Advancement Resources
Scouting ranks, merit bades, and the advancement programs
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LATEST POSTS
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By InquisitiveScouter · Posted
Difficult to find any new policy stuff regarding adult camping on any official websites. Apparently, an email with this verbiage went out to Lodge leaders around mid-January: (Underline emphasis added.) ------------------------ As a lodge leader, you play a vital role in creating exciting and welcoming experiences that keep Scouts engaged in the OA. This year, we're introducing significant updates to our induction weekend and membership requirements, changes designed to ensure that new Arrowmen feel deeply connected to their fellow Scouts and leave their induction energized to return to your next lodge event. Induction Updates The Order of the Arrow has created transformative experiences for over a century. We're evolving our induction to ensure today's Scouts continue forging real connections, discovering what Brotherhood, Cheerfulness, and Service mean in their lives, and beginning journeys they'll carry forward for years. To align with that vision, we've redesigned the induction experience to create a welcoming environment to emphasize the connections new members build during the induction weekend and leave energized to participate in your next lodge event. The best way to understand the changes to the induction is to experience it yourself at an induction event put on by your section or lodge. What's Staying the Same? Brotherhood, Cheerfulness, and Service still guide everything we do. The induction weekend remains a serious, meaningful milestone in a Scout or Scouter's journey. Service is still a core component of the induction weekend. The Admonition, "To Love One Another," continues to anchor our purpose. What's Changing? We're strengthening how Scouts experience and understand the values the OA teaches. New members engage in guided reflection and meaningful discussions. Silence still has its place for reflection, but the weekend now prioritizes building the connections that make Scouts want to return. Several experiences have been added to create a shared understanding of what our values truly mean in action. The guide for each group, now called a Luminary, will take on an enhanced role in facilitating these transformative moments, helping new members discover their place in our brotherhood from the very beginning. What’s Happening Next? Watch the Campfire Chat: A recording of Sunday evening's Campfire Chat with our national leadership can be found on our YouTube channel. The Induction Experience: Existing Arrowmen have the opportunity to build a shared understanding by going through the new induction before the lodge offers it to new members. Your section will play a key role in offering an event in your area to attend and experience the new induction themselves. Dates for these events are being finalized and will be shared in early February. We encourage all Arrowmen to experience the new induction as a participant. Practice With Existing Members: Lodges will share the induction experience with existing members at least once before offering it to new members. Support: You'll have resources at your disposal: on demand videos and guides to supplement the Induction Handbook. In addition to webinars and concierge-style support from trained induction staff to help you succeed. More information about this support will be shared in late March 2026. Keep an eye on the OA Website for more details. We're counting on you to help bring this vision of the induction to life. Step one? Go experience it. We'll see you at your section or lodges induction experience. Membership Requirements Updates We are also updating our membership requirements to allow more opportunities for Scouts and Scouters to be elected into the Order of the Arrow and participate in our program. We're expanding election opportunities beyond traditional units to include council-recognized Scouting America groups like staff for summer camp and NYLT, council high adventure contingents, and jamboree troops. Nearly a third of units don't hold elections, and every eligible Scout deserves a pathway to membership regardless of unit circumstances. The camping requirement for adults has been removed. This change recognizes that many adults who would be valuable resources to the Order face professional or family responsibilities that make youth-oriented camping requirements challenging, and lodges need a broader pool of qualified adults to support youth leadership and meet safeguarding policies. These changes ensure that today's Scouts, and the adults who support them, have additional pathways to OA membership. We are working through how to best support lodges implementing the expansion of unit elections and will share more in the coming months. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone receive this? -
I was not aware of the Adult adjustment, though totally agree. Years ago I had one of our parents and really involved parents turned down by our lodge for nomination due to his not having ever done a long term. Now this is a man that had done every available training of the time, as he could fit it in. And he had been on a dozen or more weekend backpacks, some up to four nights, and he had done what was then called Trail Boss training with the FS. But, he had tow younger daughters and a wife, and his annual longer term vacation was for family. Thus he did not go to summer camps. When his son was elected, was when we also nominated him as an adult. Fortunately he rethought his emotional response when turned down, and he did not drop out. He finally managed to work out a week at summer camp, but that was three years later. It was, from my perspective, ignorant and short sighted. He had more nights than a number of adults that did get accepted due to summer camps, plus he also was an accomplished welder and building skilled person willing to share his skills. The worst part of that was when I suggested to the Scout Exec that he might wave the summer camp requirement of the time, he refused. Later I went to Jambo and spoke to a couple of OA big shots, and they told me in no uncertain terms that my perspective was nonsense and they would never even consider that. Oh well; he is long in the background, the son is in his thirties and married, and OA is a mess. -
Induction of adults into the OA was never intended to be an "honor"...it was to fulfill the need for adult supervision and advisors to the youth. As such, they are not "elected", but "selected". I agree with the elimination of the camping requirement. -
The camping requirement has been eliminated for adults. -
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