OA Unit Rep

[wojauwe]

Has anyone had any success using the Unit Representative program?

I had a lot of hope for the concept when it first came out and put quite a bit of effort in trying to promote it.

I don't feel like we were very succesfull.

I would love to hear from anyone whose Lodge or chapter has

incorporated the program succesfully.Any tips on how you made it work would be great.

[Eamonn]

It seems to be working at least in our District.

At Election Time, the rep from one troop oversees the election in another troop.

When OJ, who is Vice Chief Admin. needs to send something out to the units he has all the reps in a group and one hit of the send button and they ought to have it.

Eamonn

[Aardvark]

Only met the rep for my troop a month ago at the Ordeal weekend; sad thing is he's a member of my troop, but never see him at meetings!

 

Seems to be a definate lack of communications in my lodge....

[wojauwe]

Eamonn

Thanks,I'd be overwhelmed with joy if each of our units gave us a person to help on election teams (we have 71 units counting the LDS varsity teams).Just having someone in each unit to put the elections on the unit's calendar would be great.

The phone calling which tends to fall to a very small group is daunting,with all the messages not returned and need for multiple calls.

Still this is but a small part of the position.There should be a year round communication between units and Chapter/Lodge.I don't think the position was ever well defined.The hope was that we could get communications going that would help us put in place the Mentor program to help use Chapter resources to help units

who were having problems.Of course the only people who became involved were the healthy units.(Sorta like trying to get units to roundtable and making the announcement at roundtable.)

The OA Unit representative position is a leadership position that can be used as leadership for Eagle candidate.(that was the carrot used to get boys involved) I exspect more and am only getting it from a very small percent.

 

Aardvark,

Sadly your experiance is common.I've seen people wearing the patch who I've never seen at a chapter meeting.I've sent letters and emails to Scoutmasters

informing them that before they give some one credit for position it should go through chapter chief and Advisor to insure that they actually are fulfilling the requirements.

 

To all, I'd love to hear any news of the program being fully used and how they accomplished it.

We have a chapter email list that has 200 members on and we use that to attempt to recruit and educate.Have 35 scoutmasters another group mailing list and use that frequently and send out an OA informational letter to all unit leaders each charter year. We have actually offered people the opportuniy to fullfill there obligation by useing email to get information from and to Chapter.We ask them to attend there PLC to communicate with unit.

Thanks for any input on how we might improve our efforts.

 

 

[Eamonn]

I fear that you are right about your expectations. We have over 100 Troops and while the election thing is working. It is a sad fact that even some of the adults see the OA and the Council as two different bodies. (Yea I know it's not right!!) Many of the Scouts see their membership in the OA as something that is only real or needed at the OA weekends or meetings.

As for the OA helping troops I have never seen it happen and am not sure how it would go about it without stepping on the toes of the Commissioners and the District types!!

I would be interested to hear how you think the OA could or does help troops.

Eamonn.

[wojauwe]

 

One of the traditions we have been able to keep going for the past 6 years or so,is a chapter run merit badge clinic for the district units.It's our first chapter program event of the fall.We pick a non aquatic summer camp merit badge,

when we plan basic calandar for coming program year.I reserve our local cubscout day camp for a day.We promote at beggining of summer letting scoutmasters know

what prerequisites will be needed.

Last year it was pioneering merit badge,this year we are doing Emergancy Preparedness.

It's pretty neat by splitting merit badge into about 6 stations and splitting groups into 6 different rotations,we are able to pull off 8hrs.of intensive classes with small class sizes.It far surpasses most summer camp staff's efforts.

This has helped get our foot in the door with the scoutmasters.More and more of them are seeing us as an asset to them.It's a long struggle we still encounter the

scoutmasters that see us as something sucking their senior boys away.

On the lodge level we have included all scouts in our Lodge Leadership Developement conference.We still have some OA specific classes but we've made the leadership things generic,so we are offering to give leadership training to their youth leaders.

Our chapter runs our Districts Camporree and we work closely with the troops.

Most of our commisioners are OA members(at least from youth)and I talk to as many as I can,had couple ,who'd been lapsed members since youth,reregister and seal their membership with brotherhood conversion. Some of the scoutmasters I trained as WEBELOS leaders or as new scoutmasters.

We are lucky to have fewer political types in our District than what it seems some have the bad luck to be cursed with.There are some but I try to be open and non confrontational and ask them what they need help with.

Because of this relationship I had a scoutmaster come to me talking about his problems with getting adult leadership help.One of our 19yr.olds was able to help the troop by going along on camping trip so that he could have 2 deep leadership

and thus not cancel trip.

