My brain hurts.

[Eamonn]

I'm not a great fan of the Venturing program.

I do see the need for a program for some older youth.

What I know about the Girl Scouts, could be written on a postage stamp.

I'm supposing that like Boy Scouts there are some Girl Scout units that offer great programs and others that don't.

While I'm happy and enjoy being part of a coed unit and happy that there are coed units, I feel if a Lassie or Lad is getting what they need from a good Girl Scout or Boy Scout unit there is no need for them to join a Venturing unit.

Looking at the Boy Scout Troops in my area / District/ Council, it does seem that we are not meeting the needs of older Boy Scouts. While I admit I haven't done any real tracking. On the surface it seems we don't do a very good job of recruiting non-Scouts, we rely on the little fellows who cross-over from the packs. These little Lads are around for two or three years and we lose at least half of them. Of course some units do a much better job and do retain each and every Scout until he is 18.

If they are not going to stay in the Troop I'm happy that there is a place for them to go.

I just wish Venturing was it.

 

Maybe I'm just not that bright? But just about everything that Venturing does seems like hard work!

Start with the name. I was a Venture Scout back home in England, we didn't have Venturers and we didn't have Venture Patrols.

We worked on advancements that offered choices to the individual not choices to the unit.

We had a uniform. The idea of having a Crew adopt their own uniform is great I'm all for it, but why muddy the waters with having the other one?

The goal for some of us was the Queens Scout Award, many of us also worked on the Duke Of Edinburgh Awards: Bronze, Silver and Gold and yes surprise,surprise the Gold Award was the highest!!

It seems that every other week Venturing has some new Award. I can't keep up I have enough on my hands and if I can't keep up I'm not going to do a very good job of selling the awards to the youth members.

Most of the Crews in our Council are connected to Boy Scout Troops, they don't do hardly anything and the kids get bored and either quit or just turn up as and when they feel they want. This makes planning anything impossible and a lot of these units only last a year.Most just don't have the numbers to carry out a full program.

When I was trying to start new units my big problem was "What am I selling?" The local Sportsman Clubs don't need the BSA,they have what they want to do on hand.

Our age groups don't seem to work for the church groups in our area. Our Council puts a lot of time and effort into providing facilities for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, this isn't the case for Venturing Crews. When asked why? They fall back on the program isn't about things that they can provide.

When are we going to be really honest and admit that Venturing just isn't working?

Sure there are a few Crews out there that are making it work, but they are the exception.

Adding more and more awards isn't the answer.

Last year the NE-Region lost over 15% of the Venturers that they had the year before, if this isn't a wake up call the sleeping pills must be really working.

Eamonn.

[CNYScouter]

 

 

I see a good deal of literature on New Scout Patrols and recruiting but very little on how to successfully use a Venture Patrol and retaining older Scouts

I would really like to see the BSA do a better job in training adult leaders on how to retain older scouts and how to use a Venture patrol in a Troop..

 

I also seeing that many of the Troops here are not meeting the needs of older scouts.

 

Many of the adult leaders think that a Venturing Crew is the answer and by doing less car camping and more high adventure activities they will magically retain older scouts.

I am also seeing these are the same Troops where the adults do everything and the Scouts just show up.

 

I have a Dad who wants to be involved with the Sea Scout Ship. His son is 13 and almost Eagle and is bored with the Troop program. The Dad went on to say that this troop does nothing but focus on advancement. 28 Eagles in the last 4 years. He also said they have very few Scouts over the age of 15. Once these kids reach Eagle they never see them again.

 

My sons Troop is having similar issues. The adults in his Troop cant understand why older boys dont stick around the Troop and they want to start a Venturing Crew. Yet, adults plan all the meetings and activities, plan the menu, collect the money and buy the food. Adults even run COHs. The scouts have no sense of ownership in the Troop and it offers them no challenges so they get bored and leave.

 

I dont think there is a problem with the Venturing program but I think a better job needs to be done in educating Troop Leaders that it is more than Advanced Boy Scouts.

I think one of the problems with Venturing is that there is no one clear-cut way to operate a Crew, but this is also want makes it intriguing.

Maybe, I cant believe Im suggesting this, it needs to be less youth-run and more youth-led like a Troop. Im seeing that many kids that want to join the ship have little or no leadership skills and have no idea on what to do.

 

I have to agree that Crews associated with Troops dont last very long. Most of these get started by a group of older scouts and then fall apart when this group leaves and go away to college.

 

In our council we have 2 very successful Venturing Crews. They are stand-alone units with no ties to a Troop. One is associated with JrROTC and the other does Civil War Reenactments. Both of these have been around 4+ years and are going strong.

 

[Crew21_Adv]

Fellow Venturers and Advisors,

 

 

WOW! Sometimes, My brain hurts too.

 

As busy as our adult lives are, so are the youths. Beyond just growing up, there are sports and academics, social environments, church events, city and town events.

 

I have a few teens, when they receive a C on their report card, Venturing is the first thing the parents take from them. We have youth leaders that have attended Officer Briefing and VLSC, but many fail to fall thru on the Activity Chair planning or refuse to work with a Consultant.

 

We have asked my Venturer Activity Chairs to work with Consultants. When they do, we have successful events. But when they don't, it gets cancelled, deposits are forfeited, money gets lost, etc. Adult Association is one of the Venturing Methods; I say its a shared concept to achieve our goals.

 

Further, I have spoken with fellow Advisors in my area. We seem to concur that the biggest failure of Crews, is that they do not tie themselves with any of the five Venturing Specialities or pursue an Advancement track.

 

On the National BSA side, I do feel that they will need to provide specific literature or program helps. I believe years ago there were Venturing Monthly themes to concur with the Cub Scout and Boy Scout themes of the month. Do they still exists?

