DDHII

Currently still "growing up." As a kid, I wanted to join the Air Force, be a fighter pilot and specialize in military intelligence. Unfortunately, I have asthma and could never join the armed services. So now, I'm working toward attending medical school to become a trauma surgeon. Currently, I'm finishing up my bachelor's and working as an EMT. Dale

Has anyone else experienced problems posting tonight? I've sent the same message 4 times, only to have it cut in half. Dale

I'm trying this again for the fourth time.... BW is right about the Crew Officers Seminar, training usually held by the Crew Advisor. At a council level (or sometimes at a district level), The Nature of Leadership courses can also be held. These courses come in three phases: 1. Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC), required for the Silver Award. 2. Kodiak Weekend/weeklong training above VLSC 3. Kodiak X Weeklong or longer outdoors

Ok... I'm trying this one more time... sorry... BW is right about the Crew Officers Seminar, training usually held by the Crew Advisor. At a council level (or sometimes at a district level), The Nature of Leadership courses can also be held. These courses come in three phases: 1. Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC), required for the Silver Award. 2. Kodiak Weekend/weeklong training above VLSC 3. Kodi

BW is right about the Crew Officers Seminar, training usually held by the Crew Advisor. At a council level (or sometimes at a district level), The Nature of Leadership courses can also be held. These courses come in three phases: 1. Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC), required for the Silver Award. 2. Kodiak Weekend/weeklong training above VLSC 3. Kodiak X Weeklong or longer outdoors leadership (combines V

BW is right about the Crew Officers Seminar, training usually held by the Crew Advisor. At a council level (or sometimes at a district level), The Nature of Leadership courses can also be held. These courses come in three phases: 1. Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC), required for the Silver Award. 2. Kodiak Weekend/weeklong training above VLSC 3. Kodiak X Weeklong or longer outdoors leadership (combines V

Even though many of you disagree with the Venturing program please remember: kids vote with their feet, as our past national commissioner would say. Many troops do not offer a program that many older youth can relate to. Most older Scouts feel bored teaching and coaching without participating in activities tailored for them. If units cannot meet the needs of older youth, they will walkout and leave Scouting. National statistics show a serious decline in scouts ages 15-18 and very few adult leaders under 21 years of age. Dont worry about Venturing stealing your older youth. What good does it bring if they quit and leave Scouting anyways? And besides if a crew wants to start an Elvis fan club, let them. You could consider it an Arts & Hobbies crew. Venturing is not diminishing the value of Boy Scouting. Effective program is important for retaining youth, and those youth can show leadership in your troops. Ask any Venturing-aged youth what is easier, showing leadership to younger scouts or showing leadership to their same aged peers and older Venturers (i.e. college aged). Why should youth leadership in a crew be any different than the leadership found in a troop? Dale

Thumper, Youre on the right track. All Venturers can earn all of the 5 Bronze Awards, however only registered Sea Scouts can earn the ranks associated with the Sea Scouting program. The Sea Scouting Bronze is the Sea Scout Ordinary rank. Remember: All Sea Scouts are Venturers, but not all Venturers are Sea Scouts. Ordinary Quartermaster require the youth to be Sea Scouts; since, quarterdeck training and petty officer, positions of responsibilities, are required. The positions are: Boatswain (= President) Boatswains Mate Administration (= Vice President Administration) Boatswains Mate Program (= Vice President Program) Purser (= Treasurer) Yeoman (= Secretary) Storekeeper (= Quartermaster) NOTE: I have included the respective equivalents for the Venturing program; however, they do not meet the requirements for petty officer positions. As for the Rank of Eagle, Venturers may complete the Eagle Requirements if he has completed First Class or higher and is under 18 years of age. Positions of responsibility are those listed above (Sea Scout or Venturer). I hope this answers your questions Details to the requirements for Sea Scouting Advancement can be found in Section 3: Advancement and Other Recognitions in the Sea Scout Manual. YIV & SS, Dale

From my understanding, the uniform (Kelly green Venturing shirt with grey Venturing pants/shorts) is recommended and not required, however it does not state that non BSA uniform items cannot be worn with BSA uniform items related to Venturing. There is no official Venturing uniform, just the recommended uniform. So crews can determine if they want to wear polo's, t-shirts, Kelly green Venturing shirt with grey dickies, jeans, khaki's, cargo's, etc...

