17 months ago, I participated in Woodbadge course NE-V-134, an underwhelming training experience that, given the option, I would choose to not repeat and whose subsequent iterations I actively dissuade most Scouters from joining.  The final part of Woodbadge is to compose and complete a ticket consisting of a vision pertaining to your position in Scouting and five goals centered around it.  One has 18 months to complete the ticket and I’m in no hurry even if it means non-completion as I feel otherwise comfortable with the hours days I’ve spent doing Scouting stuff since the course.  At this point, completing the ticket would be largely to get people off my back about it as ticket completion is pursued by some staff members with a zeal that would impress most millenarian churches.  This weekend, 12 people asked me about my ticket but most in the tone that suggested that it was the Scouting equivalent of “how are the kids”.  A few, who a friend suggested I call the beaderati, chose a more aggressive stance of “why isn’t your ticket done” and “when are you going to complete your ticket”, both of which are beyond what I consider appropriate for Scouting and at minimum have built in assumptions that are foolish.

To address these concerns, I bought ifinishedmyticketstopaskingaboutit.com that I’ll probably get up and running next weekend should I have time to generate the content to populate it.  I’ll make up some business-sized cards on reasonable stock and hand them to those who ask a bit more doggedly than I consider proper.