SR540Beaver

Eagle92, Spot on. As big of a proponent as I am of boy run/led.....Scouting at any level doesn't happen effectively without adult involvement, mentoring, coaching, etc.

Hawkrod, Is your ceremony an AOL ceremony, a Crossover ceremony or both. We make very clear to the Packs that our ceremony is a Crossover ceremony and they are responsible for providing an AOL ceremony. Why? Because we have been providing the Crossover for years and it is what our boys know and since it is a "side" service the team provides, we don't really want to throw something else on them to learn. I work hard to NOT burn my boys out so they are fresh for Ordeals and Brotherhood. The other reasoning is that they earned their AOL in the Pack and the Pack should honor them. The Crossover is a totally different animal and represents their journey from Cubs to Scouting. That being said, I have no problem with teams providing an AOL/Crossover combination, we just don't do it in our Chapter.

"When entrails are tossed into the woods, they attract wildlife." I hate to tell them this, but wildlife live in the woods year round and they roam freely thru it. They come down to the water to drink and catch dinner whether we were there or not.

Nike: "Why is there a top button on the shirts anyway?" So you can button the top button and tighten down the slide like a Windsor knot of course!

SP, The purpose for having units select adults is to have adults at the unit level who will support OA at the unit level. As a Chapter Adviser, I'm usually transporting our ceremony team to Ordeal. I can't get the 50+ candidates to Ordeal. We need adults who support OA to see that their candidates get there. Same thing for work days, Fellowships and Chapter meetings. At the Lodge level, there are usually some long time dedicated Arrowmen who serve as Associate Advisers. If we Chapter Advisers play our cards right, we have a few at the Chapter level too.

Oak Tree, You can only nominate 1 adult per 50 registered youth in your troop and at least 1 youth must be elected for the adult's nomination to be turned in for approval.

mdskinner731, Welcome to the forums! Send me a private message with your email address and I will be happy to send you the Crossover ceremony our team uses. We just got thru doing nine crossovers this year.

SMT224, If it is that large of a concern, then how about this as an alternative. Have each person taking photos provide the Troop Historian with copies. He can organize them by month and event and provide each family with a DVD at year's end. A christmas present from the Troop. That way, they are not on the internet, but everyone gets to see the pictures.

1HR, You can simply wear the necker over the collar, but it looks best when it isn't "competing" with the collar by tucking the collar under. That is what I do with my Wood Badge necker and I don't find it uncomfrotable at all.

ahhhhhhh......so James West is the founder of the dreaded Uniform Police? Interesting! Take THAT, you half uniformed, non-uniformed ninnies!!!

BadenP, What you are experiencing is kids who don't like having their comfort zone challenged. One of the boys on my ceremonies team is famous for declaring a year ago that he wasn't going to dress up like no faggot indian. He does and has a blast. I'm unsure why any Scout would feel like OA is geeky when many of their peers already think they are geeks for being Boy Scouts. I agree with shortridge that you could easily replace the word OA with Scouting and have the eternal issue. You say, "I think the OA needs some serious reworking done with its imagery, reputation, and purposes. As long as scouts view the OA as lame, gay, and a drag the organization will continue to flounder." Couldn't the same be said for Scouting and isn't that what Mazucca is doing that you dislike so much?

SP, Paying your dues provides the Lodge funds to operate.

Eagle92 - "Also it is a two-way street, not only should the Arrowman make attempts to keep in contact with the lodge/chapter, but the lodge/chapter need to keep in contact witht he Arrowman. An Arrowman may want to be invovled, but if no one tells him what is going on, how can he know?" I agree, it is a two way street. A side note of an event that happened last week with our DE who is an "Arrowman". He was making some pretty big demands of the Chapter that were very last minute and expecting miracles. It conflicted with an OA work weekend. One thing led to another and the question was asked of when we might be able to expect him to support the Lodge and attend some events. His response was to send him the dates and he'd put them on his calendar and be there! I'm the Chapter Adviser and I have a Chapter email distribution list. He's always been on it. I also run our Chapter website which can be subscribed to. He's subscribed....because I subscribed him long ago. Our District Communications Chair who puts out the District newsletter is one of my Associate Advisers and he puts all OA events in the newsletter. Sometimes you can lead a horse to water........

