RangerT

From personal experience with my own boys I still believe that the BSA made a huge mistake back in 1989 when they made Webelos a two year program. With a year of Tigers, then Wolf, then Bear its no wonder to me that after a year in Webelos they are ready to move on to something new like boy scouts. With the dismal turnover in numbers of Webelos to boy scouts these days some Webelos leaders feel they failed when in truth the fact remains that four years in Cubs is enough for most boys. 2nd year Webelos get tired of doing crafts and activity badges, they are ready for new challenges and the program does not provide them. In my opinion the boys should crossover when they are ready emotionally and physically,that last year of Webelos should include more combined activities with a troop so that when they do crossover they actually are ready to advance in the ranks in a much smoother fashion then most are currently. As a former WL myself for two years I made sure my boys were able to participate in joint activities with several troops. Of my ten Webelos all of them successfully transitioned into Boy Scouts and seven of them became Eagles so I guess my ideas worked with these guys. Karen, I wish you the best of luck with your boys.

There has been a rumor going around in my council that the OA is considering opening membership to all Venturers as well. What emb21 posted is the current policy for the OA. The story I hear is that National is concerned about the growing decline in membership in many OA lodges and that making the OA a "scouting camping and service group" instead of a "boy scout" group might revitalize it, again this is just an unsubstantiated rumor but it would have some interesting conotations. Imagine inducting female Venturers as well as Venturing adult leaders into the fold, it might bring some new life into those chapters struggling to stay afloat. Personally I think the idea has some merit. especially when I see our councils lodge about to go under for the third time in three years. I would be interested to hear what others here think.

With all due respect to Bob and Baden there is something to be said with both arguments, however Bob was the first to cast insults at Baden who then defended his position against those insults, in either case a lose lose situation. On topic, what happened here is a perfect example of poor adult leadership in the troop and shows a desperate need of further training. The sad part is that this boy will always know what happened and that Eagle may not mean quite as much, time will tell.

Eamonn I understand where you are coming from. In my council it is even tighter financially and the SE's first step was to cut the staff of DE's by 50%, then taking a large loan out on the council properties. The remaining staff have been instructed to spend ALL their time in the the next six months finding new financial resources in their districts, now twice their original size, ignoring their districts letting the volunteers deal with all the problems as well as doing all recruitment, school nights, events. So you can imagine there are some very upset volunteers and staff. What really worries many of us is that we could lose our camps by foreclosure if things don't turn around. At the executive committee meeting it was told to us (COR's)that if we did not take these steps right now the council could close. Many of us feel the council's priorities are really screwed up and we wonder if this is nothing more than a precursor to closing us down alltogether.

Eamonn I heard the same thing from our SE today. Apparently Sea Scouting will become a stand alone program apart from Venturing, which he said most sea scouters had been wanting for a long time. The result will be Nationally that the Venturing manual will be revised deleting the bronze award in sea scouting and the Quartermaster award references. As far as on the council level all that will change will be sea scouting will have their own leader meetings and no longer be a part of Venturing forums or roundtables. Which makes me wonder what happens in a council where there is only one sea scout ship, where will they go for trainings, etc., probably there are plans for regional meetings which already exsist in some areas. All in all it is a very interesting development.

Terry A well thought out and insightful perspective, reminds me of Colin Powell's assessment of the situation. People in this country are in such a rush to vote party line without analysizing what each candidate truly stands for, and many are letting fear and misinformation guide their decision. It is true we need to chart a new course in Washington otherwise our economy will continue to lose industries to overseas and we could find ourselves as a country that produces nothing to trade with in the global economy. Remember that the president alone can't accomplish much without the support of Congress, the last eight years has proven that. IMHO, McCain has been less than honorable in these past couple of months with his attacks on Obama, which I think shows he has let his Republican campaign committee take charge with anything goes tactics and he has forgotten his past pledge. Personally I think both McCain and Palin appearing on SNL recently hurt their credibility even more making them seem desperate to get any type of airtime they could. We will find out tommorrow what the people think, thank goodness its almost over, lol.

I tend to agree with Beavah here, if a boy is not advancing I have found a one on one talk with the boy much more effective in finding out why and helping him get going. Most advancement stalls, in my own experience have been on the road to first class, after that most keep going pretty well on their own. One disturbing trend I found at the end of my time as SM were many boys who simply did not care about advancement, the first class in one year program worked well, but after that they felt it was too much work and they really didn't care about Eagle. The reasons were always the same, school, sports, and work took up too much of their time. No amount of talks from adults or Eagle scouts seem to make a difference, but these were good kids who participated as much as they could and helped out whenever they were asked, and enjoyed being scouts, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Now I am in Venturing and the girls in my crew keep the boys on their toes advancing twice as fast as the boys creating a friendly rivalry with no pressure and it works well based on how many awards that are given out each year.

