SR-9 Conclave 2021

Greetings, fellow wears of the Arrow!

We hope this finds you well, staying safe, and finding a way to serve others.

Mowogo Lodge participated in the 2021 Section SR-9 Conclave this past weekend at Camp Patten in Lakeland, Georgia. For our newest members, Mowogo Lodge is one of eleven Order of the Arrow lodges that make up our section, SR-9, which covers large parts of Alabama and Georgia. The Conclave is an annual gathering where many of the aspects of the Order of the Arrow are celebrated and shared with brothers and sisters from around our region.

Competitions and evaluations are a tradition at Conclaves and Mowogo Lodge came ready to compete. The Pre-Ordeal Ceremony from our Jutaculla Chapter was recognized as an “Honor Ceremony Team” for their excellent performance. Our members demonstrated some athletic prowess by winning the Ultimate Frisbee and Volleyball tournaments. And, Brothers J.J. Murray and Parker Scott showed their skill in Native American events including specialized dancing.

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Special shout-out to Mr. Kevin Jones, our Lodge Memorabilia Adviser, for developing a “Kim’s Game” for all of the adult advisers from all lodges represented to participate in. Using pieces from his own collection, Mr. Jones demonstrated in a fun way the importance of history expressed through patches, uniforms, and other forms of memorabilia. It was a hit and was well visited. The buttons he made to distribute for those that played the game also were a big item of desire as well. Many thanks to Mr. Jones and all those that worked with him to make this a big part of Mowogo’s presence at the Conclave.

Thanks to all of our members that served as event coordinators, evaluators, and judges including Alex Foster, Jackson Francis, Elaine Foster, William White, Jason Stribling, Britt Bramblett, Steve Back, John Hanes, Victor Keils, and so many others (if I missed someone, please excuse any omission). Special thanks to our Host Lodge, Withlacoochee, for their service. And much appreciation for our Section Leadership who had to do double duty to prepare for a Conclave after a difficult year.

Something historic also happened at this Conclave. Each Order of the Arrow section is run by youth leadership just as each Chapter and Lodge is. Two of our youth leaders stepped up to run for two of the three offices at the Section level and both won! Our Lodge Chief, James Chalmers, and our Lodge Vice Chief of Membership, Jacob Ball, now serve as the Section SR-9 Vice Chief and Secretary, respectively. There have not been many members of Mowogo Lodge that have been elected to a Section office. And there has been only one other time when there were two youth from Mowogo Lodge serving as Section leaders at the same time. That was in 1978 when Jimmy Camp served as the Area (instead of “Section”) Chief and Hubert Harper served as the Area Vice Chief (thanks to Frank Harper for the history!). These outstanding young men will represent Mowogo Lodge at a level beyond our community in Northeast Georgia. I have no doubt they will represent us very well indeed.

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Thanks to all of members that participated and to all of our adult advisers for helping get everyone there and back safe. We can take this very positive event and use it to make our Pre-Camp Fellowship experience for our Ordeal Candidates something meaningful and purposeful. Our lodge leadership is planning to make that goal a reality!

Yours in Cheerfulness,

Rusty Royston
Lodge Adviser, Mowogo Lodge
Northeast Georgia Council, BSA

BSA Medical Form - Conclave 2021

Good afternoon.

If you are planning to come to the Conclave this coming weekend, you will need to have a current (within one year) BSA Medical Form. If you participated in the Spring Induction Event either as an Ordeal Candidate or as a Member working the event, then we should have your form there with us and you do not need to bring one. If you did not participate in the Spring Induction Event, then you will need to bring a completed BSA Medical Form, Parts A, B1 & B2, with you. A blank form is attached for you.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing those of you who are going to be there.

Yours in Service,

Rusty Royston
Lodge Adviser, Mowogo Lodge
Northeast Georgia Council, BSA

Information For Conclave 2021

Conclave2021 LogoFellow wearers of the arrow, Greetings and Salutations!

We hope this finds each of you well, staying safe, and keeping those you are in contact with safe.

Our next major event is our annual Conclave where we will gather with our sisters and brothers from lodges from around Georgia and Alabama. The scuttlebutt is that there will possibly be some current national leadership there as well. After having to go on a sort of hiatus in 2020, it will be good to share time with others who have accepted the obligation to provide leadership and service to our lodges, councils, units, and all Scouts and Scouters.