I'm very hot natured. I only wear a necker when I have to. The only time I have to is staffing Wood Badge or touring DC with a Jambo Troop. Wearing a double layer or fabric (collar) is hot enough without adding multiple rolls of fabric from a necker sandwiched between the collar. If I'm not doing either of those things, you will hardly if ever see me in a necker. When I do choose to wear one, it is my WB necker and I tuck the collar under the neck of my short and wear the necker around my neck. This is actually the most comfortable way for me personally to wear it, but not the way 99% of the folks in my council wear it. The shirts and the neckers just are not designed to be worn with the necker under the collar. In almost every case, the necker bunches up and "pooches" out. I'm constantly walking around tugging on our scouts neckers to make them look halfway presentable.

Is there a reason you want to restrict the photos? They can be a great recruiting tool for your unit.

Hawk, Actually, an Arrowman's first responsibility is to his unit. Should he provide service beyond that? Absolutely, but the unit comes first.

Troop24 - "Interestingly in my troop several of the boys find the OA to simply be a clique of self-important scouts and they feel no interest in joining the club. Maybe it is just in our council that this occurs, but the same is felt of Woodbadge folks, too (just a big clique, that is)." I'm not sure of your position in the troop, I'll assume you are the SM. Hopefully you know this not to be the case and work to change those misperceptions. Maybe it is just your council, because as a Chapter Adviser, I can tell you that the OA is anything but a clique of self-important scouts. They tend to be the boys you can turn to when you need something. These are the guys willing to go beyond the comfort zone of their troop's inner circle. My active guys are the ones willing to staff District Cub Day Camps, Cub and Boy Scout summer camp, Camporees and Webelos Woods, etc. Most have done more than one high adventure base. Most have been a PL and a good number have been SPL's. Most are Life or Eagle. They don't shirk away from providing service. They all know how to look an adult in the eye and shake their hand firmly and confidently. They provide elections and ceremonies and spend countless hours doing ceremony practice. Self important? Nah. They are doers and go getters who understand the meaning of service to others.......often times with no thanks for their efforts. But like a true servant, that isn't why they do what they do. Wouldn't we like every scout in every troop to be part of that kind of self important clique? From the adult side, I'd echo many of the same characteristics of the Wood Badgers. When I think of a clique, I think of those Scouters and Scouts who don't need that stinkin' old OA, WB, District or Council and want to be left alone to do it their way. I guess your perspective changes depending on which side of the fence you are on.

You've gotten good advice. Adults are nominated. In our chapter, we have 58 candidates for this year out of 16 troop elections. Only 3 of those candidates are adults.

I get the concerns over "sash and dash" as it is always a topic of discussion when trying to seek larger attendance at OA events. However, an Arrowman's first responsibility is to his unit. If he is providing service to his troop, he is doing his job. That being said, yes, we would like them to know about and partake of the added opportunities and benefits the OA provides. What I have found is that it is the over achievers in the troops who are looking for more who end up becoming involved in the Chapter and Lodge. There is far more beyond hauling brush at camp. Many troops are too small to put together their own high adventure trip and the council contingent is too high priced. OA members can go for around $200, provide some service and design their own treks. I realize that some kids think dressing up in "Indian garb" is dorky.....until they do it one time, and believe me, they are hooked. There is much more, but that is some of what the OA has to offer.

Basement, is your Lodge holding Ordeals? If so, where did the candidates come from? Someone, somewhere is holding elections. My council has 11 districts I believe and we cover a quarter of the state. Obviously the urban areas with dense populations have the most active chapters with ceremony and election teams. We have one chapter in a rural district where the only member is the Chapter Adviser. He is trying to get some movement, but is meeting with resistance from troops holding elections. OA is just a distant memory for people in his area. Could it be that you are in a district that is largely inactive and there are no youth to run elections?

Beavah, Do you really want me to post the entire 45 minute to one hour discussion I have with some of these SM's concerning what OA is, what we do and what the benefit to the boy and the troop is just so we can get our foot in the door to present to their boys? Do you really read one line in a post and draw all the wrong conclusions? We've got one SM who thought the OA was a cult and refused to let us anywhere close to the troop. Doing an end run around him to the youth leadership would have been the wrong thing to do. My elections Adviser was this SM's TG at WB and spent countless hours on the phone and at RT's and other events telling him all about what OA is, the service aspect, that an Arrowman's first duty is to his unit, that we aren't in the business of stealing older boys, that we provide additional opportunities of service and leadership that will benefit the troop and keep older boys involved longer, etc. He came this close to letting an election be held, but didn't. The BOTTOM line of all of that friendly chatter with SM's is, "just let us come do an election" and if we don't live up to the hype, you can tell us to get lost next year. The SPL may run things, but the SM is responsible for the program side of the house and we will not cut him out of the equation. We need his buy-in to get it in front of the PLC so they can consider it. This ain't my first rodeo. I wasn't selected as a CA because I was clueless or worked poorly with people. I'm rebuilding a Chapter where we had 9 elections out of 21 troops in 2009 and thru hard work and building relationships, we increased it to 16 elections in 2010. We hope to do even better this year. We lost a few of our most experienced boys last year and are losing a few more this year who are moving away to college. Right now, getting elections scheduled is a joint effort between adults and newer, younger youth who are gaining experience this year. I hope that is enough detail to calm your fears of how our Chapter operates. I do have a day job and I can't post nuanced essays.

