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Millennium Ceremonies¹ for every year of the Millennium

Community Alternativs

Celebrations and Ceremonies for Everyone

Planning can start now

Public ceremonies with awards for

• All babies born in a Celebration Year. A special useful spoon with a suitable logo on it. They can be brought to special Naming Ceremonies.
• All children starting school in a Celebration Year get a picture book of Australia with a special cover. They are stars at special School Starting Ceremonies at school.
• Primary School leavers.Special Standards-Reached Reports and are stars of special Leaving ceremonies.
• Secondary school beginners. A special picture-history of the world. They star at special Teenage Rites of Passage.
• School leavers. Survival Manuals - what citizens and householders need to know in their community - in special loose-leaf folders that can be kept up to date for years.
• Age 21. An Adult Initiation Ceremony follows initation tests as in old tribal communities.Twenty-One is the preferred age rather than 18, because many 18-year-olds still need a chance to be a bit wild. By 21 they need to start enjoying more responsibility and being Mature Adults. However, anyone over 18 can quality for the certificat by passing the Test for Aduldhood.

... and so on, for every stage of life

The Never Before Awards

It makes a tremendous difference to someone to have a gong and 'Queen's letters' after their name, but what tends to happen is that once people are awarded gongs, they have a head start in being awarded more.

I would like to recommend that Queen's Honours be published in three categories.

1. Sports starts, entertainers and millionaires from speculation. This may be the biggest group and really deserve a separate category of gongs, such as OPA. Order of Public Admiration.
2. The Never Before Awards.   People who have never had an award before, but have done useful things.
3. Matthew Awards. These are based on the text in St. Matthew, 'To them that have shall be given.'

There are several million people in the British Isles, so more Never Before Awards could spread the joy around - and people might even seek them rather than waste money in gambling for their goal in life, as Honour in its various meanings can impel as much as Money.

Among other reasons for other awards -

• First Year in a Job
• First Permanently-Intending-Shackers-Up
• First Parents
• First Parents of a SchoolChild
• First Parents of a Teenager
• First Grandparents
• First Great-grandparents
• Together Fifty Golden Years
• Together Sixty DiamondYears
• Never commitd a criminal offence
• Held a longterm voluntary public office with no monetary reward
• 10 years or more voluntary service
• People who have had awards and citations for courage
• People who have been prime movers for a social improvement
• People who have invented something useful - even if not yet successful
• Problem-solvers
• Carers for home-bound sick, disadvantaged and aged.
• Winners at Almost Anything useful
• Donors of $50,000 or more to a public benefit . . .

There can be voting for some awards - e.g.the Fairest Footballer, who is not necessarily the best. And so on.

Poetry, songs, art, drama and music in the ceremonies can include

• An update of Whittier's Once to Every Man and Nation'
• Tennyson on his vision of the future,
• 'Ring in the Bells'
• Beethoven
• Local talent and compositions

An Adult Initiation Certificat

Western teenagers who need to display their daring, test their 'manliness', have adventures, and prove they are adult, have too many unattractiv models of teenager and 'Mature Adult' behavior to copy.
Ageist segregation of teenagers and adults, and the comercial advantages in a captiv teen market are part of the problem.

A national Adult Initiation Certificat (AC) gives a chance for young people to prove they are realy growing up to be adult. Sections could be taken a piece at a time over years. Handicapd youngsters can have alternativ tests where necessary, including citations for Coping with Problems and Overcoming Handicap.

Written tests would not be multipl-choice questions. These are too easy to ansr by gessing and it is too easy to forget the lerning that went into lerning the ansrs. Ansrs that have to be writn out (legibly) require thought and organization, and so have more chance of being mentaly filed and rememberd. 

Exampls of posibl testing for AIC Adult Certificat:

• Make up your own loose-leaf Essential Records and information manual, to keep for permanent reference. This could also be a record of basic school learning and achievment, compiled from Prep upward - among other things to avoid complete forgetting of all school lerning.
• Set out your own annual budget, with explanations for the expenditure
• Set out a weekly budget for a nominated adult life-styl and income, such as you hope to have.
• Public speaking (ten minuts) on a local or nationl issue that interests you.
• A year's constructiv participation in a socially-approved organization.
• A literacy test of reading, writing, preparing your own job aplication, writing a constructiv articl to a periodicl on some issue of your choice.
• Activ participation in a constructiv voluntary comunity action to achiev an goal - eg a local bus shelter, helping an invalid adapt a home to new needs, campaigning for a socialy constructiv issue - (nonpoliticl or this can become too dodgy to assess).
• Household repair certificat at any levl from minimum to Do-It-Yourself skil.
• General knowledge test on the world, politics, history, science.
• Failure & Frustration Survival Test of ability to survive failure and frustration, while retaining cheerfulness. Anyone who has nevr had a chance to demonstrate this survival ability may be given a special test in lerning something that they find hard and even unintresting, but would be useful to lern.
• Language test - the meaning of concepts such as virtue, honor, courage, honesty, ideals, patience, adventure, hero, good, tolerance, endurance, mercy, faithfulness, loyalty, compassion, peace, beauty, love, truth. Exampls are to be givn. Many peple have limitd concepts about the posibilities of human nature, and this limits their own posibilities. To become aware of such posibilities, and the fact that others value them, makes it more posibl to widen your own range of behavior.
• Simpl Arithmetic test. All adults should be able to do simpl arithmetic, not only to be able to check supermarket check-out prices and whether goods are bargains, but also for practical reasoning which affects our whole human relationships in the detection of fallacies.
• In Australia, the Adulthood tests include filling out a Senate ballot paper correctly.

Boys can nominate for an optionl Manhood test - which requires socialy constructiv daring, adventure, courage, standing up for what you believe to be right in the face of ridicule, refusing antisocial dares in spite of being called chickn, and caring for those weakr and youngr than themselvs. However, it who goes in for it is strictly confidential, and what they achiev - nobody knows except the boy and the examinrs.

Girls can nominate for the same test, called the Woman's test. The reason for the distinction in name is because of teenage masculin psycology, which I doubt can be changed, and seems part of the nature of things since time began. Many boys like to feel there are some things they do that women do not do.

Knowledge of adult concepts is marked on a 4 point scale.

1. Awareness of the full concept.
2. A weak but positive definition.
3. A miniml meaning.
4. Wrong.

Example - The concept of Peace

• Level 1. Peace as as harmony in living. Highly positiv and fulfilling
• Level 2. Peace as quiet. Pleasant for individuals
• Level 3. Peace as absence of strife. 'Anything for the sake of peace'.
  'They make a desert and they call it peace'.'Keeping the peace'
  
• Level 4. Nothing happening.

¹ The first step of INTERNATIONL ENGLISH SPELLING has been used in this page:
Step 1. Leave out surplus letters (letrs) whenevr you like.
Surplus letrs serv no purpose. They do not show eithr meaning or pronunciation of words.
This 5-10% waste of energy, time, hassl and materials can be stopd whenevr u like and as much and as litl as u like.

For more about becoming an Adult

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