RangerT

Eamonn I hear you brother and that is the exact reason I went with an outdoor crew instead of a ship. I love the water and sailing, but a ship is so expensive to maintain. When we go sailing we rent some nice sailboats for a day or two. Another ship in my council went under last month, similiar reasons to yours and they finally lost their CO. I wish you all the success possible, but if the teens don't do the work they don't deserve the benefits. Don't beat yourself up, it's not your fault. If my kids drop out of a fundraiser then the activity is cancelled. A ship is run by the youth , they need to have the responsibility and suffer the consequences when they are not. I wish you calm seas for the future.

Kudu First of all you have misrepresented what I said, I never wanted to "dumb down" any program. I would rather offer alternatives like the Venturing program does. There is the Ranger option for those with an outdoors interest, the Quest award for sports focused individuals, etc, etc. So my idea is to diversify not diminish the program,which will make it stronger and attract more youth, in my opinion. I am not here to debate you just to offer some alternative views on this subject. You don't have to agree with my views and I don't have to agree with yours. I have over 25 years working with the BSA and have led a successful pack, troop and currently a crew. I have seen attitudes and interests in teens change over time. Your dislike for the BSA is very obvious in your posts, and I think that is so sad. So Kudu for the sake of this thread lets end this debate now. Your last post was way out there, IMHO.

Kudu You validate what I said in your last statement "There will always be a few of us volunteers who will promote an independent outdoor skills program." Yes then the scouting alternative program you promote will be a small cult with a small number of kids. Again, the statistics are proving more and more each year that the exsisting program is not attracting anywhere near the numbers it once did. In another thread several scoutmasters said that less than 10% of the boys in their troops were actively involved, and I have heard the same from the leaders in my council. So you can start another youth organization with outdoor skills as the focus but I guarantee you that it will be a small group and probably won't survive very long, remember the Woodcraft Rangers. The real issue is what can we do to attract more youth and instill in them the values of scouting. The sad truth is we are losing the fight and all the rah rah for the Boy Scouts of old will not change that fact Kudu. I don't like it either but I would rather modify the program than continue to lose more and more youth. It is not a time to form splinter groups but a time to band together to save the program we all volunteer our blood sweat and tears for. Kudu, I applaud your passion and understand your frustrations but we either try to salvage Scouting or go off and form new groups and let the BSA continue to go down hill. I love the outdoor skills and teach them to my Venturers but their interests are clearly elsewhere. YIS(This message has been edited by RangerT)

I think that the real issue here is that most of us want to preserve the scouting heritage of our own youth or that of our father, and the reality is that most teens today are not interested in that heritage. In this fast pace technologically advancing world our kids have been absorbed into a sort of virtual reality. The principals and morals of scouting are still relevant today but the outdoorsy, hiking and gung ho camping trips and skills are not relevant to pre teens and teens, in other words most just aren't interested anymore. So what do we do? We have to meet the kids where they are at now, and appeal to them by doing the things that they are interested in. Shoving a program at them developed 50 or more years ago will not work and the numbers will continue to drop as recent history has proven out. So for me thats one advantage of the Venturing program, there is something for anyone with any background or interest to do, and yet the values of scouting are still an important part of the program. That is one reason I took over a Venturing crew five years ago, and we keep growing and RETAINING our teens. I know Eamonn dislikes Venturing, but if the program is done right it really does work, I know this from personal experience. Now they have to create something similiar for boy scouts and cub scouts. All the Baden Powell original program flag waving is pointless with our dropping numbers nationwide. Besides Baden Powell was ahead of his time, if he were alive today I am sure scouting would be very different. So we can keep beating a dead horse until our numbers dwindle down to nothing: or we can get with the kid culture of today and build a program catering to their wants not our own desires. If we stand rigid and refuse to bend with the times then scouting could disappear in the next ten years.

As others have stated you CAN NOT be dual registered as a cub and a boy scout, period, BSA policies will not allow it nor are SM's allowed to let a boy scout earn the AOL once he is registered in the troop. Once he joins a troop he is no longer eligible for any cub scout advancement. Thats the way it is! My two sons, one got the AOL the other did not and at 11 yrs both crossed over to a troop and both are advancing well.

