak frankly, Bob said ok, and what followed was 20 minutes of the collective commissioner staff pointing out the flaws of the training setup and how we thought we could improve them followed by a little good ol’ fashioned yelling.

Me: Bob, I love your work but one advantage of Russ Kantner’s meeting method was that there was time for group therapy.
Bob: What do you mean?
Me: Yelling.
Bob: Good to know, Terry.  There have been times where I myself had had wanted to engage in pointed commentary on something.  It’s good to know I can.  *looks at district commissioner, Rob Scafidi, the only Scout professional present* Your thoughts, Rob?
Rob: *shrugs shoulders*

I think of a cleansing yell as a Scout song with no predetermined melody or lyrics, and where you don’t know it’s over a few minutes past the last note.