yes

Here are a few interesting statistics just prepared by the Venturing Division. There were 288,395 Venturers registered at the end of 2003, compared with 293,323 the year before. Gender breakdown is 92,188 female (32 percent) and 196,207 male (68 percent). If the 66,332 male Venturers in LDS crews are excluded, the percentages change to 42/58. 6,874 boys earned the rank of Eagle Scout as Venturers in 2003, out of the total of 49,151 (14 percent). The age breakdown of Venturers is, in approximate numbers: 14 - 10,000 15 - 34,000 16 - 52,000 17 - 66,000 18 - 60,000 19 - 46,000 20 - 15,000 21 - 7,000 There were 114,000 Venturers in 12,146 crews chartered by faith-based organizations, 174,395 in 8,846 crews chartered by community-based or business organizations. The LDS church is the largest of the faith-based, with 66,332 members in 7,468 crews. The largest group in the other category is crews chartered by public schools, with 57,193 members in 1,583 crews. Doing the math indicates overall average crew size is about 14. The top ten councils in terms of Venturing membership were: Great Salt Lake - 11,300 in 1,111 crews Utah National Parks - 10,883 in 1,174 crews Trapper Trails - 8,275 in 789 crews Sam Houston Area - 6,382 in 336 crews Cascade Pacific - 6,046 in 345 crews Atlanta Area - 5,716 in 274 crews Grand Canyon - 5,250 in 541 crews Baltimore Area - 5,041 in 189 crews Denver Area - 4,747 in 185 crews Greater St. Louis Area - 4,435 in 320 crews *According to the Commissioner, Spring 2004 edition: (As of December 2003) Northeast - 20,373 total units Southern - 35,154 total units Central - 28,368 total units Western - 42,755 total units NATIONAL - 126,650 total units (*Does not include Explorer posts or Learning for Life groups) YIV, Dale

You can only wear the sash at OA functions (i.e. chapter, lodge, conclave, NOAC, etc) OA sash is not appropriate for any other function, unless it is an approved OA activity. Troop/Crew activities, Eagle Courts of Honor do not count.

VentureScout: Yes. Only if you are currently a registered paid member of your lodge in good standing.

There is no need to have a separate Commissioner program for Venturing. Most commissioners have a background in their program(s). I am a Unit Commissioner, specializing in Venturing, however I don't need to be secluded as a Venturing Commissioner. By having commissioners who understand the program, we can effectively prevent and/or treat the problems in Crews/Ships.The same goes for Sea Scouting as well. Let's not reinvent the wheel... -Dale

Please visit http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Falls/8826/nol.html, this website explains (Nature of Leadership) VLSC, Kodiak and Kodiak X better than I can. The course syllabus will be available June 2004. You can also visit http://www.scouting.org/venturing/new.html, for more additional info on Venturing training. -Dale

Here are several links of council/crew websites on Search and Rescue Crews. Please be advised that some councils still use crew/post interchangeably. http://www.angelfire.com/nj/troop192/exlinks.html http://www.exploring.org/list_posts.cfm?special=High%20Adventure%20%2F%20Search%20and%20Rescue&unit=crew (this unit has not completed their website and is still under construction) http://www.calesar.org/ http://www.nega-bsa.org/venturing/index.shtml (Crew 1033) This is an incomplete list, your best bet is to contact your Regional Venturing President to ask for Search and Rescue crews in your region. -Dale

What about the several Search and Rescue Crews? There's no need to reinvent the wheel...

Yes. This is a committee that reviews the outdoor program in Venturing, wrote the Ranger Award requirements, facilitated with the National Conservation Committee in creating the various Venturing conservation awards, and also reviews the National Powderhorn committee (A sub-committee of NOVC). This committee usually meets quarterly at National or at various hosting councils. Dale

Yes... remember Crews determine the uniform. Dale

You may have some difficulty in trying to have a Regional Venturing activity. Regional activities need to be approved by the Region Key-3. Try contacting your Region Venturing President about a regional event. For Western Region, August 13-15 2004, we are having a multi-council (not regional) event called Venturing Viewpoint 2004. We had some difficulty with our region in having an official region event, so we just coined it "multi-council." If you're interested in attending, it'll be held at UC-Irvine in Southern California. We'll being covering all 5 program areas of Venturing, with a night-time cruise hosted by Sea Scouting ships. Go to these links and maybe they'll help you in starting your Region Venturing activity. http://venturing.bsa-la.com/VenturingViewpoint/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VenturingViewpoint2004/ YIV, Dale West is Best

I got: a PDA and a Laptop for my Scouting meetings, with Scouting Software already installed. A propane Lantern. Inova LED Flashlight A small ice cooler Litman Stethoscope (I use it mainly for work, but I take it with me to outings and when I teach merit badges... so I guess that counts) A one-year membership to my OA lodge REI Gift Certificates

