[19853] in APO-L
Thanks and Service to America
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Settummanque, the blackeagle - Mik)
Sun Jan 3 01:17:58 1999
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 01:20:02 -0500
Reply-To: "Settummanque, the blackeagle - Mike L. Walton" <blkeagle@MNINTER.NET>
From: "Settummanque, the blackeagle - Mike L. Walton" <blkeagle@MNINTER.NET>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Fellow Brothers!
I want to take a couple of lines or so and thank my host, Howard
Wolf, for his invite and serving as my host during my visit to this
year's National Convention here in Minneapolis. Since I wasn't a
delegate, nor could serve on the staff, I had to be invited as a
guest of a delegate or staff member to attend several of the
breakout sessions.
I asked to sit in on and be a part of several service sessions as
well as the Scouting Relationships sessions. My brother/wife Jessi
and I were also invited to attend (me in my Scouting uniform) the
Banquet, but I had to turn it down due to our really busy
scheduling this period.
Thanks, Howard! I'm glad we finally met after all of these years!
I also want to thank Dave O'Leary for allowing me to contribute to
his Scouting sessions during this years' Convention. As always,
any time I go and participate in something dealing with our
Fraternity or within Scouting, I learn something new and can add to
the education of other Brothers and others out there!!
Dave and I talked for a couple of minutes after his last session
about the Service to America program and how it would affect the
BSA's Order of the Arrow program. We didn't discuss it during the
session (both of us thought the other would bring it up!), but 1999
will be the year in which the BSA's Order of the Arrow (it's
national service organization) will be contacting individual Cub
Scout, Boy Scout/Varsity Scout, and Venturing units and getting
them to work on service projects in their communities.
The Order of the Arrow has been tasked by the BSA to serve as lead
for the BSA's Service to America national emphasis, which at it's
highlight this year, will involve every local Council in doing
service projects aimed at the community at large instead of just to
the local Council's camping program or to the Council camp(s).
This is something *new* to the Order of the Arrow, as Dave and I
talked after the session. The Order of the Arrow (OA) doesn't
really know how to do this kind of leadership, and that's where WE,
as a organization and individual chapters in particular, can come
into play.
WE are the "experts" on service to the community and to various
publics within those communities. Now is the time to share what we
know about managing and organizing service projects with the BSA's
OA so that they in turn can coach individual Scouting units on
appropriate service projects to benefit their communities. We can
do a lot of good in not just advising OA Lodges and their
leadership on good service opportunities, but also in promoting the
Fraternity as more than what one participant during one of the
sessions stated "than where Eagle Scouts come to do more service."
Make a point this year, Chapters, to approach your local OA Lodge
or chapter and make them aware you're there to support them and to
help them to meet the challenge of providing service to our
communities!
Always a Brother, Available to Lead, and Ready Always for Service,
Settummanque!
(c) 1998 Mike Walton ("no such thing as strong coffee,...") blkeagle@mninter.net
http://mninter.net/~blkeagle Burnsville, MN 55306-7130 (612) 435-3085
privately at kyblkeagle@aol.com or waltonm@server.kaiserslautern.army.mil
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