The same old same old

[Eamonn]

To be fair to the DE and maybe the Council??

Over the years for different reasons Crews have started in the District.

Some never really ever got off the ground, again for various reasons.

At the end of 2005 four Venturing Crews didn't recharter. All of these were Crews that were spun off from Troops.

To the best of my knowledge we have one "Stand alone Crew" It came into being out of a Troop that folded.

The Advisor is a teacher and is a very knowledgeable Scouter. He teaches a gifted math class in a local HS.

When the Crew started he hand-picked the members and the school allowed them to meet as a School Club. They had a really good first year. Lots of activities with over a 50% attendance at the activities. Things went so well that they went ahead and enlarged the recruiting area opening it up to anyone in the school. Soon they had about 70 youth members signed up!!

Then the school said it was no longer going to allow them to meet as a School Club and things started to go down hill. The school did finally allow them to meet once a month.

Now I hear that the teacher is moving to another school district. The Troop that folded did so because they were unable to find any adult leadership (The CO is a local church, but the Crew has little or nothing to do with the church)

No one seems to know how many active youth members there are. Being as they met during school time, signing kids up wasn't hard, but with all the changes holding their interest will be hard.

We have the Ship.

There are two other Crews in the District, both affiliated with Troops. To date other than helping out at District Camporees they have never held an event that was just for Venturers.

In the Council, I think we have two other real Crews. One is into shooting sports and the members get together not as BSA members to do an other activity.

One is a Civil War reenactment group. The Advisor is into that but it seems it is not reaching out and recruiting any youth members.

I kinda feel that the DE is trying to do something as something is (To his mind) is better than nothing.

With so few people actively involved, there isn't that much interest and trying to recruit people isn't going to work.

There is now talk of inviting the small Council next door!!

I don't really know what the intention really is?

I do know that starting a new unit isn't easy can be very hard work full of joys and frustrations, a one time event is not a quick fix.

Eamonn.

 

[emb021]

jblake47- We do not have Venture Scouts or Venture Crews in the BSA. We have Venturers in Venturing Crews. Please use the correct terms.

 

"With Venture Scouts (sic), they all do basically different things. "

 

No they don't. There are many different kinds of crews out there, but many Venturers like and do many of the same things. You CAN find commonality of interesting amoung Venturers and have great Venturing events. There are many I know of in my area that are very successful.

 

"To develop a probram for the Tigers, Cubs and Scouts is a no brainer, but how does one design a program to meet the diversity of Venture Scouts? Well, they probably can't, so why try? "

 

No true. Its being done and being done successfully. Heck, there have been articles in Scouting about succcessful Venturing events.

 

"High Adventure crews might be able to pull off an event here or there together, but I'm a Venture Crew Advisor for an American History crew and we are one of mayby 2 or three such crews in the entirety of the United States. We pull youth from different councils, not just different cities or districts. There is nothing that the Council is going to provide for us that will at all interest any involvement with in this crew. We're talking apples and oranges here, big time."

 

What you are doing is narrowing your focus so much that you can't find enough stuff that would interest most crews. Here are some of the things I've seen done at successful Venturing events. Are these things that the Venturers in your Crew would be interested in doing?

 

* volleyball

* swim competition

* canoeing/rowing/sailing

* Cope (low or high)

* shooting (rifles, shotguns, handguns)

* ropes

* tug of war

* GPS/geocaching

 

[Stosh]

jblake47- We do not have Venture Scouts or Venture Crews in the BSA. We have Venturers in Venturing Crews. Please use the correct terms.

 

A scout is friendly, courteous and kind, so my respond is -- in my council, Venture crews and Venture scouts is the terminology used. The "Outstanding Unit Leader" award on my wall indicates it is because of my work with Venture Crew 2, which is also the terminology used for the past 8 years on my unit charter.

 

"With Venture Scouts (sic), they all do basically different things. "

 

No they don't. There are many different kinds of crews out there, but many Venturers like and do many of the same things. You CAN find commonality of interesting amoung Venturers and have great Venturing events. There are many I know of in my area that are very successful.

 

"To develop a probram for the Tigers, Cubs and Scouts is a no brainer, but how does one design a program to meet the diversity of Venture Scouts? Well, they probably can't, so why try? "

 

No true. Its being done and being done successfully. Heck, there have been articles in Scouting about succcessful Venturing events.

 

"High Adventure crews might be able to pull off an event here or there together, but I'm a Venture Crew Advisor for an American History crew and we are one of mayby 2 or three such crews in the entirety of the United States. We pull youth from different councils, not just different cities or districts. There is nothing that the Council is going to provide for us that will at all interest any involvement with in this crew. We're talking apples and oranges here, big time."

 

What you are doing is narrowing your focus so much that you can't find enough stuff that would interest most crews. Here are some of the things I've seen done at successful Venturing events. Are these things that the Venturers in your Crew would be interested in doing?

