Well, we’ve arrived – the last installment of my meditations on membership is here! Thank you to everyone who has read these over the last couple of months, and I hope that they have proved engaging, informative, and useful. In this last installment, I would like to talk about activation, particularly some of the opportunities for activation and some strategies that help get Arrowmen to come back after their induction.
Meditation 1: Chapter Meeting Attendance
I’ve often spoken of the chapter as an agent for bolstering election and induction numbers, and I shall once again for activation. Chapters, being the primary point of personal contact at the induction, have the ability to get people to engage with their organizations very early on. By simply forming a personal connection with a new Arrowman and telling them when and where the next chapter meeting is taking place, a chapter chief or officer has laid the groundwork for a new member to be activated.
An important note on having chapters be agents in activation is that chapter leaders must take attendance at their meetings and enter that attendance into LodgeMaster. The process is not difficult, having done it myself with my decided lack of tech savvy. Simply lay out a sign in sheet, encourage people to sign it, and then create an event in LodgeMaster and enter the names on the sheet as attendees. Once the chapter meeting and attendees are entered into LodgeMaster, the new member attendees will count positively toward the lodge’s activation metric in the Performance Measurement Program.
Of course, the sign in sheet has a power in itself, if executed correctly; meaning, if a list of chapter functions (e.g., ceremonies team, unit elections, etc.) is included and members can indicate on the sheet what they would be willing to help with, you can build a contact list off that for each function. This is to further an Arrowman’s experience in the OA, which is the semantic end goal of activation.
So, chapters of G16, please start taking and entering attendance – not just for the lodge, but for your own success as well!
Meditation 2: The Opportunities of Conclave
Naturally, I must also encourage conclave attendance, especially because this is the first fellowship that Arrowmen inducted in the spring and summer can attend. Because of conclave’s auspicious placement, it has the potential to serve as a very formative OA experience for new members. Furthermore, it is an opportunity to build early connections between members of our lodges, which is of vital importance for the section to operate holistically and serve all its members.
Conclave, being filled with unique program areas on a large scale, gives Arrowmen a unique and memorable experience that can get them hooked on OA events. I recall going to my first conclave (back in W-1S) in 2019 at Camp Meriwether, and I had an incredible time not just hanging out with members of my chapter and meeting people from my lodge and around the section, but also because the large scale of conclave made me feel like the world of the OA was opening up to me, and that events like conclave were the ones that I wanted to work toward and contribute to.
Conclave can serve as inspiration, but as I mentioned, I also reunited with people I met at chapter meetings and inductions and met people from my lodge who did not make it to the inductions and people from the then Lo La’Qam Geela and Tsisqan lodges as well. In this way, conclave helped me forge connections to others in the OA, many of whom I still speak with and many of whom were formative in my early years in the OA.
Our section’s conclaves are an opportunity to inspire, connect, and activate new members that few others have, and this opportunity ought to be taken advantage of. You never know, it may be an important point in a young leader’s life that compels them to continue in the OA and Scouting.
Meditation 3: The Current Success of Our Lodges
Finally, I see that, overall, our lodges are going quite well at activating their members. Our lodges get rather high percentages of their membership at their events and they do a great job of promoting their events to entice new Arrowmen to become active in the lodge.
The lodge is really what Arrowmen are inducted into. Lodges run the inductions and the lodge officers are the face of the organization to all candidates during new member orientations and really throughout the induction weekend. As such, it is natural that lodges are in a position of strength when it comes to activating new members. However, I would encourage our lodges to seek to inspire new members, promising not only fun but meaning in lodge events. Emphasize the connections one makes at lodge events, the leadership opportunities in the lodge (this necessitates, of course, making leadership opportunities accessible to new members who show enthusiasm and promise), and any other benefits that we take advantage of in our lodges.
Lodge leaders must seek to build connections with new members and be recognizable and friendly to new members so that they feel they belong at lodge events. Having an outgoing approach to meeting new members helps them feel comfortable in the new environment in the OA; it helps them feel that they have someone to talk to and engage with, even if it is just in passing. This approach also fosters future lodge leaders, as they get to know what lodge officers do, and how they can get to that position themselves, and they will feel comfortable asking how they can get more involved in the OA.
Section G16’s lodges are doing very well, but improvements can always be made, and I think these kinds of cultural shifts would do both of our lodges wonders in engaging Arrowmen and fostering the future leaders of our lodges.
Thank you for reading this! I hope that you found it interesting and useful, and I urge you to reflect on your own experiences in your lodges, chapters, or even at conclave and think of how these entities can better facilitate activation. Good luck, my brothers, in your ongoing efforts in elections, inductions, and activation, and I look forward to seeing our section’s continued success this year!
Yours in everlasting brotherhood,
Reece Lewallen
Section G16 Secretary