Tell us more about the "Order of the Arrow".
Realizing how much info there is about the Order of the Arrow, I'll post the wiki page about it and then add in my own experiences I think it will save space. I don't want to inundate the forum with a giant wall of text.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Arrow
I started in Cub Scouts when I was 7 and stayed active through the time around my being about 23. I am an Eagle scout and I am a Vigil Honor Member of the Order of the Arrow. As such I was very busy growing up. Locally the Order provides clean up service at the summer Scout summer camps, meaning we cleared trails and camp sites, worked on the roads latrines, and basically did anything we needed to do to make sure the camp was ready for summer camp. There were 2 weekends dedicated to this each year and numerous other shorter day trips and such to do work as well. We also helped with unit elections and provided man power or rather boy power to help the council with things such as Cub Scout day camps and Pine Wood derby's.
In short we worked and we worked a lot. We also had a lot of fun also, I primarily was on the ceremonies team, and later on started helping train the new teams and eventually became the adult adviser to the head of the ceremonies. I also was in charge ot the annual banquet for 3 years. The first of which was basically picking the ball up and going with it as I had 18 days to do everything, including find a venue get a caterer and send out the announcements and in the end we had close to 600 people show up. So on top of the work we also learned how to work fast and accurately, if something fell through the cracks we would pick it up and deal with it, generally. Sometimes things do get missed and people don't live up to their word but it happens. I couldn't even tell you why the banquet had fallen apart before I got shouldered with it as in the end it didn't matter. It was taken care of and a big success the same night I was asked to organize the next years.
Responsibility is one of the main things we learned. Boy Scouts teaches you how to be responsible, Order of the Arrow doubles up the teaching and then reinforces it again. Part of one of the ceremonies goes, "Do not put your burden on your fellows shoulder, allow him to take it from you." Part of our responsibilities were to not wait to be asked for help but to offer it before a problem occurred or it became to much for someone.
It's also a focus on leaderships skills as it's youth run with no one 21 or older getting a vote or say in anything. They can only serve in supervisory/adviser positions. Meaning that if something goes wrong it's on the youth and it's also on the youth to fix it. With 5 key position' that are the main leadership of the lodge they conduct the meetings and call for the votes as to use of money, supplies, work hours, basically everything that it takes to run an organization. In the case of the lodge I was in it was roughly 1000 members with approximately 400 active at any given time. So it's a lot to learn how to deal with.
If there are any specific questions or anything I'd be more than happy to answer them as well.
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We could do with the order over here me thinks. Welcome to the forum 
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