Over the summer, four new District Executives joined the Great Trail Council, and one DE switched to a district closer to home.

Seneca District Executive:  Olivia Pilon
Olivia is a Kent State grad and an Ohio native.  Her e-mail address is Olivia.Pilon@Scouting.org, and her Service Center phone number is 234-900-5898.  (PLEASE NOTE:  The 234 area code in not a typo.  Currently, the phone numbers for Service Center personnel is a mix of 330 and 234 area codes.)  And, last but not least, Pilon is pronounced "PIE-lawn."

Moecomdws District Executive:  Jake Jackson
Jake is an Eagle Scout and has a strong background in sales and community involvement.

Arrowhead District Executive:  Jason Pavone
Jason is a native of the Mahoning Valley.

Whispering Pines District Executive:
Stephen DiPaolo
Stephen is an Eagle Scout, a native of the Mahoning Valley, and has a background in advertising sales.

Chippewa District Executive:  Scott Evans
Scott was the previous Arrowhead DE.

Effective 10 June 2019, only 6 months of service as an Ordeal member is required to be eligible to take part in the Brotherhood ceremony.  All other requirements for Brotherhood membership are unchanged.

For a full explanation of this change and all Order of the Arrow membership requirements, visit the Membership page on OA-BSA.org.

National Council has recently completed a major update of BeAScout.org, the BSA's "find a Scouting unit near you" website, and a key element of the "Scout Me In" recruitment campaign.  The update makes it possible for each and every unit in Seneca District to appear on the Web, even if a unit has no website or social media account.

Here's how it works.  BeAScout.org creates a contact page for each unit in its database and a link to go with it -- a link that can be sent by e-mail, shared on social media, and added to other websites.  Using the third choice, each Seneca unit's contact page link has been added to the district website, SenecaDistrict.org.  Links for packs are on the
"Cub Scouts" page, links for troops are on the
"Scouts BSA" page, and links for crews are on the
"Venturers" page.

Since these three program pages are visible to any search engine, anyone searching the Web for a Seneca unit should be able to find SenecaDistrict.org and use the unit's contact page to get in touch.

How exactly are the contact pages linked?  If a unit has a website or social media account, the link is the letter "r" in parentheses next to a unit's number (i.e. (r), which stands for "Request More Information").  Otherwise, the link is the unit's number.

Some Seneca units are storing official BSA forms, from both the National Council and the Great Trail Council, on their website.  These documents include the Youth Application, the Adult Application, and the Annual Health and Medical Record.

No doubt done as a convenience for unit members, this practice should stop.  Instead of storing such forms on a unit's website, it is best to link to the official download pages on National Council's website, Scouting.org, and the Great Trail Council's website, GTCbsa.org.

By linking to the official download pages, your unit will always have direct access to the current versions of official BSA forms.  Forms will never be rejected because they're out of date, and your unit's webmaster won't need to spend any time checking for the latest forms and uploading them to your unit's website.

Links to download pages do change, but not that often.  If a link does change, there's a good chance you'll be automatically redirected to the new page.  If not, at worst, your unit's webmaster will need to update that link.

To save your webmaster time, here are the links to some key download pages:

National Council Forms

The Youth and Adult Applications can be found on this page:
Scouting Forms from the National Council

The Annual Health and Medical Record can be found on this page:
Annual Health and Medical Record

Great Trail Council Forms

GTC Forms can be found on this page:
Council Forms and Resources

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