Eamonn, emb21 is correct there is no plan by National to merge Sea Scouts with Venturing or their manuals either, which are way over priced compared to the sea scout manual. A friend of mine at National told me that a lot of ideas get discussed at National but there are no such plans on the near horizon. By the way Eamonn I kinda resent your comment that "crew advisors hand out advancement like candy",my crew works pretty damn hard on their advancement. Maybe if most of your council's crews were not at detention centers you would see how real venturing is done with well trained leaders, instead of prison guards. By the way there are also some pretty bad sea scout units out there, and many of them do go under because of the huge cost of running a large ship, insurance, fuel etc. No program is perfect by any stretch. I live in an area close to the water and the sea scout ships get fewer and fewer each year. As emb said we are not in competition with each other, not all teens want to do all the work to maintain the ship, they rather cruise than work, same is true in Venturing.(This message has been edited by RangerT)

Eamonn I concur with you 100%, especially after sitting through some extremely poor training sessions in the past years. Aside from specialcourses like Wood Badge and Kodiak, etc. I think all the rest of the basic leader courses could easily be done on line. This would result in all scout leaders getting the exact same information and National could control the quality of the presenters and the content being presented. An additional benefit might be a reduction in the number of arguments and misinformation given out in this forum, just a thought, lol.

"Yeh do what you can, eh, with the cards you are dealt." Beavah, Amen to that brother, I couldn't agree with you more. I guess we have seen the system from two different vantage points, in your case the system worked and in mine it didn't. On your replacement SE I bet you had a narrow list supplied by National to choose from, eh. Anyhow I love scouting, especially if I stay away all the politics I can on the council and National levels all it does is raise my blood pressure, and who needs that. Beav I do agree with you more than I disagree, and I think we both agree some changes need to be made.

First of all if the poop hits the fan in a council for illegal activities the buck stops at National, NOT THE COUNCIL or its exec committee. No matter what prose you want to write Beavah National does have the final say on all BSA policies and standards done on the council level, as well as the ultimate responsibility when things goes awry, so you can bet they maintain the reins of control in the final phase. By the way the SE DOES have the right to remove a member of the board if he feels that member does not have the best interests of the council in mind, it happens all the time, especially when a new SE comes to a council. The bottom line is volunteers have no where near the authority they think they do, the BSA has seen to that. It would be career suicide for scout execs if volunteers had the authority to fire them. If an exec goes bad the council board can request a new exec but it is up to National to supply a list of candidate replacements, so who do you think is in control? The old exec is then recycled to another council, so its a never ending cycle. I have personally seen this occur with three scout execs in a three year period, all of them were transferred to bigger councils. The sad part was that the volunteers who had uncovered the problems were dismissed from their council positions and their BSA council memberships were not renewed by the new SE because he stated, " the council was in desperate need of some new blood who were more progressive with their ideas." The resulting protests fell on deaf ears as the rest of the board supported the SE. Like it or not my fellow scouters the professional side of scouting needs some deep cutting reforms and soon.

After following this thread I see it becoming increasingly hostile and counter productive. nldscout, your last post was extremely unscoutlike as well as essentially incorrect. All scouting professionals work for the BSA not the volunteers, it is their job to manage and direct programs in their assigned districts and to raise money and units from the businesses, service organizations, and units in their area. Scout Executives manage a council and report directly to National, where most of them want to end up someday. Council executive committees have limited authority and can be replaced by the SE at will. Those are the facts, even though I don't like them either, and thats the reality of scouting today. Your CO's can vote at meetings but if any of them put up too big a stink the SE can pull their charter. Contrary to what many of us volunteers may think National has done a pretty good job insulating themselves from protests from volunteers, the only exception is when a law is broken. BSA is not and never claimed to be a democracy, it is a business with a large overhead in personnel and real estate and takes a lot of money to keep running.

I still feel that before we cast the boy to the wolves we as scoutleaders have an obligation to talk to the boy and his parents to at least see if this is a problem that can be dealt with. In the meantime you can suspend from outings and allow him to meetings only if a parent accompanies him. If it is later determined that there is no hope for the boy then suspend him. I had a young man in my crew recently who on a camping trip pulled a knife on another teen, it later turned out that this other teen had been making comments about killing all the Iraqis since "they are all scum" and had continued with other racial slurs. It just so happens that this boy is half Iraqi and this other boy knew it. Now I could have thrown out both of these guys for this behavior and been done with it. Instead I had the boy with the knife go interview an anger control counselor who guided the boy through his anger issues, the boy who was the bigot was given the task of interviewing an Iraqi cleric in the area and to deliver a report to the crew about the religions and culture of the Iraqi people. Well both of these guys learned a lot, and have become good friends, both of them just finished the Bronze Award in Religious Life. Sometimes you never know what will happen if you take that one extra step. Stosh- For the record Venturers don't have ranks, they receive achievment awards, so you can't lower a Venturers rank, read you leaders guide. YIS/YIV

