tell me why

[Beavah]

Your pleas must have moved them, for while they must still attend Ship activities, the new revised Adcvancement Committee Policies and Procedures now says that a Venturer can earn the QM Award.

 

BobWhite, I think you're gettin' old-critter memory, eh?

 

In that original thread, I was the one who told you that the new revised ACP&P indicated that a Venturer could earn the QM award. In fact, that's been true of every copy of ACP&P, not just the newly revised one. You and emb both objected, and when trackin' it back to the source, it turned out that you were right and ACP&P was an error that wasn't caught before it went to press. To earn QM, a boy or girl must be registered as a Sea Scout, bein' registered as a Venturer does not make 'em eligible.

 

I was informed that an entire unit can dual-register if they want, eh? So a CO could charter a Crew and a Ship with identical membership. But an individual Venturer cannot earn QM without dual registering with a Ship. They are separate programs.

 

Now, it might be that after the dust has settled from the reorganization, this will be revisited. It certainly makes sense that if Sea Scouts can earn Ranger and Quest, etc. that Venturers should be able to earn QM. But AFAIK that's not the way it stands now.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[OldGreyEagle]

Could a Non-Sea Scout Venturer earn a Sea Scout Bronze?

[Bob White]

The Sea Scout Bronze award can be earned by any Venturer, It has the same requirements as a the rank of Ordinary.

 

 

[CalicoPenn]

To get back to Lisa's question, and to build on emb's response. Back in the 1930's, the BSA developed a "senior scout" program which included Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, Rover Scouts and Explorer Scouts - with advancement appropriate to each program. They did this to try to head off the rapid drop out rate of Boy Scouts at and after age 15, so they created these more challenging and specialized and adult like programs.

 

In 1949, the Senior Scout division was turned into the Explorer division and all of the senior scout programs became Explorer programs - Sea Explorer, Air Explorer and Explorer Scouts which became plain old Explorers, and kept their own separate advancements.

 

In 1959, the Explorer division was renamed Exploring and their separate advancements were discontinued. A new advancement scheme was created, allowing Explorers to earn the rank of Eagle using Exploring specific rank requirements - at this time, the Eagle Scout rank had two different sets of requirements for earning it - the Boy Scout division requirements and the Exploring division requirements - a lad would choose which set he would follow to get the rank. Now, Eagle Scout was both a Boy Scout AND an Exploring rank. In an interesting twist, Explorers could earn the Eagle Rank and Eagle Palms up to the age of 21, provided they were also registered as Assistant Scoutmasters in a Troop. Talk about incentives to keep older teens and young adults interested.

 

In 1972, the Exploring requirements changed again - Eagle Scout would still be an Exploring rank, but now Explorers had to use the standard Boy Scout requirements to earn the Eagle Scout rank - including earning Star and Life ranks, and earning it by age 18. Of course, to earn Star, one has to earn First Class - which has generally been considered to be a Boy Scout basic skills rank. (When first introduced, Star, Life (I should say Life, Star), and Eagle Scout were considered "Merit Badge" awards - they were awarded based on the number of Merit Badges one earned as a Scout.) Thus it makes sense that one would have to earn First Class as a Boy Scout. Star, Life and Eagle Scout were, in essence, shared ranks of the Boy Scout and Exploring programs. The requirement for First Class as a Boy Scout first also served to prevent attmpts to award Star, Life and Eagle Scout to girls, who, in the late 1960's (69 I think), were allowed to join special-interest Explorer Posts.

 

Eventually, Exploring was turned into Learning for Life, and replaced on the Boy Scout side by Venturing. It's likely that Tradition plays a large role in the continuing to award Eagle Scout (and Star and Life) through the Venturing program - even though there are program specific awards in Venturing. I'd say it's also likely that the BSA still recognizes that a key drop-out age for Boy Scouts is 15 - and if it takes allowing the Venturing program to continue to award Eagle Scout to keep a 15 to 18 year old Scout in at least one of the Scouting programs, then the BSA will continue to use Star, Life and Eagle Scout as both Boy Scout advancements and Venturing advancements.

