The Order of the Arrow is committed to providing opportunities for Arrowmen to grow as leaders. One way it accomplishes this is by offering an incredible leadership development seminar that challenges traditional notions of leadership and focuses instead on servant leadership. The National Leadership Seminar, or NLS, continues to teach, inspire, and motivate hundreds of youth each year. The seminar challenges its participants to look both objectively and subjectively at their own leadership styles and to commit to applying what they learn in everyday life.
Following this model, lodges have looked at their own leadership models. How can we, as a lodge, motivate Arrowmen to take advantage of this unique opportunity? How can we, as a lodge, commit to developing opportunities for young leaders to stand in new places and test their own resolutions to servant leadership? The collective lodge reflects often on the precepts it teaches in ceremonies and training sessions. What happens when talking is all the lodge is doing?
Wipala Wiki Lodge, Grand Canyon Council in Phoenix, Arizona, has taken a bold step toward living servant leadership. The lodge has committed to the following, ensuring Arrowmen have the opportunity to experience NLS:
- The lodge is chartering a bus to transport all participants to NLS;
- The lodge is providing fifty (50) full scholarships for NLS participants;
- The scholarships will be focused on units with a low Order of the Arrow presence;
- The lodge will assist the units in identifying those Arrowmen that will benefit from a national training seminar;
- Each participant will commit himself or herself to recruiting two more Arrowmen as participants at the next NLS in the area; and
- The lodge chief will use the travel time on the bus to provide additional program and resources for participants.
Arrowmen take an obligation to endeavor, so far as in their power lies, to be unselfish in service and devotion to the welfare of others. How can your lodge commit itself to providing leadership opportunities to its members?
The above resource was submitted by Wipala Wiki Lodge in Phoenix, Arizona. Wipala Wiki boasts a membership of more than 1400 members. The lodge expects that this program will increase visibility and participation in the Order of the Arrow.
To download the PDF version of this Best Practice, click here.