In the Summer of 2007 I was the Course Director for a Boy Scout Adult training called Wood Badge. Baden Powell started it in 1919 and it is one of the best leadership courses I know of. As part of the course the participants set goals. When their goals are completed they earn their Wood Badge Beads and Neckerchief. It is called a ticket after a British military tradition. Officers had to earn their way home. They would find work on the way home to earn their next train ticket. They called it working their ticket home.
Pictured recieving their tickets are Jim Stewart, Jason Kling, Jason Crosby, and Joe Dable. Also pictured are Kevin Stebens and Dave Finley. We try to make a big deal over the completion of the ticket. The ceremony generates a little publicity for the next course.
2 comments:
"I'm going to work my ticket if I can!" That must be very rewarding for a course director to attend those beatings. I mean beadings.
To "work your ticket" in British military slang was, and is, to deliberately get yourself discharged before your tour of duty is up by faking physical or mental disability, violating some rule bound to get you discharged, or other finagling. We know this from, among other sources, BP and Kipling. So how did the line get in the song? The legend has obscured reality.
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