A couple of years ago, BSA pulled the Venturing/Ranger books off the shelves suddenly. As I understand it, it was done for a legal issue. The books were off the shelves for close to a year.
Recently, changes were voted on by BSA that resulted in the loss of the Venturing Oath and Code, effective in 2014. While I can't say I will miss the Code when this all becomes effective, the loss of Venturing's Oath has really ticked off the scouts in my Venturing unit. I hear rumor that the Venturing sign and salute are likewise history, but while this is being put out as fact on the blog attached to Scout Wire, some youth involved at the National level have denied this is the case. I called National and was told that, indeed, the Venturing hand sign and salute will be replaced by the three-fingered Boy Scout sign and salute. Who knows what is actually correct. Additional tinkering may be in the works in the form of the elimination of Venturing's achievements, namely the elimination of the Bronze, Gold and Silver Awards. God knows what they will replace them with if that is correct. Merit badges and ranks? My crew will run for the hills and I will be left wondering if I can sell our home-built kitchen box on eBay and will our crew flag make an okay souvenir of four years of fun and effort.
The latest fiasco is the Venturing uniform shirts. While Venturing crew's can use the uniform or not, mine does. Most of the crew's in my Council (San Diego-Imperial) do, or at least when I see them they are. The shirts have been pulled off the shelves with no indication on when we will see them again. I made a bunch of calls and emails today to Council and National and got nowhere. No one at Council was willing to make inquiries, and National was not giving up any info. A previous call on this issue elicited the opinion that it would likely be Spring 2013 or later before uniforms were available again.
I remarked to more than one person today that this kind of thing would never happen in the Boy Scout program. Can you imagine the Boy Scout book not being available? Not being able to purchase a Boy Scout uniform for any period whatsoever, let alone until next Spring? Not likely.
While none of these issues are likely connected, I feel like every time I turn around, some silliness is impacting the Venturing program and no one is in any hurry whatsoever to fix it. One could almost say that BSA is dragging their collective feet. But to what end?
I am not a conspiracy theorist. Quite the contrary, I am a big believer in Occam's Razor. With that in mind, the issues are likely unintentional screw ups that BSA is simply slow to fix. Tinkering with the identity of Venturing by replacing our Oath, Code, and sign/salute, is the result of well-meaning (if not ignorant) individuals who honestly believe they are doing a good thing. May I recommend to those well-meaning individuals to leave our achievements alone while I am on this subject? If it's not broken, don't fix it, eh?
While I am trying to take the proverbial high road, I keep coming back to wondering why we always seem to be getting screwed...what is your take on the matter?
Recently, changes were voted on by BSA that resulted in the loss of the Venturing Oath and Code, effective in 2014. While I can't say I will miss the Code when this all becomes effective, the loss of Venturing's Oath has really ticked off the scouts in my Venturing unit. I hear rumor that the Venturing sign and salute are likewise history, but while this is being put out as fact on the blog attached to Scout Wire, some youth involved at the National level have denied this is the case. I called National and was told that, indeed, the Venturing hand sign and salute will be replaced by the three-fingered Boy Scout sign and salute. Who knows what is actually correct. Additional tinkering may be in the works in the form of the elimination of Venturing's achievements, namely the elimination of the Bronze, Gold and Silver Awards. God knows what they will replace them with if that is correct. Merit badges and ranks? My crew will run for the hills and I will be left wondering if I can sell our home-built kitchen box on eBay and will our crew flag make an okay souvenir of four years of fun and effort.
The latest fiasco is the Venturing uniform shirts. While Venturing crew's can use the uniform or not, mine does. Most of the crew's in my Council (San Diego-Imperial) do, or at least when I see them they are. The shirts have been pulled off the shelves with no indication on when we will see them again. I made a bunch of calls and emails today to Council and National and got nowhere. No one at Council was willing to make inquiries, and National was not giving up any info. A previous call on this issue elicited the opinion that it would likely be Spring 2013 or later before uniforms were available again.
I remarked to more than one person today that this kind of thing would never happen in the Boy Scout program. Can you imagine the Boy Scout book not being available? Not being able to purchase a Boy Scout uniform for any period whatsoever, let alone until next Spring? Not likely.
While none of these issues are likely connected, I feel like every time I turn around, some silliness is impacting the Venturing program and no one is in any hurry whatsoever to fix it. One could almost say that BSA is dragging their collective feet. But to what end?
I am not a conspiracy theorist. Quite the contrary, I am a big believer in Occam's Razor. With that in mind, the issues are likely unintentional screw ups that BSA is simply slow to fix. Tinkering with the identity of Venturing by replacing our Oath, Code, and sign/salute, is the result of well-meaning (if not ignorant) individuals who honestly believe they are doing a good thing. May I recommend to those well-meaning individuals to leave our achievements alone while I am on this subject? If it's not broken, don't fix it, eh?
While I am trying to take the proverbial high road, I keep coming back to wondering why we always seem to be getting screwed...what is your take on the matter?
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