 

* volleyball

* swim competition

* canoeing/rowing/sailing

* Cope (low or high)

* shooting (rifles, shotguns, handguns)

* ropes

* tug of war

* GPS/geocaching

 

I have over 35 years experience in developing Exploring Posts and Venturing Crews. They are highly specialized and if run on the level of expertise as mine, the crew members have no interest in anything other than what their specialty is. To answer honestly,-- no, my people would be the last to be involved in any of the above activities. And to clarify it further, no, I have not narrowed my focus too much, the members of my crew have. They function at a level far different than that of their peers. To interest my crew members to a district or council event is a waste of time. And it is not just my crew either. The scuba people have very little social compatibility with the curling people. As I said before, the high adventure crews do mix better and generally make up the bulk of those attending council/district events.

[CNYScouter]

At least someone in your council is at trying to make an effort to put something together.

 

But I think Eamonns councils Venturing program looks pretty much like our councils.

Since our DE has suggested the Crews get together and try each crews specialty I have been looking into the other crews around.

 

The District the Ship is in has 13 Crews and the Ship.

This is more than the other 5 Districts in the council put together.

5 of these are Shooting Crews (rifle, air rifle, pistol, archery and skeet). They dont do anything more than get together a couple of times a month and shoot.

1 does Civil War Re-enactment.

1 is for District Eagles that gets together a couple of times a year and does special service projects.

Another is for the Army Core of Cadets. They charter a troop and crew to use the councils facilities but are not involved any other way.

The most active Crew is for special needs adults. I met them at a Scout Show last year.

I dont think its members abilities would be up to any type of joint activity.

 

I talked with a couple of the other Crew Advisors whose youth members are all in college and at this point only exist on paper.

The other couple of Crews are from Troops which use them for the older scouts to do something a couple of times a year apart from the Troop.

 

We do have another Ship in the council. It only has a few kids on its charter.

They went out sailing a couple of times on one of its leaders boats but havent done much since.

 

The rest of the Crews in the other Districts near us are associated with Troops and are used to do High Adventure Trips with some of the older Scouts and dont really do Venturing Activities.

 

My son has asked about putting together an activity with other Crews but I am not real sure there is going to be much interest.

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Getting Venturing Crews together, especially those of disparate interests can be hard. We had a Model Train Crew that had been an Explorer Post that went back to being a Post because Venturing did nothing for them. At the big Council Wide activity a few Crews showed up, they were all Outdoor Crews, seems the other Crews didnt want to camp, cuz if the youth liked camping, they would be outdoor crews and not Arts and Hobbies, Youth Ministries, etc. The one common thing you can get Crews together for is VLSC because that can be done irrespective of Crew interest and can be done as a "Lock-in" in a building. Now, for a challenge, you could do a Cardboard Boat Regatta as they seem to appeal to everyone. Have a campout with Campfire, as you have to burn the boats anyway, and maybe some of the non-outdoor crews will try it, if not they can always just show up for the day. We have a traditional Cook out hosted by Lovie and Thurston Howell III of course

[Stosh]

Have the Civil War reenactment group get in touch with me....

[CNYScouter]

You will find the Civil War reenactment crews web site with contact information at:

 

http://www.the12thus.com/venture/index.htm

[local1400]

Eamonn, dont be upset with yourself. I probably misunderstood your point. I love this forum, all the ideas, banter, sharing etc... Its nice to hear everyone else's problems and successes too! BTW, I work with a man named Floyston. local.

[Eamonn]

Sorry to dig this one up again.

This event is still on the calendar.

The date was changed (Put back 2 weeks) because it clashed with a Quest weekend.

A month ago I send an E-mail to the person I thought was in charge, asking what had been done?

He replied that there had been a meeting of 3 or 4 people back in December and the DE was organizing things.

Three weeks ago I send an E-mail asking: Where the participants would sleep (Do we need to bring tents?) and how would they be fed?

I never did get a reply!!

I looked in at the Scout Service Center and by chance the DE was there. I asked why he hadn't replied to my E-mail? He said he was waiting to hear from the committee.

My problem now is that the Ship is really busy in April and May. We have the Regatta in May which we train for, we have boats that need to be got ready for the water and a fund raising event. Add to all this the fact that this event really has nothing to offer us and I really don't want to go!!

The event is the weekend after an OA weekend, so I'm almost certain that someone will rally the older Boy Scouts and get enough of them to turn out to make up the numbers.

I kinda feel that I'm expected to attend.

But I think if I do that I'm going to be more of a pain than an asset!!

So I'm not going.

I'm sure this will yet again be seen as my not supporting the District / Council.

But I'm still not going.

Ea.

[Jeffrey H]

I chuckle when I see those that are quick to FIRMLY correct those that dont call it by the right name, as if they spewing a vulgar word.

 

Calling those in Venturing Venture Scouts is a common mistake but an understandable one. Venturing is considered part of the scouting program and its easy for folks to attach the word Scout to Venturing. Also, those that identify themselves as Venture Scouts are often mistaken for being a part of a Venturing Crew.

 

We can thank the national office for the ongoing confusion. Folks that are in Scouting long enough will get it right (maybe), but the confusion will always be there for newbies and old-timers alike.