Same troop was having trouble getting a committee chair.His commisioner(an active

OA member)helped him recuit a candidate and then we arranged for her to get training from an experianced CC (our chapter's ceremonies advisor).She spent a few monthes going to the other troops commitee meetings and watching the planning

process of a succesfull troop then took that knowledge back.

These are the kind of things I see the OA Chapter as a District service entity,

being able to do better if we can develope a closer 2 way communication with troops.

We have a core who don't see us as competetors and with them it's great.

National launched the Mentor program the year before last,(not sure of year)and these were the types of things they forsaw the program accomplishing.I haven't heard much about the program since class at Conclave that introduced it.

It's taken me 5 years as Chapter advisor to undo some of the aloof eliteism that

was practiced by my predecesor.I just try to always be open and accessable.

It did help that I'd been on district training team for several years before and

had devloped a basic relationship with other District people and the new batch of

adult leaders.

We've had some success but no where near what I'd like to see.

Hey I've even got LDS leaders to rejoin the OA and promote program in their units.Only a couple but it's growing.

You know last year we actually put on an aquatic merit badge we worked with a couple of Sea Scout Ships to offer small boat and sailing Merit badge workshops.

We mostly set that one up and promoted it.The Sea Scouts did most of the work.

So you can see I'm a beleiver in a healthy scouting family who want to see all

members of the family prosper.(Please no Sibling rivalry)

 

[Eamonn]

While I am full of the highest of praises for what your Lodge is doing. I think that I must be missing something.

How is the OA Rep at the troop level involved?

Eamonn

[wojauwe]

The OA unit Rep is supposed to give a 2 way communication between troops and Chapter.Thus letting us know what the strengths and weaknesses of units are.Idealy this would help us direct resources towards units in need.Say there are 2 troops who would like to do a 50mile backtrip but neither has

the people resources to pull it off.If they would combine resources they could do this.

With the input from Unit Reps. the chapter can be a match maker to fill gaps in unit programs.

They can give us ideas of how we can plan our program to best

serve the units in our district.

[Eamonn]

I am not sure what is going on in other lodges. But while we have some adults that are active in the lodge many if not most are like myself. A step or two above "Flap Wearer." Most adults in our Lodge are busy doing what they can serving the youth in the units that they are in or the district. Making time to get to the weekend meetings can at times be really hard.

To be honest in all my time serving at the district level. I have never considered using the OA as a resource.Sure many of the Commissioners are Lodge Members, but when they help a unit I tend to think that they are wearing their commissioner hat.

Apart from a Nature Walk that the Lodge has every year nearly everything else they do has to do with the Council owned camp sites. As we don't employ a full time Ranger a good deal of the time that is put in is in the maintenance department.

Sure there are activities within the Lodge that need to be promoted as well as the work weekends there is the annual banquet,conclaves and NOAC. Some of the officers attend training's. Still the Lodge is seen as a force at the camp and for camping not as a force in the unit or the district.

Please don't think what I'm posting is right. It is just as it is.

I don't think that there is the man power to change this and I'm unsure if the structure is in place. Could be that old fogies like myself need to change their mindset.

Eamonn.

[wojauwe]

Eamonn

I think sometimes this is the problem with the broad audiance

that the forum reaches.The relationship between the chapter/Lodge and the District/Council manifests itself differently from area to area.Even in our Lodge it's different

from chapter to chapter.We have 25 chapters in our lodge and there are probably that many different situations.

My philosophy with our chapter is to encourage an openess and look for different ways we can be an asset in the district.

It's true that what the commisioner is doing is under that hat.But he knows he can come to the chapter with problems because I make it a habit of knowing as much as I can about what is going on and can at the very least know who he can go to for help.

We serve mostly as a communication conduit as a way of helping

units.I have a small core of adults who have served time in their units,trained their replacements and are seeking to

work more at the district level with the chapter.

Most of my time now is spent with chapter,Lodge or section OA stuff now.I've given up my District training team stuff(except for an occasional cooking class)Don't go on troop things much anymore.We have a healthy troop with plenty of adults stepping up to fill gaps.So I have the luxuary of focusing on OA and have a few others in same situation.

I try to make it clear in forums that this is how we do it and

not "how it is done".

I came into the forum fairly recently and responded to a woman

about ordeals,pointing out that she should contact her council offices to get in touch with someone who could tell her the specifics for her Lodge.The other responses I'd seen told her that it was such and such a way(the way of their lodge)or gave her national websites.These were useless for her.Actually my response was useless too,since I hadn't noted the date of her posting.(sorry about the scattered nature of this response)