Here are some details for those of you that will be a part of the Mowogo Lodge contingent at this Conclave for you to prepare for:

First, from our Section Adviser, Brother Greg Moore of Coosa Lodge, are the precautions for keeping other participants and yourselves safe in light of our current public health concern:

  • Each individual is responsible to follow the current local guidelines, socially distance themselves, wash their hands and wear masks as required. A new bath house has been constructed and has individual bathrooms. Each lodge is responsible to manage the COVID declarations each participant is expected to complete and to ensure that their members tent only with close family members.
  • I believe that temperature checks are part of the check in process, so ensure that your members understand that if they have a fever of 100 or more, they should not attend and will be turned away.
  • Meals will be served in clamshells. I am sure that Withlacoochee will have hand sanitizer available. There won’t be enough seating for everyone at one time in the Vulcan Pavilion, but there is room to spread out into other pavilions close by, or bring your own chair and sit under the trees.
  • The amphitheater doesn’t have enough socially distant seating for all registered participants, so bringing your own chairs or planning to stand will be necessary.
  • Bottom line: lodges will need to ensure your members understand the expectations of their participation, and each individual will need to understand that while we are doing many things to mitigate the risk, we cannot eliminate it. Neither the section officers/advisers, nor the service lodge will be policing your members’ behavior. As a general statement, should a concern be brought to my attention about a given lodge’s member(s), I will bring that to the lodge adviser in question to address.

Attached to this email is a “Participant Statement” and a “Covid-19 Pre-Screening Questionnaire” for you to review and use to prepare for this event.

Also, you will need to provide your own tenting and bedding for this event.

No matter what we might personally believe or think about the state of the public health situation we are living through today, as Scouts and Scouters we believe in concerning ourselves with the concerns and beliefs of others. As we share time and space with our fellow sisters and brothers from Georgia and Alabama, please remember that we have dedicated ourselves…

“…to be unselfish in the service and devotion to the welfare of others…”

While there is much to reflect on in that part of our obligation, please take some time and think about how others view you in the course of your daily life. What does really mean to be unselfish, not just when we wear our uniforms but every day? What does it really mean to devote ourselves to the welfare of others? And how can we demonstrate both in relation to the current public health situation with other members of the Order from around our Section? How do we treat others who may not or do not share our exact beliefs? I would say that our responses to these questions may shed light on our understanding of the Scout Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan as well as the ideals of the Order of the Arrow.

If you have signed up for this coming Conclave that is being hosted by the Withlacoochee Lodge that serves the South Georgia Council, please read through these attached documents. There will probably be more information coming soon and we will pass that along as it is shared. If you haven’t signed up yet to come, registration is still open and the cost will be $60 and youu can register here: Conclave | Section SR-9 (sr-9.org). The Conclave will be held at Camp Patten (247 E Burnt Church Rd, Lakeland, GA 31635) and will last from Friday evening through most of Sunday morning.

We expect to have Mowogo Lodge members participating in ceremonies, dancing, and various training presentations. Two of our youth are serving as program chairs for this Conclave so let’s be prepared to support them in these important roles as well. As we deal with the adaptations to be prepared to keep each other and ourselves safe, please practice patience and understanding as we make this journey and share fellowship with others celebrating our traditions and the practice of our shared values.

Yours in Cheerfulness,

Rusty Royston
Lodge Adviser, Mowogo Lodge
Northeast Georgia Council, BSA

Section SR-9 Elections

Greetings, fellow wearers of the Arrow!

As we approach the time for our Conclave, there are several things that help to keep us aware of some of the more important parts of the Order of the Arrow and our traditions. These include ceremony team evaluations, celebrations of native American culture including various dance exhibitions, training of various kinds including Chapter operations, communication techniques, and participating in another level of youth leadership in action and for the coming year. For our newest members, Conclave is a time for gathering with other Scouts and Scouters that have been chosen by others to serve and lead in their units, districts, council, and our section (SR-9) that covers most of Georgia and Alabama.

Mowogo Lodge is one of the largest particpating lodges to Conclaves in our section. We have enjoyed having many ceremony teams, dancers, and youth that have taken on section leadership roles. Two of our own currently serve as committee chairs for the Council of Chiefs for our section. The Council of Chiefs is comprised of elected youth leaders that include each Lodge Chief for each member lodge and three elected positions including the Section Chief, the Section Vice Chief, and the Section Secretary. Any youth arrowman can run for these section-level offices and compete with youth leaders in the Order of the Arrow from around Georgia and Alabama. However, there is a process to qualify for running for a section office.

