History 1999 - Now
The year 2003 was quite an exciting year for the lodge indeed. Due to some scheduling with reserving all of D-bar-A for the Section Conclave, we had to move the date of the Lincoln pilgrimage to a later part of February, giving a few extra weeks for the new Executive Committee to make plans and get ready for the year. The Pilgrimage went quite well, with over 100 participants coming up for the ceremony and some games that followed.
March of this year was the first ever Philbreak, held at Philmont. This was a program for scouters aged 18-25 who want to go to Philmont for a week and help clean up some of the damage done by fires in the the summers of 2002 at that Ranch. Sam Stocker, who was then Section Chief, was the Program Vice Chief of this Program. He was in charge.
Moving on in the year, the next event in the year was the Spring Conclave. This was a successful event, as all of our service projects throughout the year were. The highlight was the addition of over 100 seats to the Trout Lake Firebowl. We needed to add them because of the highly attended Section Conclave that would follow the next weekend.
Section Conclave 2003 was the next weekend. Some very dedicated arrowmen came up as early as Thursday morning before hand to put the final preparations in place. Highlights of the weekend included a hay ride bus route that encompassed the camp, use of every cabin in camp, use of the new seats at the firebowl, and serving of dinner to over 500 people in under 20 minutes. I ran for all of the section offices that weekend, and lost. Dave Booth, Jr. ended up as Section Secretary. I sure am glad I didn't win the chief spot at that business meeting, because I had a lot more lodge chief-ing to do.
Following Section Conclave was a period for the Lodge to get ready for the coming summer. We had camp chiefs at D-bar-A and Cole Canoe Base, who performed brotherhood conversions, collected dues, conducted Call-Outs, and spread awareness about the Order of the Arrow.
The Fall of 2003 brought a Fall Conclave followed by a Fellowship. These events went well. The Conclave was hosted by Achowalogen with from the Lodge Officers. I served as an Elangomat with Sam Stocker for the Mahican Chapter. At the Fall Fellowship, we had the Vigil Weekend and Lodge Leadership Development Course. It was a busy time to say the least. We called the event the 'Joel Bowl' in celebration of Joel Clements last event as Lodge Adviser.
In November, we began a project called the 'Lodge Executive Board Member Handbook' which was finished in January of 2004, and led to a revision of all the lodge's forms and the lodge Operating Rules and Procedures.
At the Annual Dinner, we had a handsome redesigned program booklet. Also, Section Adviser Bob Sturza and Section Vice Chief Brendan Zanitsch were present. Suprememe Chief of the Fire John Primrose was not present. Jerry Freyberg, Council Director of Support Services took his place, addressing the crowd and installing the newly elected officers. Past Chiefs Dennis Schlemmer and Mike Bien counted the ballots. Jason Rhiew and Jeff Lang were presented with the Harold Oatley Service Award by Bruce Maxim and Ethan Rein respectively. Ethan Rein and Steve Donohue were presented with the Founder's Award by Joel Clement and Mike Ruszala respectively. Jamie White was elected Lodge Chief; Geoff Booth, Executive Vice Chief; Matt Elias, Vice Chief of Activities; Andrej Wialoko, Secretary; Ryan Lang, Lodge Treasurer. Joe Retzbach was installed as Lodge Adviser. He had no lodge experience prior to his appointement, but brought a wealth of scouting and leadership know-how to the job and proved his mettle in the year 2004.
