I hope you all had a wonderful, fun, and safe Holiday season. It has been a success-ful year and O-Shot-Caw is now ready to take on 2012 and the new Journey to Excellence set forth by the OA National Committee. Reflect-ing on the recent however. We recently held or attended some successful events like Haunted Forest and Section Seminars.

On October 22, 2011, at the Heron Preserve in Markham Park, the O-Shot-Caw Lodge held our annual Haunted Forest, one of the largest service events in scouting. Over the course of a day, Arrowmen put together a massive display to entertain Cub Scouts and families across south Florida. The 2011 Haunted Forest was ex-tremely successful due to all of the hard work and dedication from the brothers of O-Shot-Caw Lodge. Our lodge raised an astonishing $21,000 to support the Joseph Aaron Abbott Campership Fund! This helps to make it possible for scouts with financial needs to attend summer camp.

Following the Haunted Forest, O-Shot-Caw Lodge attended the Sec-tion S4 Seminars. It was a chilly weekend, but still very fun. The weekend was hosted by Echockotee Lodge and they did an excellent job running the event.

It is that time of year to pay your annual dues! Please log on to www.o-shot-caw.org and renew your commitment. Just around the corner is the Winter Ordeal, at Camp Everglades on January 4-6, followed by a lodge presence at the Lincoln-Marti Camporee on January 20-22, and an Indian Village display at Scoutmaster’s Camporee on February 17-19. I can't wait to see you all out there! It is my pleasure to announce that the O-Shot-Caw Lodge #265 is a National Quality Lodge for 2011! This is an outstanding achievement for our lodge; it is something we aim for because it is the vision the Order of the Arrow has for Brotherhood, Cheerfulness, and Service.

It has been an extraordinary year for us. I have enjoyed serving as your chief and I look forward to continuing that service in 2012.

Jonathan Yost
O-Shot-Caw Lodge Chief

On December 17, 2011 O-Shot-Caw Lodge hosted the 42nd Annual Vigil Honor Breakfast. It was held at Wolf Lake Park where the weather was outstanding for the breakfast and fellowship. This year the past and current Scoutmaster’s Camporee Chiefs who are Vigil brothers, kindly volunteered to cook for the event and it was delicious. The breakfast brings together Vigil Honor members from our Lodge, once a year, to see old friends, catch up on what everyone is doing, and enjoy a morning of fellowship with some of the most spirited brothers of our lodge since its be-ginning. Some of the best parts of the event are hearing the Year in Review from our Lodge Chief and listening to our fellow brothers give their Vigil name, the year they received it, and what they’ve been up to. It was especially great with about 100 brothers in attendance including 11 Past Lodge Chiefs and new South Florida Council President Mark Antonelli.

We started the breakfast a little later in order for everyone to get an opportunity to have more fellowship with one another. The O-Shot-Caw Lodge Vigil Breakfast is a long-standing tradition that was started by our first Lodge Adviser, Hal Hollis, and is still continued today. Looking forward to next year!

On November 11th Arrowmen from all across the state headed to the 2011 Section S-4 Seminars in Hawthorne, FL, hosted this year by Echockotee Lodge at Camp Shands. There we had the opportunity to learn and grow as brothers and leaders by attending high quality training seminars lead by some of the best trainers in our Order and meeting withAr-rowmen from all around Florida.

Several O-Shot-Caw brothers were asked by the section to assist with training; William McKinley taught “Building a Great Chapter”, Lenny Schrager lead a discussion called “So You Wanna Be a Ceremonialist”, and Frank Gamez (the Tweet King himself) provided information regarding “Social Media and the OA”. Other classes were of-fered regarding topics such as Best All Around Lodge, Quality Lodge, Grass and Fancy Dancing, and OA High Adventure. The evening climaxed with the Native American Pow-Wow and Patch Auction. Some of the top bidding items were from our lodge, such as the SummitCorps Delegate Flap, the Indian Summer Patches, and the O-Shot-Caw “Pinks”, which were patches that helped raise funds for breast cancer awareness.

In addition to the training provided, lodge key 3 leadership gathered for a Council of Chiefs to discuss important section, region and national infor-mation. Thanks always to our chief Jonathan Yost for always representing us well on the section stage!

What do you get when you combine bone-chilling thrills with cheerful service? O-Shot-Caw’s
annual Haunted Forest, of course! All proceeds from this event go to the Joseph Aaron Abbott Campership Fund – a charitable program that gives camping scholarships to Boy Scouts who can’t afford the cost of attending summer camp. In 2010, the Haunted Forest raised about $20,000 in support of Scout camping.

This year, the lodge spiced up the event by adding a pumpkin patch and a costume contest to the traditionally provided “haunted” trail and carnival style midway games. The new pumpkin patch sold over 50 pumpkins that night! Participants also had the opportunity to guess the weight of a giant pumpkin, conveniently weighing in at 305 pounds. There
were also many unique themes on the trail that O-Shot-Caw’s chapters created, ranging from zombies to Edgar Allen Poe to Fairy Tales Gone Wrong and even Tron! There are also midway games that chapters create and staff to provide amusement for Haunted Forest guests prior
to and following their journey down the trail. Some of the games were as simple as the classic “Guess what’s inside” to trying to make a goal with a hockey stick. In other words, our chapters created and executed an outstanding array of highly creative ideas this year, and all of our work certainly paid off; our lodge was able to donate the sum of $21,000 to the JAACF fol-lowing this year’s Haunted Forest. This year the Elgixin Chapter did a great job cooking for all the volunteers. Elgixin also manned the Heron Grill on Saturday night, providing ham-burgers, hot dogs, chips and more to guests and Ar-rowmen alike. Paldani Chapter also did an amazing job assisting with registration and attending to the “customer service” needs of the attendees. On Saturday night at 7 p.m. the trail opened to visitors and saw a continuous flow of foot traffic all the way until close at 10 p.m. In that 3 hour time span, hundreds of people - Cub, Boy, and Girl Scouts, community leaders and families - all walked the trail and had an absolute blast. After the trail closed the chapters began tearing down their individ-ual section twice as fast as they went up; by noon the next day, no one could tell that such a huge event had taken place over the past 48 hours, as our Arrowmen are true pacesetters in cleanliness and out-door stewardship. A big thank you to R.J. Hickman, the 2011 Haunted Forest Chairman, and his Adviser Matt Kinsey, for leading our lodge to the best Haunted Forest in recent history! Now, the question on everyone’s mind has to be: “Who will win the Golden Pumpkin?” Find out in March at our annual Lodge Banquet!