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Flawed assumption: not all crews have an “outdoor adventure program.” Nor should they. A crew’s program goals may very well clash with the objectives of any of the nearest troop. E.g., the crew might seek to master pistol marksmanship. Also flawed. My crew was the most vibrant when it wasn’t being feed by a troop. It had a tangible purpose when non-scouts were in the mix, especially as leaders. Regarding an older scouts’ patrol/leadership corps/venture patrol, I challenge anyone to float it by your scouts to see who wants to start one now and see if it sticks. I foresee good things in store for @Cburkhardt’s leadership corps.

For my youth Venturing was a safe space to get away from all of the advancement chatter. A Venture Patrol does nothing for the relationships between 15-17 year olds and 18-20 year olds. Youth will leave BSA to pursue those associations. Merging with Exploring, IMHO, offers the greatest potential. All crews become posts. Harmonize award as needed, increase mobility between career exploration and the activities in venturing, have fun.

Too lazy to find the link to one of my earlier posts, so I’ll retype: An Italian exchange student in my crew was trying to get up to speed with translating her scouting experience into ours. Among the terms that perplexed her: “scouter.” Because, she said, “You know, once a scout, always a scout.”

If I were that scout, I’d ask DEC for the claws that poked my bag!

This . A very key point of venturing was our ability to take the senior venturer and say: "Hey, we've given you the skills. Consider starting a troop or a pack." Or, "This troop needs an adult leader for a weekend trek. You've got that Ranger award. Want to be the hike-master's #2?" Or, "Get together with your fellow council officers at a location of your choice, brainstorm, and at next meeting we'll discuss implementing the next big Council/Area/Region/National event." Or, "Write an article for the council newsletter about the last event." (The council wouldn't publish it because the SE wanted to dedicate more space to pitching summer camps. In other words, we could give an 18-20 y.o. tremendous autonomy to run program across districts and councils. But, regardless of the YP stats, letting that happen in this litigious environment is a huge liability to BSA. I'm afraid that until someone is able to underwrite that liability, youth will seek leadership opportunities in other organizations.

Those were the titles of my graduate courses, in that order.

Why should being removed from your committee responsibilities bother you? Your boys decided to relocate to another troop. You can now do so without there being any formal obligation to the committee on your part. The downside of posting your complaint on a forum like this, is that everyone can read it. It is likely that we will soon get a reply to this thread from a member of the troop stating that the situation has been misrepresented, and the actual issues are being handled with discretion by the committee. It doesn't matter. You can move on with little to lose. You won't be forced to stay in a troop with what you have concluded is a toxic atmosphere. And you can do so knowing that you've done your due diligence.

And if the horse has been rotting on the ground for a year, you’re allowed to flail it! Did we do something in another thread that needs us to be reminded?

On the bright side, we've all gained skills in remote connection. I think that means that there's real potential for better youth-facing tools for youth protection, and possibly a better way to multiply adult resources. So, here's a how-to: Develop publicly accessible youth-protection and youth-development resources that directly communicate barriers to abuse as they may occur in and around the venturing program. This must necessarily include youth forums and safe-space for reporting and delivery of psychological and legal aid.

Anointing parents of scouts as crew leaders is absurd on in face (and I say that as an advisor who had 2 of his 3 kids enroll while also in a troop). Across the bridge and tunnel* from me were two phenomenal a an advisors one who only had daughters and another who matriculated from a crew (no kids at the time). The latter woman out-shined me in every way, partly because she was brought up in a crew with young advisors who expected youth to train to be future advisors. About half of the crews in our council were led well by people who didn't have kids or whose kids weren't in scouting. The fact is, parents of youth in this age range are scrambling working extra hours to save up for fees in other activities and college tuition. That makes for a terrible time in life to be a good advisor, and as @Eagle94-A1 indicates, compared to 5 years ago, crews now need an exponential amount of time from beleaguered adults. Let's also not discount that some very competent adult advisors and/or committee died or became disabled via the pandemic. Other's (including some on these forums) have needed to commit their time and talent addressing it. (Even I took on a side-gig for my pandemic guy.) These are typically the kinds of people who make outstanding advisors, and they have less free time. *Bridges and tunnels are Pittsburgh measurements of space-time.

My observation is that my high school age kids benefited greatly from being in fellowship with college age youth. So I see no point in changing the age range from the current one.

@Cburkhardt the one striking omission: older youth -- especially 18-20 year olds -- do not need a pair 21+ year old adults of the appropriate sex to meet and plan adventures. They would rather risk (or perhaps are ignorant of the risks of) the potential abuse inherent in meeting on their own in the absence of adults (or in the presence of just one adult of the opposite sex), and bring in, as needed, the occasional adult based on his/her qualifications to supervise their activities of interest. IMHO, this, above all other things, undercuts BSA's ability to fashion venturing into the umbrella program that it once was. In the face of that, these other items are immaterial, but could go a long way to recognizing venturing as a viable "next step" for many scouts: Advancement is immaterial. My guess is about 0.1% of youth in this age range are interested in obscure awards. I don't think ALPS is discouraging to youth, but I do think it lacks appeal because of the lack of connection to American scouting. The dissonance in award names is a huge problem. I believe First Class Venturer, Star Venturer, Life Venturer, and Eagle Venturer would convey real value to anyone with a scouting background. Along those lines venture scout rolls off the tongue way more easily than venturer. Finally, program should be identifiable with only epaulets on the standard BSA field uniform shirt: a color for cubs, a color for scouts BSA, and a color for Venturers. Epaulets for persons in both programs should have combined colors. Basically, the obsession with branding differently will have to end.

