NEXT Challenge

NEXT: A New Century was an event unlike any other national Order of the Arrow event in the
past century. It highlighted three main points: Innovation, Membership, and Program; three
main areas where we, as an organization, struggle with in serving our members.
There are three Phases in the NEXT Challenge. All of them happen simultaneously, starting
when you return home from Indiana University. However, at six, twelve, and eighteen months
following NEXT, there are Checkpoints where you look at what you’ve done, and how you can
pivot from where you are, to where you want to be along the path of correcting the issues and
problems in your lodge.

As you complete this workbook, be sure to use SMART goals. Simply stating that your lodge
needs to improve its brotherhood conversion rate won’t get your lodge very far. Stating that
your lodge wants to improve the rate by X% in (time frame), by using x, y, and z strategies will
help you exponentially more.

Simply attending NEXT: A New Century does not make one a better leader; you will not return
home to find your lodge magically transformed into the most successful and operational
group in the Order of the Arrow. Improvement and success require hard work and dedication.
NEXT provides delegates with the tools and resources to effectively implement change back
home in order to provide successful improvement. The NEXT Challenge is a post-NEXT opportunity
for you, the delegates, to apply the concepts learned during the conference back in
your lodge. With any great endeavor, you are never “finished”; stagnancy can be the death of
any dynamic and vibrant group. As the Order of the Arrow, we are never finished achieving the
NEXT level. We are never finished reaching that NEXT summit. We are never finished working
to accomplish the NEXT challenge. For us to continue to grow as an Order in our second century,
we must ask “What’s NEXT for our lodges and our program?”

Understanding the Challenge and how the NEXT trainings can assist you as you progress
through the Challenge is important to achieve successful results. To ensure that each lodge
leaves NEXT with ideas in place to begin work towards the Challenge, you are REQUIRED to
submit one copy per lodge contingent of the following worksheet before entering the Closing
Gathering. Please carefully consider the Challenge and review the information with your
contingent to complete the worksheet which will serve as the foundation your lodge will work
from in the next 18 months in completion of the NEXT Challenge.

NEXT Challenge Workbook Submissions

You can submit pages 18-22 of your NEXT Challenge workbook by sending it as an attachment to webmaster@oa-bsa.org with the subject “NEXT Challenge Workbook Submission”.