An Aussie Signs On

[epalmer84]

G'day, mate! I spent some time with a bunch of Aussie soldiers in Germany many years ago. I think they caused me to loose a few grey cells.

 

>Venture Scouts - Venturer; but this is a separate part of BSA. It has girls and the age range is the same as ours. But a Venture Crew (not unit I think) is not linked to a Scout Troop. Venture Scouts do adventurous activities. So do ordinary Troops but - no girls.

 

>Scouts can be aged 11-18. Venture Scouts 14-18. So when aged 14-18 they have to choose between the two.

 

We don't have Venture Scouts. We have two programs with similar names. This confuses many veteran Scouters here in the US.

 

Venture patrol- a patrol within the Boy Scout troop for senior Scouts. The members are Boy Scouts.

 

Venturing- the program for youth ages 14 through 21; can be coed. Units are crews and members are Venturers. Members can be dual registered in a troop and a crew. The Girl Scouts of the USA is a completely separate organization, but many Girl Scouts are also Venturers.

 

Ed

[moxieman]

ozemu wrote:

Fair enough too. Here every Scout (Cub, Scout, Venturer,Rover) has a passbook with all of the possible badges listed and each test is signed off individually. A complete record in one place. Just the thing for washing machine tragedy.

 

I hear you. For ranks, the scout's handbook is the back-up system which is suppose to be signed-off (and whoa the scout who misplaces his book!). There is also paperwork that has to be sent into the council office. For merit (proficiency) badges, we have a three piece card system printed on blue card stock, thus the name "Blue card". One piece remains in the hands of the merit badge counselor, one in the hands of the scout and the third part in the hands of the troop (which then records it on that report form and sends it to council).

 

Our local district asks scouts to produce these blue cards as part of their Eagle Scout Board of Review. It is not required (because we can't add to the requirements for Eagle), but it has helped resolve issues of missing council records in the past (like what I went through as a scout).

 

[ozemu]

Yes - I remember. We had some of those blue cards turn up here when we did an exchange (well it was pretty one way really) with Red Feather of this forum. Our Scouts did the fishing and Indian lore MB and eventually got both badge and cards sent over.

 

The last wearer of said badges aged out only two months ago. I think he said some heads got scratched when he wore uniform at the Jamboree in Jan this year.

 

It was great for our Scouts. They got really keen. Big thanks to Red Feather and the crew in BSA who helped out.

 

Only wish we could have helped in the other direction.

[red feather]

Good to see ya posting Oz. I still use the work your scouts did as the way merit badge work should be done. Your scouts did a fantastic job. Most of the scouts from that time have earned their Eagle and have moved on and recently had some of them ask if I had heard from you guys and were wondering if we could work something up like that again.

 

Since that time I have taken on the 'spreading the joy' job of Scoutmaster. One thing I have learned is that if you have a good program that the scouts buy into the number of adults increase. Good problem to have.

 

HiLo, welcome to the campfire and am looking forward to reading your posts. Oz helped open my eyes on how scouting is done in other countries.

 

Never been to Australia but it is on my short list of places I want to go. Have a brother that was on International Jamboree held there. Had a great time.

 

Welcome again

 

yis

[jambo]

Hilo, I read your comments about Australia and Scouting down under. My fellow scouters did a good job in explaining a lot of the bureaucracy of our advancements for the boys.here in USA . Administratively it drives some Units crazy ( figuratively speaking ). Since I have been around the world, I made a point to see ,how Scouting is run. It would be an eye opener for some our inculcated training cadre, and professional staff, to see that our methods of the running of units could be improved, then to try to beat the ' dead horse ' to its demise. Read some of my other threads..." Cheerio for International Scouting...jambo

 

 

[HiLo]

Thanks for the welcome Red Feather. And to Jambo as well, it's forums like this that make us realise that Scouting is a global community. While there are differences between what we do, and some of them are seen as sacred by some (I can tell the girls in Scouts thing is one of those), our basic principles are pretty much the same.

 

Recently a few colleagues went to the UK for the Centenary World Jamboree in the UK. We chatted with them there, and watched proceedings on the Net. It made me feel part of a real global movement.

 

And Jambo, I don't know if you realise that the World Jamboree song was called Jambo! It was a quite upbeat number. It's basic meassge was "One World, One Promise". Not strictly true, but close enough for me. If you're into this sort of thing you can find a video clip of it on YouTube by searching for "jambo promise".

[jambo]

Hi, 'hilo', You are correct in stating that the name 'Jambo' is realy taken from the name of Jamboree, I have been around the world many times, and I enjoyed the fellowship. jambo

[ozemu]

Red Feather I reckon that sounds good - doing a re-run. But to be truthful I am waist deep in recruitment of leader issues and an upcoming trip to Vanuatu in May 08. But if I can get a new SL then I'll put it to them. Doing an MB exchange won't be hard - just haven't got motivated leaders about the place at present. We'll hook up after Christmas eh?

 

Not interested in meeting up with us in the Pacific in May are you?

[ozemu]

Red Feather I reckon that sounds good - doing a re-run. But to be truthful I am waist deep in recruitment of leader issues and an upcoming trip to Vanuatu in May 08. But if I can get a new SL then I'll put it to them. Doing an MB exchange won't be hard - just haven't got motivated leaders about the place at present. We'll hook up after Christmas eh?

 

Not interested in meeting up with us in the Pacific in May are you?