Attached is the "2021-2022 Declaration of Intent to Run For Section Office." If you are interested in running for and serving as a Section Officer, you must complete this letter and make arrangements to meet with the appropriate individuals to discuss your intent and obtain their signature on this document. This process is critical. If you want to run for a Section Office, you will be representing Mowogo Lodge in the Section and that is something that we all take some pride in. This Letter of Intent must be completed and turned in during the Section Candidates meeting on the Saturday, April 17, at the Conclave.

There are several other opportunities to compete and get involved in at Conclave. If you want to know more, please reach out to your Chapter Chief and any of our Lodge Officers. For our newest members, please consider joining us at this year's Conclave at the South Georgia Council's Camp Patten near Lakeland, Georgia the weekend of April 16-18. Today is the last day to register without a late penalty ($42). After today registration will be $60. You can follow this link: Conclave | Section SR-9 (sr-9.org)

Yours in Cheerfulness,

Rusty Royston
Lodge Adviser, Mowogo Lodge
Northeast Georgia Council, BSA

Springtime for Mowogo

Greetings, Fellow wearers of the Arrow!

We hope this finds you healthy, staying safe, and doing your part to keep others safe.

One year after Spring Fellowship 2020 was cancelled we find ourselves with renewed hope and brimming with enthusiasm. The next two weekends offer a change for Mowogo Lodge from one shared event without a worry of contagion to two carefully planned events. Both will celebrate and honor the best traditions of the Order of the Arrow and specifically Mowogo Lodge. And you will be a part of the success of both.

This weekend Mowogo Lodge will execute a first, an induction-only event solely for providing access for those honored by their Scouting units to join Scouting’s National Honor Society. Our Lodge Leadership have planned this event to meet all appropriate safety protocols to protect all of our Ordeal Candidates and the minimal brothers and sisters needed to ensure a safe and meaningful experience. Currently, we have very close to 100 Ordeal Candidates that have registered for this event. Considering the absence of being able to share time and space together for essentially almost a year now, that number speaks volumes to the viability and vitality of our fellowship and the purpose of our Order.

The following Saturday, March 27, Mowogo Lodge will host another Day of Witahemui like the two Saturdays in May of last year when Mowogo came together to prepare Rainey Mountain to be one of only three camps to try to operate a Summer Camp program in 2020. With all of the traditions of the Order of the Arrow we respect, the culture of service that is deeply ingrained into the spirit of Mowogo Lodge is the envy of lodges and councils around the country. Serving as Lodge Adviser, I have learned that what seems routine and a part of the Order of the Arrow to us: providing service and leadership to our council properties, is not as prevalent in all BSA councils as we enjoy in Northeast Georgia. Word of our two Days of Witahemui in 2020 spread throughout the Order and I have been asked from some outside of our Lodge how that happened. It was another instance where I realized the impact our service has not only in preparing our camps but also the example Mowogo Lodge sets for others to aspire to.

As with other aspects of life, to survive and thrive we must be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome situations that we encounter that disrupt our expectations. While no one wishes to have two separate events, our Lodge Leadership have spent a great deal of time and expended much effort to create both of these events to bring the Black Bear out of its deep and much too long hibernation. For those serving to provide a very meaningful experience for our Ordeal Candidates this coming weekend and for all of you that will participate in providing service and leadership during the Day of Witahemui, thank you. You are Mowogo Lodge. Our very soon-to-be new Ordeal members will be encouraged to attend and serve on March 27 if they are able so they can see by your example what it means to be a member of Mowogo Lodge.

Our Section Leadership is moving forward with planning and preparing for our Conclave to be held at Camp Patten in Lakeland, Georgia on April 16-18. And Mowogo Lodge is planning to be able to hold a more traditional Pre-Camp Fellowship May 14-16. Of course, the plans for both are contingent on the status of public health concerns. So, please do your part to keep yourself and others safe so we can be rid of this scourge and share time and space yet again.

To register for the Day of Witahemui, please follow this link so we can be prepared for the number of members that will be there:

Register for the Day of Witahemui

Stories of how Scouts collected metal scraps during the wars of the early part of the last century to massive service effort provided by the Order of the Arrow to our national parks in the early part of this century, service and leadership are the foundation of our shared purpose. We did not let COVID-19 completely stop us from providing service in 2020. We are beginning to see the light at the end of this tunnel as we work to make both the Spring Induction Event and the Day of Service events we can be very proud of as we look back on this strange and difficult time.

If you are going to be at one or both events, thank you. If you are going to be at only one event, please keep those serving the other event in your thoughts. Both are important and both serve our purpose.

Yours in Brotherhood, Cheerfulness, and Service,

Rusty Royston
Lodge Adviser, Mowogo Lodge
Northeast Georgia Council, BSA

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