If you use threats to get a boy to behave then you have already lost the battle. This boy may have some personal issues going on causing him to behave this way. Get to know your boys so they will feel trust to bring their issues to you, sometime behavior problems are a cry for help. Now you will never know since the boy has left the troop. Once the rank is earned it belongs to the youth not the scoutmaster.(This message has been edited by RangerT)

OGE That is a very true and very sad statement. I feel blessed to have a totally different vision here than most Venturing programs elsewhere. It does take a shared vision for Venturing, and all scouting programs for that matter, to flourish. My crew and other crews in my council have really proven to me what older teens can do taking on adult responsibilities and doing a wonderful job delivering what the crew members want and need in their lives, as well as wanting to give their time and talents to making their community a better place.

Ok guys don't gather the wagons in a circle just yet. Let me tell what happened in our council, several years ago our SE admitted he was not well informed about Venturing so he felt it was his obligation to make this program work ( an unusual attitude for a scouting professional). So he researched where the program was working well and brought in some very knowlegable and experienced people to lead a council wide week long training program for Venturing leaders. Fifty adults attended from a variety of backgrounds. We studied all five areas of specialties and got some hands on experience with some teens who volunteered to try this program out for size. It was a great success and the most complete in depth BSA training I ever received in all my years in scouting. The SE even hired one of these trainers to the council staff and our Venturing is growing, even though some old time scouters hate the program and don't consider it to be scouting. We as a group(Venturing) now have our own roundtables where adults and officers attend and exchange ideas, as well as plan events. If every council executive made this kind of committment to Venturing the stats would change overnight, like it has in our council. Eamonn the only points I fault you on is when you say Venturing can not work as it is currently written and that teens are not interested in the program which is again not true. My council has proven it can and does work and with the right committment from the executives and volunteers it can be quite an asset to scouting when it is properly marketed and run by competently trained adults. We have arts and craft crews working with outdoor crews, sports crews, and sea scouts to plan some pretty awesome events this year. The response from the youth has been fantastic. Why is this so you may ask, because we do not run our crews like boy scout troops, no uniforms (unless they select one), no advancement is required but most have earned at least the bronze award and many have gone much further. If you run Venturing like an older boy scout troop it will fail. OK OK I am off my soapbox now, I love this program as you can tell and it does bother me to see people malign it when they don't even understand it and will not even try to learn about it. OGE I hope I answered your questions as well, "If you build it they will come." All it takes is some real committment for Venturing to work.

Ok I think there have been a few erroneous generalizations being made here. First most councils do not understand the Venturing program well enough to support it. Second, unless most of your crews are LDS units many advisors are not former scouters, in my own council I am one of the few scouters, except for LDS crews. Thirdly, Venturing IS NOT the Venture scouts or Explorers of old and are not supposed to be related to them. The councils that treat them as such will certainly fail with them. That has been what has been happening in many areas and why crews are failing, fortunately my council exec has taken time to understand what Venturing is supposed to be and most of our crews thrive. The exceptions are the LDS crews who run their unit like a troop and most do not even have five members. That is the reason Venturing is suffering Eamonn, you can't run them like troops and expect success the rest is just a smoke screen. Blake is right about a couple of things, venturing advisors have no place at roundtables or district events, our crews are not made to feel welcome at camporees. We have started a Venturing roundtable recently on a council wide basis and we have 20 strong, thriving crews planning a series of council venturing events. We are a mixture of all different specialties yet we all have a common thread, a large number of older teen boys and girls who like to get together to have fun, share their skills and want to find ways to help their communities. Eamonn, I am so sorry your council doesnt get venturing because if they did you would see what I am talking about instead of fretting over stats that do not tell the whole story. I bet Eamonn you have many specialties you could share with a crew if the opportunity was there. Contrary to how you may feel Venturing can work, the sky is not falling.

Eamonn First of all I just wanted to say that I for one do not consider you disloyal to scouting, quite the opposite in fact. Since you used a statement I stated as the title of this thread I just wanted to say that it was meant only in humor, if you took it otherwise I deeply apologize. We are both close to the same age and have both been involved in all phases of scouting for a long time. In spite of the stats, which are sad to read, there are a lot of very well run and solid crews out there attracting many teens to the program, I guess I am blessed that my area is doing better than most with Venturing. It is still my belief that this program if done correctly can and does work, the problem is this program has been used and corrupted by professional scouters to boost numbers. The other problem is that CO's were selected without much forethought, and untrained advisors put in charge of the crews, so you get weak units that fold up in a year. I think National should poll those successful crews to see why they are doing so well and rewrite the program along those guidelines. Look at sea scouts Eamonn, their numbers are also dropping as well and National combines them with Venturing ,two very different programs, yet even in Venturing advancement their is a sea scout bronze award and a quartermaster award, why, thats what Sea Scouts are for. Sometimes this all seems like there is no hope for those guys at National. Anyway I am very happy with how successful and large my crew has become over the last few years and I hope it continues to work as well. I have always felt that it takes all of us scouters to make scouting work, if we wait for National to get their act together all of our programs will be in real trouble. Eamonn, you are a true and loyal scouter and wish you much future success with your ship.

