Thank you for gathering us today. Thank you for blessing our speakers and everyone who participated in our sacrament meeting. Thank you for the Restoration and for Our living Prophet, and thank you for all the Orderly leadership in your Church
We ask that You continue to bless and guide our missionaries, and to continue to bless all the missionaries throughout the world, that they all Love, Share, and Invite those that seek The Love of You, Heavenly Father, as we now here in your True Church. We ask, Heavenly Father, that you continue to lead us, teach us, guide us, as we pray to be more like You, and be daily testimony of your Tender Mercies to all people in our lives
Heavenly Father, Your Son, is our Perfect example. May we be mindful of our Lord’s example this coming week, that others may know we are all striving to follow the path, the plan, you have Chosen for each of us.
We say this, and all things, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…
Yeah, titled it that way on purpose. Made you look, didn’t it.
An amazing amount of business was done in Indy by DCI and all corps reps, formally, informally, activity-wide, between classes, within classes, in all manners.
A topic that was introduced during the DCI Family luncheon, actually two related topics, were sexual harassment-abuse-assault, and women representation in our organizations.
We were given seven minutes, to discuss at our tables, seven minutes each topic. There were 8 people at each table. Only one of the people at my table was a woman. I didn’t see any table with more than two. Many, many, many tables had no women. Facts, not judgement or criticism.
The hope, regarding that activity was to begin a conversation we would carry back to our organizations. David, our DM, was a participant in the DM seminars in Indy and can better explain how those topics were first discussed there, before the topics were presented to all meeting attendees.
Off the top of my head, I can recall two moments over the years where in the course of normal, average, daily activities the safety and security of the young people, and females in particular, were challenged; a creeper van near a vizh block, an ice cream man at a park while I supervised a guard block. There have been other subtle and not so subtle moments I have dealt with over the years, as well.
This multi-layered, dynamic conversation, within the Impulse organization, will begin, formally, at some point soon. I am well aware women, females, girls have been having these kinds of conversations for generations. I’m also not discounting males that have suffered also, in similar situations, although to a much less degree in frequecy in my experience.
My perspective and plan is to address specific behaviors, and language, but also to address the second, related topic as another way, a longer term element of creating the educational environment that will enable the most, to achieve the most.
Having qualified, competent women in roles of leadership and role models, not only for our female students, but for all our students, is a fundamental way to move in that direction.
The women that I have asked to take on the duties and responsibilities in the roles that I have, were chosen because: they earned the opportunities, they deserved the opportunities, they were the best candidate at the time they were chosen, and I believe, so far, they have done their jobs well, and I believe they will continue to do so.
They include, the brass caption head, three visual techs, one of the quartermasters, a front ensemble tech, a guard tech, two on social media team, and the instructional and support staff coordinator.
Also within the organization, two board members are women, and four of our volunteer leaders are women.
These efforts, women on instructional staff and throughout the organization, these efforts by themselves, will not address the overall on going issues and concerns; there is no magic number of women that will. You could argue that it doesn’t matter whether women are in organizational leadership or not; you’d have the same problems.
You’d be wrong, but you can have that position.
One of the things I have asked everyone on staff, everyone in the organization, share with me. Share you perspective, share your ideas, share your opinions.
Let’s create, together, a culture of inclusion, support, respect, diversity. Let’s give our students the best opportunities to thrive and enable and guide them to be the best versions of themselves.
I am the facilitator, but the vision is ours, the values are extensions of who we are, what we believe.
We operate in the world of drum corps, under the umbrella of DCI, waving an Impulse flag. But we represent and create a pathway and ask a new generation to follow us and find their future.