 

Remember the key here, Star, Life and Eagle Scout are not just Boy Scout advancements, they are also Venturing advancements. I'd guess that the majority of the folks who earn Eagle Scout earn it either as Boy Scouts (doing their advancement work through their Troop) or as Venturers - rarely cross-working - and that the BSA just doesn't worry about where cross-registered lads complete requirements like Merit Badges and POR's, and that Scoutmasters and Crew Advisers are smart enough to look a lad in the eye who wants to try to play one unit off the other and tell him to get real.

 

So that's the story as I know, and see it. I think it's great that Venturer's can earn Eagle Scout through their crew - but then I'm biased - I earned my Eagle Scout through my Explorer Post, and not my (cross-registered) Boy Scout Troop.

 

Calico

 

Ok - after reading it over again, I realized I should probably clarify something. It's obvious (in the Duh, Calico - tell us something we don't know) that Scouts either earn Eagle Scout as Boy Scouts or as Venturers. One has to be one or the other to earn it. My point is that most of the time, one either works on the rank in his role as a Boy Scout or works on the rank in his role as a Venturer - and most likely, rarely crossing over to a cross-registered unit to earn something (in other words, most lads aren't likely to go to both their Scoutmaster and Crew Adviser for merit badge blue cards - he'll usually choose one or the other - of course, there are exceptions, which leads to frustrations - but the BSA doesn't appear to consider that a serious issue, so perhaps we shouldn't either).

(This message has been edited by CalicoPenn)

[Stosh]

As a Venturing Crew Advisor, in order to keep peace with the Boy Scout programs around us, if we ever take on a new boy that is already a Boy Scout, we expect the boy to stay with his troop, dual register, and continue his Boy Scout career and Eagle. Over the years we have had 7 boys Eagle and one that didn't. There wasn't much we could do to "force" the boy to stay in BSA and Eagle, but when he quit the Boy Scout program he quit our Venturing crew as well. Because of our crew's hobby, the boys usually don't give us much hassle about staying with the Boy Scouts. As a SM of a troop of my own, I know when the boy is not progressing as he should and we have a little heart-to-heart to keep him progressing in his Trail to Eagle. It hasn't really been much of a problem in the overall scope of things. I do think Eagling as a Boy Scout is really the route to go. Our crew is not condusive to assisting a boy with Boy Scout requirements and we don't have the resources nor the program to assist him with his Eagle.

 

Stosh

[Rythos]

"I do think Eagling as a Boy Scout is really the route to go. Our crew is not conducive to assisting a boy with Boy Scout requirements and we don't have the resources nor the program to assist him with his Eagle."

 

As Stosh mentions I would think that while it is an option for Scouts to finish the path to Eagle in Venturing/Sea Scouting, it would seem that it wasn't really the original purpose of the Venturing program.

 

If the crew members are ok with the Crews agenda being built in part around finishing off Scout requirements I don't see a problem. I would think the only issue that could arise would be in the rare/unlikely situation where a scout came into an established crew with an expectation of that crew changing around how things are done specifically to help him finish his requirements.

 

Rythos

 

[CalicoPenn]

I don't get it - what part of earning Star, Life and Eagle don't fit into a Venturing agenda? At those levels, Troops aren't offering skills training or anything like that - they are offering POR opportunities - which Venturing Crews do, a leader to sign blue cards for merit badges, which a Crew Adviser can do, assistance in tracking requirements and service project hours, which isn't that onerous. What exactly in the requirements for Star, Life and Eagle would put any kind of pressure on a Venturing Crew to do something different just because John needs something for rank?

 

At the Venturing level, earning advancements and awards are truly an individual thing - and at the Boy Scout level, earning Star, Life and Eagle is truly an individual thing - so there should be no more work to shepard a lad through to Eagle than sheparding a Venturer through to the Silver or Ranger awards.

 

Calico