Pledge Duties

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

You're welcome to come into this lane, and I appreciate a good debate. However...

The Pledge Trainer handbook is not an authoritative document, while the national bylaws are. The content of any of the Leadership Series manuals are not voted on by national convention, and are at best a guideline. I'll look at my ritual book when I get home, but I'm 95% confident it does not say induction, it says Pledge Ceremony. The national pledging standards refer to the Pledge Ritual, not Induction. Since National Bylaws, Pledge Standards, Rituals, etc. are voted on by convention, they carry much more weight than a guide put together by alumni volunteers.

FWIW, the Leadership Series has been for all intents and purposes replaced by the APO IMPACT guides and manuals,

None of this negates that

Originally Posted by arvid1978

Pledge Ceremony -> called "initiation" by most people
Initiation -> called "activation" by most people

Is stupid.

For clarity:

The Pledge Ceremony is a component of the Pledge Ritual.

A pledge ceremony should never be called an initiation, because it isn't.

A pledge ceremony could be (and in many places is) called an induction because that's what it is, especially when it an initiation is correctly defined.

[DrPhil]

...because almost every organization recognizes that you can undergo a "pledge ceremony" ("induction") and never become a full-fledged, duly "initiated" member.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

You're welcome to come into this lane, and I appreciate a good debate. However...

The Pledge Trainer handbook is not an authoritative document, while the national bylaws are. The content of any of the Leadership Series manuals are not voted on by national convention, and are at best a guideline. I'll look at my ritual book when I get home, but I'm 95% confident it does not say induction, it says Pledge Ceremony. The national pledging standards refer to the Pledge Ritual, not Induction. Since National Bylaws, Pledge Standards, Rituals, etc. are voted on by convention, they carry much more weight than a guide put together by alumni volunteers.

Thanks, and with a nod to Sen . . .

. . . my point was, if different terminology is found on your national website, regardless of how authoritative a particular document is or isn't, can it be that surprising to see members actually using the different terminology? Can you really say it's "dumb" for a member to call it an "induction" when material distributed by the national office does the same thing? By the same token, if the national office doesn't think it's that big a deal to use different terminology (perhaps a formal name and one or more informal names), should anyone else lose too much sleep over it?

[DrPhil]

national office > arvid1978

[emb021]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

The Pledge Trainer handbook is not an authoritative document, while the national bylaws are. The content of any of the Leadership Series manuals are not voted on by national convention, and are at best a guideline. I'll look at my ritual book when I get home, but I'm 95% confident it does not say induction, it says Pledge Ceremony. The national pledging standards refer to the Pledge Ritual, not Induction. Since National Bylaws, Pledge Standards, Rituals, etc. are voted on by convention, they carry much more weight than a guide put together by alumni volunteers.

FWIW, the Leadership Series has been for all intents and purposes replaced by the APO IMPACT guides and manuals,

As the person who was the main author & editor of the Pledge Trainer manual, I don't know how that slipped thru.

No, the Leadership Series were never voted on by the National Convention. They are 'authoritative' in that they try to stay in line with our National Bylaws & other documents, and other accepted practice.

The Pledge Trainer manual was written to be in-line with the National Pledging Standard. (and, yes, what little is said about the pledge program in our rituals). When I do presentations on pledge programs I use the NPS as my starting point, as I find few Brothers really understand it, nor WHY we do things in our pledge programs, or make sure their pledge program are in line with the NPS.

Yes, the old Leadership Series have been replaced by the APO Impact Guides.