Unfortunately, in many chapters, ritual excellence is something they describe as impossible. As an advisor you will hear a lot of excuses for why a chapter reads their rituals in open meeting, or why some chapters cut corners to make ritual work easier. In truth, any Chapter can obtain ritual excellence. All the members need to do is to eliminate the excuses, and decide that they want to be serious about doing their best in the DeMolay Ritual. Below are some of the "excuses" you might hear for poor ritual performance, along with some suggestions that might help you and your Chapter overcome the short cuts and excuses many chapters come up with:
"We don't have enough members to do the ritual."
Not having enough members to do the ritual doesn't mean that the ritual cannot be done correctly. Instead of not doing the ritual, improvise. Get as much of the work done by the members as possible. This can be done by having members learn multiple parts. For example, it is very easy for the Senior Steward to also do the work of the Junior Steward.
If the ritual needs to be read for a vacant chapter officer, then make sure the member who is reading the work can at least perform their own ritual from memory correctly.
"We don't have any candidates, so we can't do degrees."
There is still the need to confer the degrees, as it is one of the promises a Master Councilor makes in public, and is required to perform if he is to receive a PMC Pin from the Chapter.
If the chapter does not have enough members to obligate their candidates, take them to another Chapter to receive the full degrees or team with another chapter and do a joint degree where both chapters work together to perform the ritual work for the candidates. It is important to always make sure the members continue to practice on the degrees to keep them prepared when new members come.
The Ritual work is the best way we teach public speaking skills-don't cheat your members of this great skill-building experience!
"There's nobody in our Chapter who can teach us how to do the ritual."
This is definitely not true. There are many people who can teach the ritual work including members, Jurisdiction and District Officers, Advisors, Parents, even Mom's can now act as Ritual Advisors. The direction and ritual work is all printed inside the book, so if you can read the instructions, you can teach the Ritual.
It may also help to have any Ritual Advisors attend a Ritual Judging Class or seminar. This will provide the instructors with all the information they need to affectively teach and train a chapter to perform their ritual correctly.
"Our members just don't WANT to do ritual."
This may not be the case. Many times it is just one or two vocal members or Advisors who say that they do not want to do the ritual. One of the best ways to motivate them is to give them something fun to do in addition to a ritual practice. For example, go out to dinner or go play pool after the practice is done. This will allow the members to have fun the days they have ritual practice which may motivate more members to show up.
It is important to make being a member of the ritual "team" as important as being a member of the basketball or wrestling "team." Give the members the chance to find out if they really do like to perform the ritual work they might be surprised!
Watch for the difference as you begin to pursue excellence in ritual. Very few people want to be part of a poor ritual team, but many will be motivated to participate when your Chapter ritual is excellent.
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