Exploitive teachers are nothing new. The issue is what schools are doing to screen out such teachers. Schools that are under the auspices of a larger organization may face legal action similar to BSA. How likely that is depends on the wealth of the organization.

@5thGenTexan, I agree with @Eagledad. A couple of MB’s and mastering basic scout skills is a great start. I’m told that down your way, maximizing time swimming is essential to beat the heat. For my family, who spends a lot of time on water, those instructional swim periods took a load of of my mind.

No, the image means we give everyone the tools needed to pick the maximum number of apples so that the cobbler gets in the dutch oven before nightfall. It's about free markets, pure and simple. It means some people get a lake, others a pool, others travel to a nearby park/college with qualified supervision, but all learn how to forestall death.

Again, equality is "everybody goes to Jambo." However that event is not merely some prize for scouts with a fortune ... If your scouts agree that your troop would be best represented at Jambo by a scout with little means, then yes the equitable thing would be to support him/her. The expectation should be that that scout would more likely return with enthusiasm and novel ideas to benefit his/her fellow scouts. More importantly, if one of us only had $500 to spare for jambo, and there was a potential ASM who was qualified but limited in funds to go, equity dictates we give what we have to make sure our scouts are tended to by who we trust the most.

You are describing "true" equality. Not equity. Equity is: our camp only has a lake. But a qualified supervisor can safely arrange an aquatics area so that scouts can still master aquatics in order to forestall death and -- as a byproduct -- earn aquatics awards.

We got swamped with new scouts. Enthusiastic ones. So much so that they are recruiting their buddies. Nice problem to have, but the NSP is getting an increasingly wider spread in advancement to scout rank and beyond. I told the PLC that they have until the end of the month to distribute this dirty dozen (now baker's dozen) into their respective patrols. That way they can start drilling with the guys who will be in the tent next to them at summer camp, and the Troop Guide and fall back into coaching the few who haven't made Scout Rank yet. Still, we're continually flexible. And if eight 1st-years want to be their own patrol, we'll support it.

You've revised the definition of equity. Equity does, in fact, take into account that some of us came into the world with an inability to give "it the old college try." For example, when I was getting manipulated by my school district to pay more taxes than my neighbors did because I had just arrived and lacked the privilege of a lower home assessment due to a rising market, I could ask for an equitable decision in spite of the letter of law that was written in favor of long-time residents of the district. The judge saved me thousands. Equity lets someone who has come lately to the game take their swing. Not merely because seasoned players might have an unfair edge, but because the newbie might bring something to bat that could be a blessing to us all who love free markets. My point: scouting teaches boys how to find equity (in the plain English sense of the word) ... for themselves and others.

@MattySchnides, welcome to the forum. We don't give fundraising $'s to council. We do let a representative come and pitch FoS to our parents at a local CoH.

@Tired_Eagle_Feathers, it seems that people have forgotten plain English. From Webster ... That's from the online version which is an oversimplification, so from the Collegiate Version (1980, omitting #2 for the sake of brevity) ... Anyone who has ever been accused of so much as a parking ticket hopes for an equitable judge. In our county's perverse system of taxation, I've relied on a judges equity more than once. (Which eventually translated into home equity ... which is #3 in the definition.) How dare I expect to walk into court and expect equity? Well ... In college, a judge who was invited to speak to our Sunday school told us that from the bench he owed defendants and plaintiffs both justice and equity. A few years prior to that, my troop took a day hike to the county court house and met with our judge, the sheriff, and a few other public officers. In other words, I strongly encourage your scouts to learn plain-English definitions of equity -- from people who have to meet it out when our fellow citizens might be facing cold justice -- and proceed from there. (A bonus would be if you can find a nice camping spot in reach of the magistrate's office.)

I hate being thrown back into the Cold War and catching up on reports like Dad scoured the paper every evening. However, I found this young veteran to be refreshing and educational. Here he devotes the first half of his blog explaining the patrol method US NCO corps. File: why we do what we do.

A roof over our heads and place to store our stuff without charging rent! If we have that, we’re happy. Our boys keep the place tidy and when asked will do some heavy lifting (as in getting the old linoleum tile off the floor). Maybe folks call the latter a service project … around here we call it ‘redding up’. They run a food pantry and we collect for it. We also participate in scout Sunday service. The CoR makes sure her chore night is on our meeting night and drops by to chat regularly. It would be nice to arrange a meeting with the institution head the CoR, CC and yourself. If that doesn’t happen, make sure you touch base with the most significant person in the organization: the janitor. The boys need to know everything that needs to be done to keep the building in perfect condition. That starts at the janitor’s closet and works outward!

Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you’ll do for the youth!

Also, do you or your friends or family have a big old field nearby that a troop may camp on? Naming a few weekends where you might be available to go there with the troop could be a great way to provide everyone options. But don’t just think about camping. Our schedules are booked for this month, so we can’t fit an overnight in. The SM, however, is conditioning for a hiking club challenge, so we’re planing a meet-up at a local park to accompany him on one of his warm-up hikes. Memorial Day is coming up fast. Maybe there are ceremonies you all could be in. There are certainly cemeteries where flags might still need to be put up or markers need to be cleaned. If you’re from my hometown, I’d be deeply touched if a stranger left a small wreath at my dad or aunt’s and uncle’s marker. I have a friend who does that with her kids for a different marker every year and it warms my heart. At the very least, you all could walk around town to learn about any memorials you may have. Obviously, I’m using this by way of example. But, if there’s something close to your and your scout’s heart, see if you can share it and bring a few more scouts and leaders in. If that’s successful, you may ask us about the gory details of advancement given that knowledge that you really have extended your scouting family!