Venturing Forum

[OldGreyEagle]

Anyone doing anything that meets with success in the Venturing Forum Arena?

[emb021]

My experience generally is it seems to be difficult to get people out to the Venturing Forum/Roundtable. We can have some great program, and just not get people to come out.

 

Most youth seem relunctant to come out (which, IMO, is why its so vital to have a good program to bring them out).

 

Many adults seem relunctant to come out. Some of this is may be due to adults not familiar with how scouting works (ie the expectation of attending regular monthly roundtables). Some is due to the adults having to do everything on their own, so why bother coming together for anything.

 

The problem I see in my area, is that few district have enough crews to make a monthly district Venturing RT/Forum worth doing. So you try to do a regular Venturing RT/Forum at the council level, at least quarterly, and then people are reluctant to come out due to the drive (please understand that in my area, councils are not THAT large, and you can usually get from one end of the council to another in about an hour or so).

 

[John-in-KC]

A few years back we had some fair success. We had an active District VOA, and it met as part of Venturing RT.

 

These days, it's pretty slim. Our Crews are almost hyper-specialized; further there is the time demand inherent on HS and college students. I find a lot of what they do is fueled on facebook groups. Their messages collide in near real time while they are doing some other task.

[OldGreyEagle]

The council I serve is doing two Forums for the Council, a Northern Tier and Southern Tier of three Districts each. I am the commissioner of the Forums and right now the best thing I can say is I am on track for a Training knot in Venturing

[Buffalo Skipper]

I am curious to hear how these are handled around the country as well. We started out a Venture RT last year, planning a meeting every 3 months; this turned out to be too infrequent. We are about to try every other month; those in charge do not believe 12/year is going to work.

 

We have had good participation from 4 or 5 crews/ships, but all efforts to facilitate a inter-unit social activity has been tanked by the group. As a Sea Explorer 25 years ago, I was the council president of the Explorer President's Association. We had 3 or 4 joint activities every year, and everyone had a great time. I sometimes think that if we could just get them to buy in and try it once, it would grow, but it just hasn't worked out that way.

 

I am also interested to hear about the change to the term "forum." Is this just a buzz word or is there a genuine change to the RT program?

[emb021]

"I am also interested to hear about the change to the term "forum." Is this just a buzz word or is there a genuine change to the RT program?"

 

Cub Scout Roundtables and Boy Scout Roundtables continue to exist.

 

In 2007, out of the blue, they replaced the Venturing Roundtable Guide with the Venturing Monthly Program Forum. (the 2 books have the same number, they didn't even bother to add a letter at the end). I got a copy of the Program Forum book. It is the same as the prior Venturing RT guide, just with the terms changed. The office patches for the Venturing RT Commissioner and Staff haven't changed.

 

I don't know the reason for the change. I assume it could be because many Venturing leaders don't have a prior scouting background, so 'roundtable' doesn't make sense for them. I also know that some from the Cub Scout and Boy Scout side couldn't get their heads around the fact that Venturing RT include youth (which CS & BS RT do NOT).

 

 

 

 

[John-in-KC]

emb:

 

Two words: BUZZWORD!!!! BINGO!!!