A very smart friend of mine named EagleDad once told me that boy/led/run is a dynamic thing and looks different in each troop and can change from year to year. He told me this when I and two other adults were working to get a brannd new troop up and running that consisted of newly crossed over Webelos. We didn't want our troop to be Webelos III. But how do you take a bunch of 11 year old boys and turn them into a highly functioning boy/led/run troop. Barry wisely counseled me that it looks different in every troop depending on the size, age, experience, training, etc. in that troop and that is an ever changing dynamic as you have older boys age out and new boys come in. It is in a constant state of flux. For a group of five or six 11 year olds, all they may be able to handle at the outset is planning, coordinating and conductin their own opening ceremony for the troop meeting. That is all they may be capable of right now, so they are boy led to the best of their training and abilities. As they age, recieve training, mature, grow, etc. they will get to the point they can run more and more until they get to the point they can do the whole thing while the adults sit out in the hallway shooting the breeze. Then you have a large number of boys age out and a large number of new boys cross over and you are back to working to get them where they once were. You should have enough aging and experienced boys to do most of the heavy lifting at this time, but adults may need to assist where needed. Boy/led/run is kind of like perfection, an ideal to strive towards.

Basement, Then the election team didn't do their job. With my election teams, any SM trying to hand a name over without an election would be told that a valid election must be held following the official election procedures. If he refused, they would leave. That boy's name would not be turned into the Lodge as a candidate for Ordeal. When he showed up at the registration line at Ordeal, he would be turned away as he was not a candidate. If he somehow got his hands on a flap and sash, he would still be turned away at the registration line for any OA event. People were asleep at the swithc at the Chapter and Lodge level to allow this to happen in the case you sited.

Beavah: Why would the OA representatives want to talk the SM into undermining the PLC? I'll ignore the cheap shot since I believe I've firmly established myself as a proponent of boy led over the last 3,600+ posts and simply answer the questions. No one is talking the SM into undermining the PLC. Maybe you have the contact information for each SPL in your district, but we don't. Troops tend to protect that kind of information for youth protection purposes. What we do have is the contact information for the adult leadership, so that is naturally our starting point. Beavah: It's the PLC's role to plan and run a meeting. So of course the SM should ask the PLC boys if they are interested in changing their meeting plans for the night to incorporate an OA presentation. Of course it is their job to plan and run a meeting. The SM wasn't talking about asking the PLC if they were interested in changing their meeting plans to hold an election. The SM was talking about quizzing the troop as a whole as to whether or not there was any interest at all in the Order of the Arrow. So, you have an SM with no knowledge or interest in the OA half heartedly asking boys who know nothing about OA if they want to get involved in the OA. Any idea what the answer is? I do. Been there, done that. We first have to sell the SM if we are ever going to get a crack at gaining access to the SPL and PLC to get a trained lection team in to explain the OA and hold an election. Our point to the SM is that the OA is a legitimate program of the BSA. It is not a "Troop" program. It is an "individual" program that allows the youth of the Troop to honor individuals in the troop. Why would they have no interest in honoring those who exemplify the Oath and Law and are outstanding campers? The boys can abstain from voting if they have no interest and the candidate can elect not to complete their Ordeal. Why wouldn't an SM. SPL or Troop want to hold an election? Hold the election and let the chips fall where they may. Beavah: I confess I find that the OA undermining youth leadership and the patrol leaders to be far more upsetting than the OA showing up in just shirts. Well, now you know that you don't need to be upset. Beavah: Who was making these calls anyway? Da OA youth or the adults? Depends on the situation. Where the OA is established and understood, the youth. Where we have a reluctant SM, the adults start the process before turning it over to the youth. For the actual election, we adults transport boys, shake hands with folks and make small talk while the boys do their job.

desertrat77, Boy, she would have been overwhelmingly impressed if she had seen the REAL Boy Scout program before it got all gussied up and sissified....or so I hear.