 

A recommended meeting plan (similar to a Den meeting plan or Troop meeting plan) would help officers. There is one example in the Venturing Leaders Guide, but in the Troop Program Resource Volumes, there are four recommended plans for the month. Similar Literature like a Venturing Program Resources would help. My crew has recreated the example from the Venturing Leaders Guide as a Venturing Meeting Plan (in Excel) as a tool to help our Crew officers plan.

 

We've already discussed Boy's Life in these forums. But some type of magazine to reinforce the theme of the month would certainly excite some youth to read about what they could be doing. Possibly an planned article rotation to highlight one of the five specialties every month. I eagerly read the online reports from the National Venturing Cabinet. Maybe Scouting Magazine and Boy's Life should hire our National Venturing Cabinet as field reports!!

 

I do believe that Venturing is an excellent program. But I foresee, a few changes coming. (not many, not sweeping, but just a few changes) Changes have always happened to Scouting over the years, in every program. Changes to the OA, to Webelos, to Tiger Cubs, and to Boy Scouting. Venturing will eventually change to anchor a little more deeper, get a better strong hold and carry on in the Spirit of Scouting.

 

I better stop for now... My brain is starting to hurt. lol

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[Beavah]

We seem to concur that the biggest failure of Crews, is that they do not tie themselves with any of the five Venturing Specialities

 

Gotta agree with this, eh? A crew that tries to be more than one of those things ends up doin' nothin' very well. Ya have to know who you are and what you're sellin'. In fact, there should be different names for each group so as to clearly distinguish them. I'm not sure why they all have to be called "Venturing". After all "Sea Scouts" keeps its own name and distinct character.

 

I'm not sure I buy the middle-school style monthly themes, though. Most of da crews around here that are successful meet on a high-schooler's schedule. Definitely not weekly. Monthly is about right for "business," with an activity schedule that goes from dead calm to frenetic at various times during the year. But there definitely is a lot of room to improve materials and support, which are decidedly "sparse." These should be tailored to the different Specialty areas.

 

 

[Eamonn]

I'm not sold on the five Venturing Specialties.

In our small town we have what used to be called Showtime Theater, they have changed things and it's now a Center for the performing arts.

When the changes were under way I was asked to attend one of their board meetings and talk about Venturing. I think because the new manager they had hired had been a ASM at one time?

I was District Chairman at the time. I also knew nearly all the members of the board. -It's a small town.

I like to think that I gave a good presentation. The board seemed impressed and were all for it. I left them saying that they needed to think about getting a committee together and finding adult leadership.

Time past.

Nothing happened.

I left a few messages.

I left some BSA publications.

After a while the manager called me.

She explained that much as she would love to take on the Crew, she really didn't have time. But she asked me where in the materials I'd given her it said anything about a Crew in a theater. We both looked and after a while found something that covered about half a page.

They never did find any adults.

The last I heard was that the DE had signed up as the Advisor.

The other week they called and asked if the Sea Scouts would be willing to act as ushers for a play they were putting on.

I asked where their Crew members were and was informed that they don't have any.

Maybe I'm an old stick in the mud?

But what does the BSA know about theater?

To my way of thinking we ought to stick to the stuff we are good at.

If along the way a youth member is involved in something we can find a way of using that something for advancement.

This Venturing Specialties thing isn't working, it's just making the program more confusing.

The time for a rethink is now.

What we have is a mess that doesn't work.

Venturing can work, but we need to stop looking at it as a program for older Boy Scouts.

We don't look at Boy Scouts as a program for older Cub Scouts.

I'd be happy to not allow Venturers to work on Boy Scout ranks and leave that stuff in the Troop.

While a lot of the things that a Lad may have learned in a Troop will be useful, Venturing and Sea Scouting needs to start over making sure that youth led is just that.That means that we the adults have to train the officers.

I don't care what they have done in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. This is a program that is new to them and we need to ensure that they understand that fact.

We need to start beating on all of our District and Council Committees, so they understand that unless we put the same effort into catering to the older youth in our communities, start putting as much effort into providing opportunities to join, to advance, to camp, to get the adults trained, to have fun.It isn't going to work.

We really are missing the boat. I look at the numbers of Total Youth Served in our District.

For Cub Scouts we are in the 26% range

For Boy Scouts we are in the 21% range

For Venturing we are less than 1%.

We are missing 99% of the kids out there who could be in our programs.

I think part of this is due to the fact that the program is so confusing that no one understands it and because they don't understand they are happy doing nothing.

Eamonn.

[CNYScouter]

Eamonn - I kind of agree and disagree with you at the same time.

 

Your are right about the BSA not knowing anything about Theatre.

However the BSA does understand how to teach Leadership.

 

It takes a creative Advisor to come up with how to link the two.

This is where I think the Venturing Program lacks.

National need to have better training on combining its program with a special interest.

 

If look at the Arts and Hobbies Bronze award you see this statement:

(Activities or projects that are more available in your area may be substituted with your Advisor's approval for activities shown above.)

 

I cant remember the link or Web Site but I did see a Crew that had done this to fit into their specialty.

 

While trying to find a CO for the Sea Scout Ship I ran into an antique/classic car club that asked about using Venturing as their youth program.

After comparing what Sea Scouts was doing with boats, with a little creativity and effort I dont see why this cant be done with automobiles.

 

Maintaining, Repairing and customizing cars all could be fit into a Venturing Program.

How about a trip to the Daytona 500 for their Super-Activity?

 

Back in the 50s and 60d Car Clubs were all the rage.

With the interest young people are showing customizing imports and around here we have seen a rash of teen deaths due to high speed a place to do this in a safe environment is greatly needed.