Gentleman Change is inevitable in all things, even Scouting. If we are closed to change than like the dinosaurs we will fade into oblivion. Venturing was not created to be an extension of or run like a boy scout troop. Those crews run like a troop are the ones Eamonn shows that are closing down, just like many boy scout troops today. As an advisor for five years, a scoutmaster for five years, and a cub leader for three years I have a great love for all that is scouting and it saddens me to see our numbers continue to drop. As for Venturing it was designed as a program with diverse areas of interest to a COED older teen group, not a place for older boy scouts to go because they are bored with their troop. Boy scouts are dropping out because many troops are run by old time scouters who want to recreate the troop of their youth, you know the type, if it was good enough for grandpa then its good enough for these boys, which is so wrong. National recognizes change is necessary in order to grow and prosper which many currently are not doing. Venturing is an attempt to bring older teens with no scouting experience and those who have dropped out of scouting back into a program that caters to their interests with a hint of the old traditional values in a way that is relevant to them. Some old timere may hate the Venturing program, but done the right way it works well, as my own crew and others I have experience with can testify. It is not about badges and uniforms its about empowering teens with a program that is relative to today and is filled with the traditional values we all hold dear. So Eamonn and CNY all I can say is that you are so wrong about Venturing and its potential. If we don't continue to update our programs making them relevant to the current culture of youth then we run the risk of becoming irrelevant and stagnant, and Scouting may fade away into oblivion. I for one do not want to ever see that day come.(This message has been edited by RangerT)

The numbers you show Eamonn I think only tell part of the story. Many crews, as someone said earlier, were created by the scouting "Pros" and were nothing more than ghost or paper units to boost numbers so of course they folded or ready to fold after a year, a practice I have heard that occurred nationwide. The stats you quote are reflecting the demise of those units which were never real units anyway. The other problem is that there are very few scouting professionals and few scouters who really understand the purpose and program of Venturing or even Sea Scouts for that matter. We are also losing Boy Scout troops at an alarming rate as well disguised by National by creating inner city and LFL paper units that are not really boy scouts at all but an inner city gym where kids can play basketball after school. The bottom line is that all figures from National are suspect at best and that we scout leaders owe these teens the best program we can. My crew started with 10-12 youth four years ago and is now at 60. I have been asked in my council to consider becoming the Venturing Leader Training Chair, and have been invited to Philmont to participate in Venturing Leaders Conference, but like yourself Eamonn I don't want to take on more duties that will pull me away from my crew. I think it is time for National to take a long hard look at all their programs and make some very necessary revisions to them. In addition National needs to do some in house cleaning of their own and the unscrupulous practices of many of the professional scouters and councils. Purging is good for the soul they say and it is long overdue at the professional and volunteer level in order to create a better quality standard of program that can equally compete with all the other activities open to youth these days. If we don't level the playing field and soon then this debate will be a moot one. YIS

My dear friend Eamonn forever the fatalist. Even in the time of Baden Powell scouting did not attract most of the young boys, even if some scouters delude themselves into believing it did. The reason our numbers are dropping is because of new interests and attractions that did not exsist twenty years. In modern times with fears of your kids being snatched or abused by perv's, parents keep their kids indoors or isolated much more. To prove this, when was the last time you saw all the kids in the neighborhood out playing together like we did as youth?? Another reason is the huge increase in home schooling has developed a generation of socially inept children, why, because parents are afraid to send them to public school where they feel the other kids run uncontroled and that the quality of teaching is inferior. We live in a society where we fear or don't trust each other anymore and that is plain sad. We fear the outside world and our very own neighbors. This has had a large impact on the drop in scouting numbers as well. As far as Venturing I disagree with you again Eamonn, if the program is delivered properly it does succeed, as my own crew is testimony tripled in size since its formation. Like any program in scouting there is a right way and a wrong way. At the rate things are going in my council the number of Venturers will soon surpass the number of Boy Scouts, our crews are growing whereas the troops are folding, most with only 5-6 boys left. The average size crew in my area is 15 by comparison. So I think it depends on the area you are in and the way the programs are being delivered that determines your success or failure. To paraphrase a famous quote "I think that the rumors of Venturings demise are greatly exaggerated." Happy Scouting/Venturing to all of you.

