"It's not someone who's seen the light. It's a cold and a broken Hallelujah." -- Leonard Cohen

Please bear in mind

1) that the singing of the Hippo Song is not in itself that important to me and
2) I suspect that Paul is correct in his reply to the previous post, that some campers (and at least one vol. staff person who passed on this idea to me a couple of years ago) got the idea that this one-time refusal to sing it had become a rule -- but were mistaken.

I can believe it, because I recall campers thinking (misled by younger staff) that there was a dress code for campers before there ever was one. (I had severe misgivings about the introduction of one, but that's another story.) It is part of our developing from immaturity to maturity to move from rules to situations.

Now the camper did tell me "we wanted to sing it and then [the staff member] was all like, no we cant sing that song anymore. and we all were like, what? what is this?" So (unless this camper is just plain lying to me) she (mis)remembers it as a rule and one given without explanation. The staff member was not you, Josh, btw.

Okay, fine. Maybe it was one of those less-than-ideal times when an adult loses patience and says (about either a rule or a one-time refusal) "...because I say so!! Okay!!?" I'm pretty sure all adults fall into this behaviour from time to time. Or maybe it wasn't even that -- but if it was -- that's certainly not a firing offence.

And it would be -- I think we would agree -- unfair to think of such a staff member as either Fascist in his rule-making or impatient in his response, based on a second-hand account from a camper (staff member, parent etc.) -- without at least first discussing it with that staff member and giving him a chance to explain.

Negative stories (this one is tame) do reach me and, of course, my experience (bias) inclines me to believe them BUT of course it would be unfair to give them credence based only on the one side. (And of course to be fair I encounter many positive stories too.)

But imagine I were a Board member with power to act on 2nd hand info. The necessity of presenting the stories to the staff member for correction would be that much clearer due to my power to do good or harm, based on what I come to believe.

In my own case, I was told that I was going to be given a chance to discuss the criticisms (and air my own valid concerns in turn). When I asked for my file, it was empty of any evaluations (positive or negative), just a couple of health forms. So I believed I would be given access during the mandated Process to the criticisms not found therein. As I've been picking up clues since that time, I surmise that something similar to what I've described above in this hypothetical situation is what happened and I was deprived of this knowledge.