Western Region Realignment Announced

Posted: August 14, 2008 by Kevin Renfrow

The Western Region of the Order of the Arrow has been affected by the recently announced plan by the Western Region BSA to reorganize councils into new geographic areas. This is a very exciting time for the Region as this reorganization will allow us to better serve the Boy Scout program.

The Region has experienced many changes, but the region and section leadership is ensuring that everything transitions as smoothly as possible.

The most noticeable of these changes is the realignment of our current areas and sections across the region. Every section except for one will experience change. Some sections will lose lodges and some will gain; for some these changes will be small, and for others the changes will be very significant. After the realignment we will increase the total number of sections from 12 to 14 which will be contained within 6 physical Areas rather than 4 previously.

The following changes are effective immediately for sections which have completed their 2008 conclave.

Please note that the section designations used above are temporary and will be replaced with permanent designations in the near future.

Because sections are being realigned, the section leadership will need to adapt to these changes.

• Section officers will serve in the position in which they were elected in the new section that their home OA lodge is assigned. Their term of office will be until the next conclave.
• Sections that still need to complete their 2008 Conclave will proceed as planned with conclave. This includes normal elections with all current lodges participating. Youth from any lodge in the current section may run for office regardless of the status of their lodge at the end of the conclave. However, no youth shall use the reorganization as part of his platform for office and it is the responsibility of the Section adviser to ensure adherence to this policy. At no time should the reorganization remove the opportunity for a youth to run for office or vote as provided in the Field Operations Guide.
• A special Council of Chiefs with appropriate advance notice will be held to elect officers for any vacant offices which may be caused by the reorganization. The process will be similar to filling a vacancy caused by election to a National office as provided by the Field Operations Guide. All elected Section Chiefs (through conclave election or the Council of Chiefs election) will be invited to Texas, may run for national office, and serve on a NOAC committee.
• In some cases sections will have co-chiefs, co-vice chiefs, and/or co-secretaries. They will share the duties in that capacity until the 2009 Section Conclave of the new sections.

Section Advisers and Section Staff Advisers will be appointed by the Area Directors in consultation with and concurrence by the Region OA Chairman and the Region OA Staff Adviser.

A listing of the Section Chiefs following realignment and newly appointed advisers is listed below. It is the responsibility of the chief and adviser to confirm current vice chief(s) and secretary(s) in a given section.

The full text of the Western Region Section Reorganization plan (including Section/Lodge assignments, Section Chiefs and their new sections, Section Adviser appointments, a detailed Action Plan for implementation, and a map of the new sections) is available for download.

These changes are exciting and are going to take the efforts of all of us to ensure that the transition goes smoothly.