OA Troop or Team Representative

Does your troop or team have an OA Representative? This position helps build the relationship between the OA Lodge or Chapter and the Unit. It also counts as a leadership position for Scout advancement requirements. If your unit doesn't have an OA representative, or isn't using him effectively, read on to find out more about what this program can do for you.

The Troop or Team OA Representative should be doing several things, chief among them: encouraging year-round camping and resident camping at summer camp, encourage unit service to the community, and providing leadership/mentoring/example to the other scouts in the unit. Remember that arrowmen are elected not just for what they've done but for what they will do — unit OA representatives help all the arrowmen in the unit give back to those that elected them.

During 2009 the Lakota chapter is hoping to provide more information and support to both OA representatives and to unit Leaders. Part of this is finding adult members in each unit to act as advisors. Another part is providing communications channels from the unit reps to the chapter leadership. We'd also like to provide hand-outs and other information for the representatives to take back to their units at each of our chapter activities.

If you're a unit OA representative, make sure you come out to our chapter activities so you can find out what the chapter can do for your unit and the arrowmen in it. If you're an adult leader and don't have a Troop or Team OA Representative yet, this is the time to get one — help us help you and your unit by bringing the spirit of the OA to all of your scouts.

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.

Chapter Members Helping at a Pinewood Derby

Three members of the Chapter were on hand at the Pinewood Derby held by Packs 37 and 747. These young men serve as Den Chiefs, helping the Cub Scouts learn to love Scouting.

"We had a great time and showed a lot of OA spirit!" Said Mike, the Wolf's Den Chief.

Whether they were setting up the track and chairs for the Cubs' families, helping get cars onto the track at the start of the race, or shooting video of race finishes, these OA Den Chiefs were right in the middle of all the fun.

Serving as a Den Chief is a great way to use the leadership skills that you're learning in the OA, and to fulfill leadership requirements for advancement in the Scout and Varsity programs. What are you doing to help Cub Scout Packs, Boy Scout Troops, Varsity Teams, or Venturing Crews?

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.

Lakota Chapter Officers at District Roundtable

Last night, Chris (our chapter chief) and Mike (our vice chief) both made presentations to the scoutmaster's breakout session at roundtable. Taking on this kind of role in the district is a great way to show the value of the OA.

Chris talked about the upcoming Klondike, and gave an overview of what Scoutmasters can expect there. After this short presentation, he led everyone into an adjacent room and we played a round of giant pick-up sticks. It was a good rehearsal for running the game at Klondike, and the attendees seemed to enjoy it.

Mike taught a 10 minute class on cold weather camping. His slides are below, you can get much more information from the Boy Scout Fieldbook's chapter on Cold Weather Activities.



It was great to have the Pleasant Grove Ranger District come out and do a presentation too. We've been working to build a strong relationship with them, and hope to cooperate with them at our Fellowship this May.

We also passed around a sign-up sheet for unit elections. We had two units request elections this month. I think the presentations helped with the increased level of interest. Let's do what we can to continue to show people that the OA is a valuable asset to individual scouts, scouting units, and the district.

New Year's Road Trip

In December, we heard that the Sahpeech chapter was going to hold a Fellowship with a Brotherhood ceremony in Gunnison on January 2-3. Since we had an Ordeal candidate and a Brotherhood candidate just waiting for the opportunity, we decided to take a road trip.
On Friday afternoon, we packed up our gear (and lots of warm clothes) and dinner to eat on the road, and we headed off. The youth talked about scouting, movies, and the things they'd done over Christmas break, then they settled in to a discussion of the OA and upcoming chapter events.
We weren't the only travellers at the fellowship. There were two young men from the Nez Pierce chapter, two young men and an adult from the Sioux chapter, and one from the Todebeda Cheda Toonle chapter down in St. George. It was pretty cool to see arrowmen and candidates from all over the lodge.
The candidates, elangomats, and other arrowmen present put in a lot of service. We cleaned an elementary school from top to bottom, mounted a bunch of video projectors on classroom ceilings, and shoveled a lot of snow to clear the elementary school and nearby High School. We even retired a flag while we were there.
Before wrapping this up I'd like to welcome Ian, our newest Ordeal member, and congratulate Mike, our newest Brotherhood member. Mike's also the Ordealmaster for our upcoming May Fellowship and he's looking for elangomats to serve there, if you're interested please send an email to lakotasecretary@gmail.com and I'll pass your name and contact information along to him.
Thanks to the Sahpeech arrowmen for all the work and planning you put into this.

Back from the LLD

Lakota Brothers,

We just got back from the Lodge Leadership Development Course and we had a blast! There were nineteen youth and ten adults there for the training, and a big group of trainers from the Lodge Executive Board.

Fun is a big part of any OA activity and we had a lot of it. We played games like 'The Human Knot' and had contests between groups of arrowmen. After the evening activities, we stayed up until after midnight to watch a movie together.

In between games, we learned a lot in classes about being a successful chapter/lodge leader, planning activities, and building strong chapters. The coolest class was about the meaning of the Ordeal. The adults went to their own classes, learning about their role in the order and how to help us succeed as arrowmen and leaders.

As always, the food was great. The Grizzly chapter fed us well with beef stew for dinner, pancakes for breakfast, and sandwiches for lunch.

We hope to see you at the next chapter meeting on Saturday, December 20th at 7PM. We'll meet at the South Chapel. We'll be painting giant pick-up sticks for the Klondike Derby and enjoying some treats — we also want to share some ideas from the LLD.