Elections, Ordeals, and More

Elections dropped off in March, but we're anxious to get out and finish strong. If you'd like to schedule elections for your unit, please contact lakota.steve@gmail.com.
The reason that we're focusing on elections right now is that we're building up for our Fellowship on May 22-23. We're going to be helping get Camp Jerimiah Johnson ready for another summer of Cub Scout Day Camp, holding an Ordeal for our new candidates, and closing things up with a chapter feast to welcome all of our new arrowmen. If you'd like to help as staff at the Ordeal or at the feast, please contact lakotasecretary@gmail.com.
Our Call Out team is nearly ready too. They're practicing hard for the Call Out they'll conduct at the District Camporee on May 8-9 (there's more info here). This is an exciting time to be an Arrowman in the Lakota Chapter.

Election Season, a first report

To earn the quality chapter award, one of the things we must do is hold elections for 75% of the units in our district. We have 130 units (Boy Scout Troops and Varsity Scout Teams) in our district, so we would need to visit 98 of them each year. That's a little bit beyond our reach this year, so we're reaching for a goal that helps get us closer — we want to hold at least 4 unit elections in February, March, and April to lead into our May Fellowship. We'll set another (higher) goal in July, August, and September to support out October Fellowship.
It's not really enough to set a goal without reporting on it, so consider this a first report.
In January, we held an election for a Scout Troop at Klondike and elected 5 youth and nominated an adult leader. While it doesn't impact our goal, getting this election done was a good start for us in 2009.
So far in February, we've held three elections (two Scout Troops and one Varsity Team), and nominated three adults. There's also a unit election scheduled for tonight. All of this means that we met our February goal, and are set to move forward into March.
Three of our youth arrowmen and three adults have pitched in to help us meet our goals so far. We'd love to have more youth and adults involved. If you'd like to help out with elections, please send an email to lakota.secretary@gmail.com and we'll get you connected with our election team.

The Chapter at Klondike 2009

The Lakota Chapter attended the Cascade District Klondike on Jan 23 and 24, 2009. Three youth members and two adults were there — one of the adults was splitting time with his troop, with whom we camped. Our numbers might have been few, but we had a great time and made a difference at the Klondike as well.
We had been asked to provide an activity, so we took up some long bamboo poles to play Giant Pick-up Sticks. Our reach went well beyond that though.
We were able to spend time with some adult members who haven't been as involved with the chapter lately. This was a good chance to talk with them and in a couple of cases explore ways that they can contribute to the chapter going forward.
It was also great to let our members, who were there with their units, see us having fun and serving the district. One of our newer members commented after the Klondike that he thought we ran the funnest game up there — just wait till he sees the fun we have at chapter activities.
One of the biggest benefits of our being up there was that we could conduct a unit election. This was a great kick-off to our spring election drive. The troop elected five scouts and nominated one adult. That puts us at thirteen candidates who are eligible to attend the Ordeal we'll be holding as part of our May Fellowship. I hope you're planning to attend.