Unfortunately my crew folded this year, so I'll answer on behalf of the crews I'm a unit commissioner for... How many youth members does your crew have? Do you have any girls? The average is about 16 Venturers. Only one of my crews has girls, where 75% are girls. Age range/numbers of your youth? In the male-only crews, the average age is 16-20. In the co-ed crew, the ages range from 14-18, most leave the crew when they leave for college. How many adult advisors does your crew have? An average of 6-8 How long have you been in existence? 2000, 2001, 2001 (co-ed) What is your crew's concentration (i.e. outdoors, community service, religion, etc.) All are outdoors What fundraisers, if any, does your crew do? None of them do popcorn... The biggest money maker is car washes and fundraiser dinners/breakfests. How do you recruit new members? Open house, word of mouth On average, how many activities/events does your crew have monthly? The male only crews do one per month, and co-ed does at least two. One is an overnighter, and the other is a day outing. Usually, they have a movie night or a bowling night. What do you think your most successful outing/event was/is? The most successful outing was last summer when one of the male-only crews went to Europe for 3 weeks for a backpacking trek. They stayed at Scout camps the whole time. Have any of the youth in your crew earned their Bronze or Ranger awards, or any other recognitions? Two have earned the Ranger, about 5 have earned the Silver, and many have earned the Bronze And also... does your council have a council-wide, youth led leadership committee/board/whatever? We have a VOA. Our website is http://www.ciec-voa.org/ As for Venturing Roundtables... those are at a District level, with a Venturing Roundtable Comissioner (adult) in charge... unless your district has a District Venturing President (youth) VEC's, TLC, VOA, VEB... whatever you like to call them... are usually held at a council level, where you have a Council Venturing President (youth) who represents the Venturing youth at council committee meetings, and leads youth activities in council wide outings.

I recommend that you wear dark grey Dickies with the cellphone pocket. You'll find many uses for that extra pocket and the pants are double kneed. There's nothing in literature that says Venturers have to wear 100% BSA uniforms. You can buy 3 pairs of Dickies for the cost of one BSA Venturing pants.

I'm assuming you meant "Venturing" rather than "Venture." There is a cloth award for Venture called the Varsity/Venture Letter. I'm not sure why National doesn't have a knot for Denali... if I was active in Varsity Scouting I could probably help you find that answer. You're correct that national had a knot available for the Ranger (circa 1949-1951) however it's not the same award as it is now. For everyday wear, Venturers wear the Ranger bar in place of the medal. However, the key term is "highest award." The Ranger is not the highest award in Venturing. The Silver Award is, which is why you see a knot available. The Ranger Award is a supplemental program award, the same as the Quest and the new Truth Award (for religious life... comes out late 2004, early 2005). It's not about which award you think is harder... that's all relative to the Venturer's ablilty. Dale

Why national decided to put Sea Scouting in Venturing is beyond me... It's a separate program that Venturers (outdoor, art's & hobbies, religious life, and sports) cannot participate in unless they are registered as a Sea Scout. However, Sea Scouts can participate in any award in Venturing. The Eagle Scout and Quartermaster awards receive the highest recognition not only in the BSA, but in other organizations as well. For an example, the US military will promote an enlisted person to an E-3 once they have completed basic training. When applying for college scholarships, many ask if you are an Eagle Scout or a Quartermaster award recipient. The current Venturing program has only been around since 1998 and Venturing is still evolving. In my honest views, I do not feel that the Silver Award is at the same level as Eagle Scout or the Quartermaster Award yet. There has been over 90 years of tradition and experience in developing those awards. I would like to see Venturing build on some traditions in the future and earn the respect and recognition found in Boy Scouting and in Sea Scouting. Only then, will the Silver Award be held at the same level as Eagle or the Quartermaster award. The same I guess the same should be applied to the Silver Hornaday Its the highest nationally recognized award for conservation, yet its not held at the same level as Eagle nor Quartermaster. Its not about what award you think is harder. You cannot compare Eagle to the Silver Award because they are for two separate age based programs. Its like comparing those awards to Silver Hornaday its not the same thing. It took me the same amount of time to earn Eagle (three years) as it was to earn Ranger, Venturing Silver Award, and Silver Hornaday together (three years later after Eagle). The difference is, I was older when I earned those awards and the difficulty was harder because I was in an older age group with higher expectations. YIV, Dale Ranger Award Venturing Silver Award Silver Hornaday Eagle Scout