SR540 I agree to what you stated and if you have ever read the contract signed between the CO and the council each year you would see it leaves out more than it puts in and probably needs some revisions as to all the responsibilities of a CO. As to the friends of troop xxx as the CO, my experience with one such unit was unreal, they met at different houses each week, no real committee, just a group of parents who were signed in by the SM. Adult supervision was minimal one or two adults except at party time which was their committee meeting which was a bbq and beer party while the boys met down in the basement unsupervised. I pulled my boy out and reported this to the council over a year ago, guess what the troop still exsists and being run the same way, the SE claimed he didnt want to lose this unit and he told them to shape up. Well it didnt have much effect and that SE is now at National, go figure. So if da rules is da rules who is enforcing them???? Not the CO or the council.

It just goes to show you that even the National office can give you incorrect information. In my opinion we have this printed in several official pubs yet unless this comes up in a court case it will always be one of those nebulous questions. I think this Jenn person, if she even truly exsists, set this up as a bait and hook to cause some discord in here for whatever motive, and she was successful. It probably would be best to recognize this question for what it truly is and let it go.

Jenn The answer is quite simple following National guidelines in Venturing you are considered a youth member until you turn 21, which is the minimum age for an advisor. A youth member and advisor who are in a relationship can not be members of the same crew until you turn 21, then you both can be adult advisors. So there is no need to talk to a COR or anyone else, these rules are very specifically spelled out in the Venturing Leaders Manual. You can join another crew if you like but not the same one until you are 21. Remember in Venturing crew you are a youth member through the age of 20.

I do not think the problem with Venturing is the program as much as it is a total lack of understanding on how to administer the program, the lack of vision from the so called experts at National, and the desire of old time scouters to turn it into a glorified boy scout troop. It is a coed program run totally by the youth around the interests of those youth, that's why the adults are called advisors not masters or leaders. Eamonn, many sea scout units are folding at a faster rate than Venturing crews, mainly because of the high monetary cost of maintaining a boat or ship, insurance, fuel, etc. I have been an advisor for six years now and my crew is thriving, one reason is because the teens run the program according to their interests and needs, not mine. Advancement really plays no part in Venturing, and is not supposed to, those ambitious enough to earn awards do so and those who don't want to can fully participate in the activities and are not made to feel like outcasts. I wanted to keep my crew at around 25 members for logistical reasons, we are now at 60 members and none want to break off to form a second crew. They enjoy the dynamics of our group as it is. So my question to those failing crews is what are you doing wrong? Venturing is not boy scouts or even sea scouts, if you follow what is in the manuals and run it according to the guidelines it can not fail. My guess is that crews that fail are too controlled by the adults who have a vision far different from the teens, trying to be a glorified scoutmaster or whatever. My crew does some outdoor activities, many service projects, they go bowling, to the movies, trips to the ocean, have visited Washington DC, love to go on weekend retreats, play sports, to name just a few things we do. About half the group earns bronze and gold, a few silver awards and a few have earned the Quest and Trust awards, three are finishing Ranger shortly. We follow the pubs from National, half my crew are female and we are growing every year, so again I have to ask those failing crews WHY!!!(This message has been edited by RangerT)

Eamonn I hear what you are saying and I agree with you 100%. I am glad your ship is doing great and those are the kind of memories I was talking about in my post. A lot of people in here, myself included, have a great respect for you and your experience and I hate seeing you in a negative state. So screw those dishonest professionals and full speed ahead. May the rest of your scouting experiences be positive and may there be smooth seas ahead. YIS

Eamonn I have been rather surprised with you lately. The threads you have started have been full of feeling sorry for yourself stories. First your thread on how the council has been a bitter disappointment to you, then the I don't give a damn anymore thread bemoaning district and unit volunteers calling you for advice. Next there was the thread about not becoming an eagle aimed at hops and now this one. I think you are going through a midlife scouters depression crisis. Well I think that many of us here have had the same or similiar scouting experiences as yours. However dwelling on just the negative is not good for you ol boy. Scouting is no longer the same as it was when we were boys and is still evolving, to what is anyones guess. What we deemed as important in scouting as youth is not quite the same to the youth of today. Is that good or bad, time will tell. All of us have great memories of scouting as both youth and adults and thats what we should dwell on. Until we get to the age where it would be better for us and the youth to step down we need to focus on the positive contributions we are making. So Eamonn buck up, the sky is not falling, at least not yet.