Re: Explorer Crews
William H. Sills (whs@idcnet.com)
Tue Mar 31 23:31:14 1998
Your message illustrates the difficulty with making the new High Adventure
Venturung program a cohesive one. Many, many young High Adventure Explorers had
requested the RETURN of the Silver Award advancement track which was
discontinued in 1965. Many of them also have asked to get the Crews and Crew
Leaders back. Quite a few other young Explorers have said that they could care
less about earning Silver or anything else. Your comment is the first I have
heard that bringing them back as an option would be bad.
The vast majority of Sea Scouts use either or both of their
advancement tracks. That may be evidence that Sea Scouts are interested in an
objective measurement of the level of mastery of their nautical skills. High
Adventure Explorers do not have the concentrated focus found in ships because
they encompass so many disparate activities. Some climb mountains, some horse
pack, some are white water kayakers, some are advanced campers, etc. Perhaps
that is why both the Ranger and the Silver tracks have been proposed to be made
available again.
Personally, as a Sea Scout officer, the return of Silver and Ranger
wouldn't affect my youth. However, I can not see where having them as an
available option would be anything but a positive step. Certainly, some of our
Sea Scouts don't bother with the Quartermaster award program while many others
work on it. They happily co-exist side-by-side in their ships so I can't see why
that wouldn't be true in posts.
If you are against having the Silver option, why?
By the way, the comment about having fun while actually learning
something is waht my Sea Scouts also say. If it weren't for fun, none of us,
youth or old guys, would stick around long.
YISS;
Bill Sills
Wiedenhoeft wrote:
> About setting up High Adventure posts with a crew structure similiar to sea
> scouts:
> Has anyone asked the high adventure members what they think?
> The response we've gotton from our members has been that they don't want
> ranks and they're not interested on working on anything like merit badges,
> if they were they'd join the Boy Scout troop or Girl Scouts. Our members
> aren't slackers, most are very high achievers, they just don't want
> Exploring to become another competitive thing where they feel pressured into
> reaching certain achievements. That doesn't mean they haven't learned
> anything. One of the best comments I've heard from one of our members is "it
> seems like we're just having fun, but actually we've learned a lot.
>
> J. Wiedenhoeft
> Explorer Post 540, Wisconsin
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