The youth protection video is also on line through the BSA website, you can also be certified in Venturing YP at the same time. Remember take the YP for Venturing which is very different from the regular YP. emb 21 gave some sound advice about your female associate advisor talking to the girls, it will have more effect than coming direct from you. You can also create a similiar scenario when you do ethical controversies with your crew, you may be surprised the answers they will come up with.

My council now has a mandatory training program in place and if the leaders are not all trained we have been warned that our charter at the end of the year will not be renewed. Why I agree with the idea in principal the methodology of using threats and intimidation to make it happen I feel is very unprofessional. I still want to know if this is a requirement from National to all councils or is it some SE's trying to impose their will on the volunteers. How many charters will they lose this year because of this new requirement?

Kudu is correct with his remarks about watered down methodology put in place in approx. 1972 and unfortunately have kept this diluted program since then. Now I am not advocating going all the way back to 1910 but without the challenges of a more vigorous outdoors emphasis boy scout numbers will continue to drop. No matter what the books say without the boy really being challenged the program bores the boy. Look at the 13 year old Eagle scouts most of them haven't got a real clue about leadership or the outdoors. When getting the highest award in scouting becomes so simplified that almost any boy can get it, when they go to one summer camp and come back with 15-20 merit badges what are we really teaching them. I for one am tired of seeing troops which are little more than Eagle mills, and summer camps which are little more than merit badge mills. When the Eagle award has come to mean so little in todays society it is time for a change. I have had this discussion personally with Chief Scout Mazzucca when he was visiting our council recently and he agreed the program is in serious need of revamping. I think Mazzucca eliminating the program departments at National is the first step since they had been doing such poor jobs. The end result of all these changes will be interesting indeed.

You know Eamonn I think I must take issue with your last post, in the time I have been part of this forum I have witnessed Bob White harrass, insult and attack other members whenever he disagreed with what they had posted, he did not try to discuss politely he attacked. In at least 99% of the cases Bob has initiated the attack and continued it, and the moderators have let him get away with it. I too think that this behavior is unscoutlike. White claims to have all this knowledge of scouting and yet all I ever see him do is quote a page out of a scout resource and then commence his attack on the poster. After seeing this go on and on it seems to me that most of the moderators seem to endorse this behavior and I find that unscoutlike as well. I feel that it is time to rein in Mr. Whites behavior so that free discussion can continue in this forum without his attacks.

I think what you call these meetings is of little consequence if they are getting leaders together, planning district and council Venturing activities and showing council they are indeed a strong group within the council so they are given council support. One advantage of having these meetings in conjunction with the other roundtable is that there a sense of belonging to the district, and helping Cub and Boy Scout leaders see who and what Venturing is all about. My district, and council have a strong Venturing presense so we never encounter the problem OGE did. Unlike many other councils our Venturing program is thriving, we started off small but not anymore, every crew in council have been in exsistence over 5 years, we even have a former Venturing advisor on the executive board, and he is a great liason for us with council. By the way for you Sea Scouters out there we do several joint activities each year with the four ships in our council and the teens love it. So who cares what you call it RT, Forum,when it is working right the program will take off and when it isn't supported it will wither on the vine.

From reading this thread the question was answered correctly a while back, the CO/CR/IH are the ones with the authority in most instances. However it seems to me that Bob was particularly hard nosed and very rude to a few of the posters here, claiming to be innocent while putting them down in the same instance. IMHO this forum is supposed to be an exchange of ideas not a pissing contest that this thread has turned into. People should be free to express an opinion or statement without being subject to a barrage of negative comments. To me Bob was the initial instigator and a couple of others chose to challenge him and the fight was on, not very scoutlike in my opinion. Bob claiming his innocence is like the pot calling the kettle back, GW and BP should just ignore him since he is not the kind of person who will ever admit he is wrong or uncivil.

shortridge Venturing is not like boy scouts in the instances you describe. Someone going for Ranger usually has already completed the Bronze Award in Conservation where they have learned their basics through their advisors, and if they do not have the knowledge they use consultants who are suppose to be experts in their fields. Much of the Ranger Award is left up to the teens own initiative to obtain the necessary knowledge needed for the various requirements for that award instead of being totally dependent on the advisors. Many Venturers going for Ranger attend classes put on by wilderness organizations, REI, and other groups usually at no or minimal cost. However most crews with an outdoor emphasis have a good selection of knowledgeable advisors and consultants so learning about axe safety is not usually a problem.

I think some of you are blowing this way out of proportion, on a coed crew overnighter the rule is that you must have minimally one adult male and one adult female and at least one of them must be a registered leader for that crew(from Venturing course at PTC last summer). Ideally you want to have the appropriate number to cover the number of youth participants, in my crew we always have at least two male and two female adult leaders/parents present at any overnighter and usually more. However the rule is one adult male and female leader is required, and no in Venturing the adults do not have to bunk with the youth but be in close proximity to monitor the situation. Bob you surprise me with your interpretation adding to the rule your own personal ideas of the rule. Remember these are guidelines for leaders you are also expected to use common sense as well to make sure the youth are adequately protected.