Venture Patrols

[Scoutingmama]

We are a new troop

[CA_Scouter]

Regarding the equipment... go with the lightweight stuff. You can always use the lightweight stuff if you go car camping but you can't use the car camping stuff when you go backpacking.

 

Can't comment on the VP stuff, sorry, no experience.. :-(

 

[emb021]

Ah, the Venture Patrol. Keep in mind that the Venture Patrol is NOT solely doing high adventure stuff.

 

Venture Patrol are an opportunity for the older boys (13 and up) to organize into their own little group to plan and carry out their own activities separate from the rest of the troop. The idea is they re-org about every 3 months or so, for the duration of the planning and carrying out their own high adventure or sports activity.

 

Those boys who choice to be involved in the Venture Patrol can (and should) remain in their regular patrols. They only form up with the VP for planning/carrying out the Venture Patrol activities (basically the planning and preparation for their activity and the activity itself). This means that for all regular troop activities, they are still part of a regular patrol and doing stuff with that patrol. This is why the venture patrol does NOT have a patrol medallion, but a Venture strip. (this strip is NOT a reward, but an identification of being part of the Venture patrol). The Venture Patrol elects a new Patrol Leader each time they re-org and work on a new activity.

 

For instance, all the older boys would gather together to form a Venture Patrol. They would work on what they plan to do, and who will be the patrol leader. There may be some boys who decide to opt-out of the patrol for this activity, which is fine. For instance, maybe they decide to do a backpacking trip. So for the next 3 months the VP forms to plan and prepare for this trip, culimating with trip itself. Now the cycle begins again with the VP re-forming and deciding what they will do. Again, some boys will opt-out of this new activity. Maybe this time they decide to be involved with the local bowling league, leading up the league finals. So this time the VP activities are them participating in games for the league. And so on.

 

 

As to equipment. A troop should only invest in group equipment for high adventure stuff, such as stoves, pots/pans, tents. Personal equipment, which includes backpacks, sleeping bags, etc, are the responsibility of the boys. Frankly, you can use a lot of this same equipment for regular troop trips, too.

[anarchist]

light weight gear can cost much more than basic camping gear (truck camping or even canoe camping). Some new troop have difficulty with raising funds and rather than buy two or three backpacking stoves per patrol at $60 for each stove (or higher), find themselves buying a coleman (or other) propane two burner for $25-$35. Other backpacking gear tents and flys all tend to be pricier than heavier gear also (dining flys, cook sets, lanterns, tents...). If funds are an issue, Your troop should determine where it wants to be several years out and do some long range planning...if dollars are flowing do what you feel is best from the start!

 

It needs to be said, again, that backpacking/hign adventure activities can be done on a budget...you just have to thing hard, plan hard and be willing to "make do"....

 

depending on what kind of program your guys want the Venture patrol my or may not contitute a long term group...in our troop the high adventure patrol does three or four of its own activities annually, usually outside of the troop schedule. They also participate in most troop events and serve as the SPL's first line of skill instructors.

 

On many of their activities the SPL, ASPL, Troop Guides and older scouts from other patrols are invited to participate. this gives the "troop POC leaders" a chance to be part of some activities with their "buds" and as long as BSA age limits are not a factor give some of the slighlty younger scouts a taste of being an older scout doing even cooler stuff.

 

on your question about how long down stream you should be reasonably able to do such an undertaking...it will depend on your number of dedicated older scouts (five is plenty enough BTW)and the quality of your adult mentorship...the "right" people is always a better indicator

than a time line. If you end up with a group of "serve it to us on a silver platter" type boys, you will never make it truly work. If your current group puts there noses to the grind stone you could be opperating in less than a year...

 

good luck!

keep us informed how it goes...

Anarchist

[Eagledad]

Hello Scoutingmama

 

Our troop eventually went the direction of an adventure troop instead of Venture Patrols. For reasons that I wont get into here, Venture Patrols didnt work out well for us. Instead of waiting for your scouts to get old enough for the Venture Patrol, start encouraging Temporary Activity Patrols now. Those are patrols created for a specific activity like Philmont or Northern Tier or any other activity that is not planned by the PLC as a troop activity. Temporary Activity Patrols don't have an age or rank restriction unless the specific activity was limited by age like Philmont. The Patrol only exists until the activity has been completed. The scouts in the patrol dont leave their other patrol, and meet at other times outside the Troop Meeting. Ours typically met before the troop meeting or on weekends.

 

Another advantage of a Temporary Activity Patrol is that it doesnt have to be High Adventure. One year we had three crews go to Philmont, another go to backpacking in Colorado and another go snow skiing. But we also had a patrol spend a weekend going to amusements parks to ride roller coasters. There were no age restrictions on any of those activities accept the Philmont trips. Weve also had a patrol go to Alaska and one created for the purpose of doing a service project at a nursing home. The boys created most of those patrols and led all of them. Our biggest challenge was getting enough adults.

 

I encourage your scoutmaster to build a reputation of an adventure troop where all the scouts can choose between different activities. With a reputation like that, your troop will likely grow very fast.

 

Barry

 

[emb021]

Eagledad-

 

Your description of your "temporary activity patrols" is basically Venture Patrols.

