eaglescout07

Wow its been a long time since I've been on here! Let me just blatantly say: my lodge has ruined Order of the Arrow in my council. They have taken an aspect of scouting, which I fell in love with, and changed it into something with little excitement/awe that it had a year ago. First our "higher ups" in the council shut down our NOAC acclaimed website for no reason (let me just mention that our youth lead society wasn't heard on any of this as well as our lodge advisers.) Then our quarterly publication gets dropped too...these things must be costing too much money??!?? On top of that our council changes our call-out/family night to a thursday and decides that the full ordeal will NOT be done at summer camp. After watering down our impressive call-out, candidates will just sleep on the trail and do the rest some other time...a work weekend in the next year. Now besides going against OA policy at the time(National changed the ruling for us) this change is horrible, and takes away from our Order of the Arrow honor society. Chapter ceremony teams are not needed anymore...a lodge team will do them all, people "stepped down" for fear of trying to go against the Council(why they have final say in the OA still confuses me). A council rep came to me and wanted to know what I thought of the change, I simply stated my opinion(as above) and asked for the reasoning...he looked a little confused, but said something about membership being better(a complete lie, membership would be stronger if completed at camp....trying to get kids to come to a work weekend on a selected date will cut down on memb.) and how then everyone would be able to complete all the merit badges at camp.(which again is another dumb reason because the way our camp works is on thursday afternoon you finish your last too merit badges---thursday night is the callout, the ordeal could be completed the next day. As an eaglescout/brotherhood member of my lodge i'm am disgusted. Our lodge petition(with hundreds of names) was not even looked at. In a youth run society, our say sure didn't matter...hmmm...there is a flaw somewhere here. This was not the part scouting that i fell in love with. With a council exec. who has shut down other lodges in the US., i'm scared for the future of our lodge. These changes go with many that have been made on our camp, which I don't even want to get into(our camp is currently understaffed, cut back on programs and added cubscouts on our small acre camp during all weeks of the summer) so respond...let me know what you think...i speak my whole lodge's grief and frustration on this....Thanks

Have you gone to this website? http://members.aol.com/venturecod/index.html This site has a lot of information to start the COD program. It seems like a good way to honor venturers.

I have to agree with Moxieman...1 year... thats how it is in our lodge.

Thanks a lot for all the help!

So do you think it all depends on my lodge or the out of council's willingness to conduct both a call-out and ordeal for these out-of-council scouts? It sounds like the call-out will be ok, what about the ordeal?

My troop would like go to a summer camp that is out of council instead of the usual local council camp. We have some scouts who want to complete their ordeal next summer. What are the rules on getting called-out and completing your ordeal. My question is then: Can you get called-out at an out of council camp and complete your ordeal there? Any information would be helpful.

I agree with Lauwit, OA keeps older scouts interested!

Well I think the OA should make sure it is not scheduling its events on the SFF. But, the kids that went to the OA weekend should have talked with their troop before hand to make sure that if they went there would be enough hands to carry out Scouting For Food.

Yes, Ed it right.

Even if you can't find the records...most likely they will let you rejoin.

I agree with Eamonn, the Order is awesome the way it is and is not "Secret"

You can find out by your scout master or the call-out chairman.

I have to agree with kichkinet and prairie, both camps in Iowa are fantastic and offer many activities!

OA is part of my council's camp all summer. During the week we have a call-out, then the canidates complete their ordeal right there in camp. Its nice having it during our week at camp because it brings an interest to non-members.

its nice to see so many eagle scouts from all ages!