ScoutingMarch-April 2001



It's All About Service

By Michael W. Michelsen Jr.

The Grand Canyon Council's Wipala Wiki Lodge sets an example for meeting the Order of the Arrow's new goal of an increased level of service to councils and community.

To Zac Shouse, chief of the Grand Canyon Council's Order of the Arrow Wipala Wiki Lodge, "It's All About Service" seemed a logical choice for a program theme for 2000. It reflected a tradition that has helped the lodge earn national Quality Lodge status four consecutive years and, in 1999, capture two prestigious national OA honors. And it reflected the impact of the Order of the Arrow's new national strategic plan, which emphasizes greater service to Scouting.

The Wipala Wiki Lodge represents a large, demographically diverse area with many opportunities for service. Its membership includes almost 2,000 active Arrowmen in 16 chapters, in districts from metropolitan Phoenix to the rural reservations of the Navajo and Hopi nations.

"The Order of the Arrow has always been about service," Zac Shouse said. "But prior to the implementation of the new OA strategic plan, the efforts of our lodge were concentrated mainly in individual chapters and not directed at the council."

The result was "kind of a shotgun approach" to service, he explained. "The job was getting done, but not as effectively or as efficiently as it could have been. Our resources, in terms of manpower and finances, were divided."

The new plan's emphasis on service "not only validates what we were already trying to accomplish with our program, but it gave our lodge and our service efforts a new focus," Shouse explained. "A lot of our recent successes are the result of the vision the plan gave us as well as how we implemented it."

Developing leaders

The new strategic plan's vision is for the Order of the Arrow to be "recognized as Scouting's National Honor Society and an integral part of every council."

The plan calls for OA members to assist their local councils in helping young people better understand and live the Scout Oath and Law, with greater focus on leadership development, membership extension, adventurous programming, and broader service to Scouting and the community.

The council's adult OA leadership says the strategic plan has helped an outstanding lodge become even better.

"The national strategic plan, along with the way we implemented it, did a good job of addressing a lot of important issues," said C. E. (Chuck) Magley, Wipala Wiki Lodge's adviser. "The plan really gave our lodge the bigger picture of what Scouting is about and what it can accomplish."

"Training young men how to be effective leaders and giving them the opportunities they need to develop those skills is an important element in the success of Scouting," said E. Earl (Sonny) Hays, Scout executive for the Grand Canyon Council. "We want OA members to develop their leadership skills, which is why we are careful to make leadership training a joint effort between the best boys in the program and mature, experienced Scouters who are very dedicated to the program."

Developing more capable youth leaders helps individual Scouts and makes troops run better, Chuck Magley noted. The OA "taking a more active role in the council is a blueprint for a better council."

Leadership for troops

"In the past, some Scoutmasters worried that Scouts being actively involved in Order of the Arrow lodge activities could result in a serious drain on troop junior leadership," said Larry Johnson, the council's past lodge adviser.

"They were concerned that once a Scout was elected to the OA and passed his Ordeal, he would either make the lodge program his primary Scouting function, or he would leave Scouting altogether. That concern was a problem that we needed to change."

New lodge members now pledge their commitment to upholding the ideals of Scouting and the Order of the Arrow and to return to their unit in order to pass on to younger Scouts what they have learned about camping, leadership, and advancement. This is considered the first step toward Brotherhood membership (the second and final induction phase of OA membership, achieved after a minimum of 10 months' Ordeal membership service).

"This new program has resulted in an increase in lodge membership of more than 300 members over four years, as well as a 32 percent increase in the number of Arrowmen becoming Brotherhood members," said Johnson. "Scoutmasters have also become much more receptive to the OA program as a result of the new strategic plan."

Service orientation

Members of the Wipala Wiki Lodge pride themselves on a strong service orientation. In their award-winning year of 1999, the lodge carried out more than 127,000 man-hours in service projects.

Their projects involve many areas of Scouting. For example, in 2000 a weeklong Trail to Eagle program was staffed by five youth OA members serving as merit badge instructors, while 18 adult leaders worked as counselors. This course allowed 76 Scouts to earn merit badges needed for their Eagle award.

"This program resulted in better boys returning to their units," said Chuck Magley. "It worked so well that next year we are going to keep the same number of participating Scouts, to maintain the same level of results that we enjoyed this year."

Other activities include an extensive schedule of Ordeal ceremonies, camporees, Scoutoramas, neighborhood cleanups, food and toy drives, landscaping renovations, Halloween safety programs, and coping programs for teenagers. The lodge requires detailed reporting and records for service projects in order to monitor progress, as well as to provide next year's leaders with important information about what was accomplished.

"If councils will commit themselves to the ideals of the new strategic plan, the OA can rise to a new level of importance in Scouting," said Sonny Hays. "It's easy to see why, because Arrowmen represent the creme de la creme of Scouting—more than 35 percent of our lodge membership are Eagle Scouts. Blend those resources with quality adult leadership, and the Scouting program can only win."

Freelance writer Michael W. Michelsen Jr. is an Eagle Scout and a Brotherhood member of the Order of the Arrow.




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