The 2010 SR-1B Conclave was a blast! I enjoyed getting to know more of our youth and adult Lodge members, and continuing friendships with those I have known for the past few years. This year the Cowikee Lodge took 52 delegates to Conclave! There were 32 youth participant and 20 adult participants. Seeing Camp Binachi?s improvements and the way that they have handled infrastructure upgrades was very interesting. They have a beautiful camp with a beautiful lake and dining hall. For every two campsites there is a modern toilet and shower facility. As I understood it, this was the first time the facilities were used on a large scale basis. The food was very good. I was a bit tentative about the chili on the menu for Friday evening, but it was delicious! The pulled pork for dinner on Saturday was very tasty, and I must confess that I had been waiting all day for that meal since a few of the adults had a sneak peek at the just smoked Boston-butts on Friday.

This Conclave was a learning experience for me. I really enjoyed the classes that I took in the morning. When I first signed up for the classes I did not pay attention to the names of the presenters. My first class was taught by Mr. Honan ? who captured my interest from his opening remarks and left me wanting to hear more. The topic, of course, was the history of OA. I heard stories about the beginning of OA that I had never heard before. I have developed an interest in the history of the sash, or band as it was first called, and Terry had some interesting information to pass on about that topic. I cannot wait for the book to arrive that Mr. Honan recommended.

My next class dealt with the topic of helping our Lodge go "green." We discussed many ideas that we can incorporate to help both the Lodge and our local camps. There were participants from every Lodge and this class, so we heard how they were already doing things at their camp. The biggest concern expressed by all was the cost of going green. The idea that won the day on helping to spread the cost was simply to ask each unit (Troop, Pack, Crew, Team, etc.) to bring specific items with them to help the effort. For our Lodge, it was suggested that we replace the incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs along the walkway between the dining hall and the Council fire ring. If every unit brings a package of the Great Value brand that is the equivalent of a 60-watt bulb, the bulb would be replaced at a cost of less than $6 to the units, and $0 to the camp. The added benefit is that there would be plenty of extra bulbs to change out any other areas that use incandescent bulbs.

Another of my classes was about some pizzazz to our ceremonies. Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner and Harold Turner was standing there ready to facilitate the sharing of ideas. There were some pretty interesting ideas shared, and I hope that some of those will trickle into our ceremonies. If I recall correctly, we are about the only Lodge in our section using a drum in all of our ceremonies, but I seriously doubt that will be the case much longer. Speaking of drums, I went down and spent a little time observing one of the presenters talk about dance styles. Unfortunately, I wanted to observe the judging of one of our ceremony teams, so I had to sneak out a bit early.

Remember I said observe the judging? Well, I ended up in one of the hot seats. Yes, they were literally hot! I had the privilege of reading along in the script to check that the Pre-Ordeal Ceremony Teams hit every word. I found the slightly different styles form the other competing Lodges to be interesting. Each brought something unique to the competition and I really hope that the teams all took home some ideas to help them as they become even better. None of the teams hit every word, even the team that won that competition. In fact, if memory serves, our team missed fewer words than the winning team. The winning team, however, was so polished that without a script you would not have noticed what they missed. Since that team consisted of college-aged Arrowmen, I expected nothing less. By the way, my part in the judging did not contribute to or take away from the scores in any way. My observations were simply for the benefit of the teams. I like that kind of judging!

To tell you that when our team finished that I did not feel some degree of pride would be a lie. I felt the same way about them as I had during their performance at our Spring Ordeal. These guys simply bowled me over both times! Over the past couple of months I have seen some of the inner workings of how our ceremony teams. There is a lot of dedication by the youth members of the team and a lot of support for them from the adult advisors. I would take my hat off to all of them, but I would not want the glare to blind them.

I learned something else during Conclave: if our Lodge wants to place high in every aspect, we have to participate fully in every aspect. For instance, a handful of our members decided to ditch the morning classes. Since we only had 52 members at Conclave, just a few members skipping the classes meant that we had a lower percentage of members trained. The lesson learned here is that when you go to Conclave (or NOAC) as a delegate from the Lodge, you owe it to the other members of the Lodge to do your share to make sure we represent well.

As I walked around the lake at the end of the ceremony team competitions, I saw a massive body of Arrowmen in the game field. There were several types of games going on all at once. I arrived part way through these events and found out that one of the Scouts from my Troop, Jay Hughes, played an important part in helping our Lodge win at tug-of-war! I took a break under the trees and observed other Quest events and they were a ton of fun to watch. I enjoyed watching the volleyball (I think our guys called it utter ball) competitions. About ten minutes into my break, I was recruited to participate in one of the adult events. I think that Ms. BK and I finally found something we could do to represent the adults of the Lodge better than we did in the golf competition two years ago. We still lost, but at least we gave the other guys a run for their money.

The Founders? Festival was simply awesome. It seemed like everyone was out to have a good time, and that is exactly what happened. Our boiled peanuts and rice balloon toss was a hit! With some good natured needling between the participants and our guys running the booth, everyone had a good time. I enjoyed looking at some of the displays of patches and other memorabilia displayed by some of the other Lodges.

Now we all have to take a deep breath and get ready for next year as we host the 2011 SR-1B Conclave Cowclave. We have a lot of work to do to get ready and everyone in the Lodge will be needed to pitch in to help. We have everything from registration, to designing patches, to planning shows, to planning layouts of classes and competition areas, to planning menus and buying food, to ? well you get the picture. If you have a particular area you want to help with, let someone know. I suspect most everyone will have primary and secondary responsibilities as we go forward. With everyone working together, we will be able to put on the best Conclave Cowclave ever known to the Order!