A day in the life of Venturing (Warning Long Post)

[purcelce]

Yesterday was a loooonnnggg day of Venturing for me. Come to think of it was a long weekend doing the Scouting thing. I spent Friday and Saturday helping out with the District Klondike Derby.

 

At the Klondike, there were 3 Venturing youth helping with the staff (two of them were from my crew).

I saw 4-5 members of my crew back in their troops pulling sleds.

(Made me think that Troops and Crew can live in harmony)

 

Sunday morning comes along and I put on my Venturing uniform and head to church for Scout Sunday.

Afterwards I drove across town for a Eagle COH. One of the kids in my crew was becoming Eagle. The COR "hosted" by his Troop. The mother of the Eagle (who happens to be our Associate Advisor) asked me to give some words of wisdom. Now I came to be a guest and didn't know I was a part of the program, So I spent a few minutes figuring out what I was going to say.

Our new Eagle Scout was sitting next to me and I told him I was going to tell the story of what he did at camp two years ago. His face got as red as a fire engine and begged, threaten me, and asked if I would not bring that up. I looked at him and smiled.

The COR starts and I look across the table and I counted 13 dark green shirts. 9 male and 4 female venturing youth. It made the Mean Old Guy (my nickname in the crew) proud. Then I noticed that one of the females was not in my crew, but from a crew 45 miles away. I thought to myself that this is cool. These kids hang out with other venturing kids.

My time comes up to take the podium, I smile at Mr Eagle and he slumps in his chair. I gave the famous "Once an Eagle, Always and Eagle" Speech. No mention of the goofy. I'm back in my chair in 3 minutes.

While sitting with the kids drinking coffee and eating another kid's cake, I feel somebody tugging at my hair. Our VPA shows a few strands of hair, laughs and dumps the hair into my coffee. Well this young man got his later as he messes with the Crew Prez. The Prez chases him outside and then every youth at the table run outside and goof off in the parking lot for 10 minutes.

 

We had a quick buisness meeting to finalize the fundraiser for next weekend. While the kids were talking among themselves asking me questions and getting things in order, I look behind us and I see 4-5 adults from Troops in the area watching us and I could see approval in their faces. The meeting finishes up and about 6 of us head to steak and shake and we have a bull session over the politics of the OA, upcomming summer camp, and other scouting talk.

 

I ended the day with sitting in a chair for two hours watching the new Council Venturing Youth Officers getting stuff together for the Council Venturing program.

 

Moral of the story: Venturing and Boy Scout troops can co-exist in harmony, Let kids run their program, this stuff is fun, and sit back and watch these young adults surprise you with their maturity.