Coosa Lodge, WWW

This week, the lodge last another valued brother. Mr. Alec Cameron of Shelby County died Monday at his home. Mr. Cameron has been devoted to his chapter and lodge, providing leadership to restart the chapter in Shelby District. Under his advisership, this chapter was renamed Muscogee, a chapter totem was approved by the LEC, and active membership has increased. He was honored with the Vigil in 2007. His Vigil name is translated to mean reliable, respected elder - a true depiction of his character.

Funeral services will be held today, Thursday November 13 at Ridout’s Southern Heritage Funeral home in Pelham at 1 PM. The family requests that any memorial gifts be made to the Boy Scouts of America or the American Heart Association. Please keep his wife and family in your prayers.

Mr. Cameron’s warm and friendly face will be missed by the entire lodge.

Last weekend, November 7-9, over 10,000 scouts and scouters converged on the In-field of the Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, AL. Many of the staff members proudly displayed their Coosa Lodge flaps on their shirts and many even wore their OA sashes. The lodge directly provided a Service Corps that saw to general logistics and program needs of the Encampment ranging from directing traffic to setting up the Arena stage. An OA Indian Village orchestrated by the lodge Native American Events staff allowed any participant to learn a little about American Indian culture and dance. We were pleased to welcome members of Aracoma Lodge of the Black Warrior Council who came to assist with the OA Indian Village. Coosa Shows oversaw the entire Encampment Shows Committee - including the Arena Show.

Every area of staff was truly grateful for the cheerful service that our brotherhood provided. 

Thanks to everyone who helped make this event so memorable by providing cheerful service! Our next large-scale service project will be the inaugural Hawk Corps 50 in February at Camp Tranquility. Check the website in the coming months for more information.

Check your calendars, folks … the 2008 Scout Encampment at Talladega Superspeedway is this weekend!  This will be the largest Scouting event in the nation for 2008 and will have plenty of things to do for Scouts and Scouters of all ages.

Coosa Lodge is geared up to provide a Service Corps to help ensure that everything runs smoothly.  If you’re interested in helping, head over to the 2008 Encampment info page and find something that piques your interest!  If you’re not sure where to help, don’t worry — we’ll find somewhere for you to serve cheerfully!

If you need a “Get Out of Jail” note for school, we’ve got you covered.  Download the letter from Col. Jackson (click here) to school administrators asking them to excuse full or partial absences on Friday.

The current forecast from the National Weather Service calls for rain on Friday, clearing in the afternoon.  Other than that, we should stay dry … just don’t forget your jacket!  We’ll see temperatures down into the 30s on both nights.

Finally, for those of you who live and die by your GPS, we’ve scouted out the lat/lon for the main track entrance: N 33.579507, W 86.069416

If you have any questions, feel free to contact our Lodge Chief, Will Jackson, or our Lodge Adviser, Col. Kent Jackson.  You can find their contact info on the Leadership Roster.

See you at the track!

Brothers, today will mark a milestone in this history of our democracy.

Please, take the time out of your day today to visit your polling place and cast your ballot.

In the past, we have provided a letter to school administrators asking that Lodge members be excused for special events (Conclave, Encampment, NOAC, etc.) and have had many requests for a similar excuse for the upcoming Encampment.

Ask and ye shall receive! The form is a .pdf file, so you’ll need Adobe Reader or an equivalent application on your PC. For more info on .pdf files, click here.

2008 Encampment School Excuse Letter

2009 will be an exciting year for the Coosa Lodge. One of the many great fellowship opportunities is the National Order of the Arrow Conference. Next year, 5,000 Arrowmen will converge on the campus of Indiana University on August 1-6. There will be great arena shows, thousands of patch traders, the Naitonal OA Museum, dance competitions, drum competitions, ceremony evaluations, Founders’ Day spectacular including a parade, training, SCUBA, The Outdoor Adventure Place, fellowship with brothers from every lodge across the country and much more!

This year, our section has challenged our lodge to bring 90 Arrowmen! Come be a part of this amazing event. For more information, checkout the NOAC page of the website. Be sure to send in your form soon or stop by our booth at Encampment!

The Greater Alabama Council will be hosting an Encampment at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, AL on Nov 7-9. As part of our mission as a service organization dedicated to our council and local units, the Coosa Lodge will be providing a Service Corps!

This year, the Service Corps is organized so that Arrowmen can attend with their unit but still provide service. To find out more about various projects that the lodge will be involved in, check out the Encampment page of the lodge website. To sign up for a shift, please contact Kyle McInnis at vcservice@coosa50.org.

This past weekend, a group of 9 Arrowmen met at Camp Comer to build 14 new tent platforms.  These platforms will be used with upgraded tents, which be in several campsites at Camp Comer for the 2009 Summer Camp season.

Four youth (Micah Gilliland, Chris Bright, Jacob Murphree, and Glen Houston) and five adults (Mr. Daniel Wright, Mr. Manual Gilliland, Mr. Ed Gray, Mr. David Murphree, and Mr. Terry Wagner) contributed a total of 54 hours of work.

Congratulations to these Brothers on a job well done!

It happened quietly, but the Section SR-9 website is now alive and kicking at http://www.sr-9.org/.  Congrats to the SR-9 web team on a great-looking site!

Brothers,

This weekend was a great success! Many thanks to Stephen Hayes and Mr. Don Russell and all who were involved in planning this successful event. It was a great way to conclude our 8th year as a lodge. Congratulations to the 2008 officers for a great year. Now it is time to get ready for an awesome 2009! Congratulations to all of our new lodge officers:

• Will Jackson, Lodge Chief
• Kyle McInnis, Vice Chief of Service
• John Bishop, Vice Chief of Administration
• Joseph Rush, Vice Chief of Communications
• Patrick Hayes, Vice Chief of Fellowship
• Kyle Dotson, Vice Chief of Inductions
• Stephen Hayes, Vice Chief of Native American Affairs
• Will Cole, Vice Chief of the North
• Davis Faulkner, Vice Chief of the South

Col. Kent Jackson also began his tenure as our Lodge Adviser during the event. The Lodge benefited greatly from the leadership and direction of Mr. Greg Moore but will also be looking forward to the experienced advisership of Colonel Jackson!

Congratulations to all new chapter officers! This year much of our lodge activities will be centered around our 14 chapters. We have an exciting new year ahead of us so jump on board and get strapped in! If you are interested in serving as a lodge committee chairman, please contact Will Jackson ASAP.

If you have not yet signed up to attend Conclave or National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC), be sure to do so soon. Forms are available in the forms section of the website. Follow the instructions on each about where to mail them. We have a limited amount of time to submit our number of participants to national and the section. If you have not yet signed up to help with Conclave by serving on staff, be sure to contact me or Mr. Greg Moore at conclave@coosa50.org.

Don’t forget about the work day at Camp Comer on Saturday, October 4! We will be putting together more tent platforms for Conclave and summer camp. Lunch will be provided by the lodge in conjunction with the Cub-Haunted staff work day.

If your chapter does not have a webmaster and you are interested, please contact your chapter chief and the Coosa Web Team.

GET READY FOR A GREAT NEW YEAR IN COOSA!