 

The only difference would be Venture Patrol members must be atleast 13 years old. That's about the age limit of the high adventure bases.

[Eagledad]

>>Your description of your "temporary activity patrols" is basically Venture Patrols.

[Beavah]

How far down the road should a new troop reasonably expect to be able to get such a thing off the ground? We have about 5 boys that are 14 or over, but only three are above 1st class. The rest of the boys are mostly Tenderfoot and 2nd class ( with two 12 yos that are 1st class).

 

Havin' a First Class requirement for Venture Patrol makes some sense, eh? It says a boy has all of the basics of personal camping and safety down pat, and is ready for da next step.

 

But at this point, if you've got a bunch of 14-and-overs, I'd be thinkin' about setting up for your first high adventure activities. They don't have to be great big things, but a bit more adventurous. A short climbing, paddling, skiing, caving, etc. adventure can open up possibilities for the future, and help cement skills in your older boy leaders.

 

Secondly, are Venture patrol boys assigned to their own patrol and a regular patrol or just the VP?

 

There are a bunch of different ways of organizin' patrols within a troop, eh?

 

Some troops work on age-based patrols. In that kind of setup, a Venture Patrol would be a "regular" patrol of older boys itself. A large troop in particular might have New Scout Patrols that develop into "Regular" Scout Patrols and then become Venture Patrols as the boys grow up. Like there are three semi-independent program divisions. BobWhite and several others speak eloquently about da merits of this approach.

 

Some troops work on mixed-age patrols. In that kind of setup, or in a smaller troop, a Venture Patrol would be more what emb describes, eh? A temporary association of older boys who work together toward some high adventure activity. They continue as members of their regular patrols/positions in the troop, and a new Venture Patrol gets formed for each "SuperAdventure." This was the original BSA Venture Patrol model when it was first introduced.

 

And of course there are all kinds of other ways of approachin' it, too! Like making the Senior Patrol/Leadership Corps/PLC your temporary Venture patrol, and combinin' Troop Leader Training and high adventure in some fun way.

 

Do those boys only do VP things or do the do regular troop activities and VP activities?

 

In all cases, they'd participate in both. Just like regular patrols should have both patrol outings and participate in troop outings. If yeh want 'em to be separate, start a crew!

 

We haven't purchased that much equipment yet. We are thinking that it may be better to just purchase lighter weight back packing equipment up front even though the cost would be greater. Or do most troops maintain both types of equipment?

 

If you're really lookin' to do adventure activities, whether with a Venture Patrol or with the whole troop as Eagledad suggests, then lightweight, flexible equipment that can be used in many environments and many different types of outings makes a lot of sense. Da units I know who've gone that way have never looked back. They feel it opens up a lot more possibilities and freedom to pursue different activities.

 

There is some additional cost involved, for sure. I reckon it doesn't have to be prohibitive. A lot of the car campin' units I know spend big dollars on trailers, dining flies, cast iron cookware, laterns and da like, which you can completely leave off. Yeh have to add the cost of propane tanks, trees, hoses, wrenches, etc. to the burner cost for the heavy gear, too.

 

A higher quality, smaller tent will be more expensive, but many of 'em also last longer or come with "lifetime" warranties. Or skip da tent and just use a lightweight fly and you might be savin' some bucks.

 

Beavah

 

[emb021]

">>Your description of your "temporary activity patrols" is basically Venture Patrols.

[Eagledad]

>>Again, that is how Venture Patrols operate! Boys stay in their regular mixed age patrol and the Venture Patrol exist only until the activity is done, then are re-orged/reformed.

[FScouter]

I won't comment on the workability of a single-activity "patrol" except to say you cannot find any guidance on how to work the concept in any BSA publication.

[Eagledad]

>>I won't comment on the workability of a single-activity "patrol" except to say you cannot find any guidance on how to work the concept in any BSA publication.

[Beavah]

you cannot find any guidance on how to work the concept in any BSA publication.

 

Yeh can if you've got any of da original Venture Patrol materials from the early 1990s, eh? That was the recommended program back then when Venture patrols got started. Remember, at the point when VP's got started, BSA was advocating mixed-age regular patrols, and that's what was in place in most units. It was also the 1990 program revision that went NSP/age based, but we all know about BSA editing .

 

The idea was that a Venture Patrol came together to pursue a "SuperActivity", which consisted of a number of months of preparation followed by the main adventure. Each "SuperActivity" would have a Venture Patrol with different kids in it, though obviously a lot of lads would overlap and be Venture Patrol "regulars".

 

Venture Patrol materials and references have all but vanished now, as da notion is being phased out in favor of Venturing.

 

Beavah

 

[FScouter]

They did a lot of stuff different in the olden days. Nowadays, a BSA venture patrol is a permanent patrol for boys aged 13-17. Surely folks here can offer plenty of ideas about doing a super-activity. But let's not describe a 2008 "venture patrol" as a loose temporary collection of boys from other patrols. Call it something else, like "super patrol". Using terms with different common meanings is just going to be confusing to the rest of us that use the Scoutmaster Handbook for guidance.

[Eagledad]

>>Using terms with different common meanings is just going to be confusing to the rest of us that use the Scoutmaster Handbook for guidance.