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well It's 2:00am and I just finished writing the call-out ceremony for the spring camporee, and its a good one if I do say so myself But it probably not be used you see it needs 7-8 people 4 speaking parts, two drummers,  and two torchbearers.  I'll be lucky if I can get 5 to show up and one of those is my son.     This in a county with 250,000 people in it and over 40 troops.  Is the Order shrinking across the nation or is it just my little district?

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A can't speak to O/A numbers. Our district's advisor seems to have a good number of boys at roundtable every month.

 

Spring camporees in our district are hit-and-miss. Musical, track, and baseball season are the prime distractions. Come to think of it, I don't think they were done all that often when I was a kid. My patch collection backs that up (more from fall camporees and Klondike).

 

Do you have crews in your district? I know many venturers are arrowmen, and many area summits are also in the spring. There are some young arrowmen across the nation who are put out that their no access is granted female colleagues who are first class scouts (the concept, not the patch). I can't imagine this having a big impact, but when your talking about that one rare talent for a ceremony team, who knows?

 

Your best bet is for your son to call around and see if there are three more guys who can just come out for the evening.

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The OA isn't shrinking in terms of numbers.  

 

But over time, the Order has been diminished in other ways.   The qualities that made the Order special in the past have been purposefully removed.   When it became an honor society instead of an organization of honor campers, that's the point where it became just another patch.

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Our lodge has established a few ceremonial teams but they are few in number.

 

My cousin's unit does their own tap out and has their own ceremony team, complete with regalia. We are building one of our own too. Might go that route.

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I go back to the 60's, and I can't find one spring camporee patch. Maybe they knew then what we know now. Camporees are hard to execute nowadays, and spring time isn't a good time. Fall and winter have worked for us for many years.

 

Our lodge adviser changed recently. He was able to encourage the LEC to water down our Ordeal Weekends, oooooopppppssss, so sorry, now called Service Weekends. There's more play time then service time. There's more goof off time then fellowship time. This was to not only attract the new members, but to get back the current members. Quantity over quality is the mantra. It actually worked last year for our winter and spring service weekends, but our fall service weekend was a big disappointment. Our fall service weekends have always been "HUGE." Sorry, I couldn't resist. This new lodge adviser also demanded through the LEC, that all chapter committees, were automatically members of their associated lodge committees. This of course showed that the lodge was functioning very successfully. So, being the adviser for our chapter ceremony committee, I asked the team what they wanted to do. We advised our chapter adviser that we would not go in that direction and everyone resigned. No AOL's and Call-Outs. Got a call from lodge adviser. He was very disappointed in our decision and asked me to explain our lack of dedication. I had no time for this crap, and hung up. It worked out eventually, and everyone in the chapters simply went about their business. What was he going to do. Fire us?

 

In my opinion, when they opened up the elections to unlimited numbers, this change was abused and /or ignored. If each Scoutmaster truly reviewed and then approved each candidate, it might have worked. But everyone wanted numbers. It has failed. The truly honorable scouts are drowned out by those temporary numbers, and simple move on to the many other opportunities in their lives.

 

 

So, getting back to the subject at hand, what was once a group of dedicated scouters and scouters, is now just a group.

 

sst3rd

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Ah yes leaders of big lodges,fun aren't they? A story... Back in c '73 the lodge bigwigs seeing that some ceremonial teams had no/ junky costumes decided in their vast wisdom, that all chapters should pool their gear so everyone could share equally. We had held scrap drives,parked cars at the county fair,sold donuts for the money to buy hides, beads and feathers then spen many an hour crafting our own regalia. So you can just imagine how well this went over with us! We said So sorry not happening. Then things got nasty the police showed op with a warrant at the advisors house looking for the costumes, thankfully we had pulled all the ones we had made out the day before. All we left were the old beat up cloth ones that had been made 10-15 years earlier. The lodge boys were worth and sent our advisor a letter telling him that he was fired, and appointed some new guy we had never met. New guy (I forget his name) called a meeting to "settle the problem" not one of the youth showed up, and when called on the phone told the new guy to go pound sand. (Or words to that effect) Some how saner people intervened and the advisor was unfired and we all went back to doing what we loved. But it was about 8 years before any one from that chapter made vigil

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Side note re camporees (looking at my two old patch vests):

 

When I was a scout in AZ, 74 - 77, spring and fall camporees, regularly scheduled and well attended

 

Moved to AK, 77 - 81, they had spring camporees and fall freezorees (in 77, I attended the AZ fall camporee and two weeks later we were in AK.  I went to the fall freezoree right after arrival...talk about a shock to the senses, a different style of camping!)

 

Re OA:  scouts want a challenge.   They want to belong to something special.   They want to be proud of accomplishing something that was tough.   The OA used to provide that.   No more.

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Re OA:  scouts want a challenge.   They want to belong to something special.   They want to be proud of accomplishing something that was tough.   The OA used to provide that.   No more.

 

Exactly. Now you have to take a weekend and clear bush 2.5 hours away from home and take the whole weekend to do it. NHS you can stay in town and get your 8 hours of service that way with still time to go to the movies, go on a date or play PS4.

 

Which would WE choose?

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171,178.  Is that truly active members, or does that include the "sash and dash" crowd who just want to wear the flap?

 

Got those numbers from the 2010 and 2015 OA annual reports. It appears those are "registered" numbers, much like BSA's membership stats, they count anyone with a pulse, form and paid dues.

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scouts want a challenge.   They want to belong to something special.   They want to be proud of accomplishing something that was tough.   The OA used to provide that.   No more.

 

You absolutely get it.  It WAS an honor.  All the really cool Scouts were Arrowmen.  

 

Decisions made by incompetent people are seldom of high quality

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OA has not been a presence at RT for many years in our council.  Any OA announcements pertaining to elections, etc. are made by adults and DE.  As far as I know the OA has not made any contact with my troops ever.  One boy did make the effort to contact the OA as the troop OA Representative, lined up an election, the OA member showed up in blue jeans and high school sweatshirt and was asked to come back when he found his uniform, never came back. 

 

The last time I saw an OA call out was at summer camp in a different council.

 

The boys in our area seem to be quite indifferent to the program.

Edited by Stosh
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Around these parts, the chapter meeting is held after the monthly district meeting (we have no RT so the district meeting night suffices as our once-a-month gathering for all concerned...very fluid, folks chatting and getting caught up on things).   Our OA advisor is superb.   But the Arrowmen rarely show.   Between 1 and 3 per meeting.  Even a full-course homemade meal, provided at last December's chapter meeting, failed to bring more than a few.

 

Stosh described it well:   they are indifferent.  

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Exactly. Now you have to take a weekend and clear bush 2.5 hours away from home and take the whole weekend to do it. NHS you can stay in town and get your 8 hours of service that way with still time to go to the movies, go on a date or play PS4.

 

Which would WE choose?

Krampus, thinking back to my teenage years, I would have picked option A.   Still would, even now.  

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