emb021

It may depend on what you will be doing. I recommend you ask. WB staff are, depending on the positions, the ones doing the training. I known on my course that pretty much everyone, even the QM staff, made atleast one presentation. There is a difference in what you do from a patrol guide, QM staff, secretary, etc. PH staff is a little different. The bulk of the presentations are done by outside experts, consultants, who are brought in to share their knowledge and expertise. So, by and large, the PH staff is less a presentation staff then a management staff (oversight, getting crews where they need to go, take care of food, logistics, etc). So best to find out what kind of positions you are being asked to fill and make your decision on that basic (do you want to do X on WB staff, or Y on PH staff). hope that helps.

"Question, does WB21C now provide CEs, CEUs, or whatever they are called, like the older course did?" No. Am told the reason is that there is a cost involved (for the BSA) to do so, and not enough people took advantage of this with the prior course to bother to continue to do so. Some councils have Wood Badge Scholarships. I know the councils down here do this, funded by grills run at scout events by WBers, and annual WB gatherings/breakfasts. If your council doesn't have this, consider proposing they do so. Also, some units may be willing to help with cost (all or part, usually based on finishing your ticket), as well as other service groups or employeers.

Yeah, and National wants to take over all the Regional Venturing pages. I guess because they think they can do a better job...

"A friend pointed out to me the other day that the flag on the current BSA uniform is backwards. The proper way, according to him, should be with the blue field facing forward such as you would see on the Army uniforms." Your friend is wrong. The flag on the BSA uniform is not backwards. Flag patches should show the blue field in the upper left, per US Flag protocol. The Army decided more recently to have flag patches oriented such that the blue field is in the upper right for wearing on the right sleeve. This is their choice. "I don't know if the way we wear it is a gigantic infraction of flag protocal." If you (or your friend) had bothered to check flag protocol, you would have learned that what the BSA is doing is NOT incorrect. This is a common misconception that pops up about every 6 months or so, because people see what the Army does, and just assumes that THEY are doing it correctly, and any who doesn't is doing it wrong.

"I just picked up the new Venturing Manual. It does NOT include Math and Science Bronze." AFAIK, its not a new edition, just a new printing. Strangely, its not listed on the ScoutStuff site... Plans seem to be to separate the Venturer Handbook from the Ranger Guidebook, and put all the advancement books (Ranger, Quest, Trust) into a single, separate book, so maybe the M&S awards will go in there.

"Why I want tenure back in the T-2-1 levels. It gives them time to learn and practice the skills for a period if time." This is done with the requirements to attend so many events, as this will occur over several months, instead of forcing the kid to say at each rank for x amount of time. Actually, for me I had meet all the requirements for T-2-1 BUT having earned citizenship skill award. And had done so for a long time. But once I got the skill award, I had to wait those months to get 2C & 1C. What purpose did that serve?

"We have re-charter turn-in starting Thursday night ... not good timing." AFAIK, this should not affect you, as your recharter thru your council. I find it funny that National is now on a bing to take over the regional venturing sites when they can't keep their own site up.

"How long has these Scouter's decorations /awards been around. I never saw anything like this when I was a boy in Scouting, although that wasn't in the 60's was in the late 70's. damn!" while many awards have only come in the last couple of decades, several awards/knots have been around since the 1930s. The silver beaver, antelope, and buffalo have been around since the 1930s & 40s. The scouter's key and training award came out in the 1940s. knots for eagle scout and some other youth awards have been around since the 1940s. cub scouter awards were revamped in the 1980s, I think.

"As an addition to the original question, are knots allowed on youth Sea Scout uniforms? I have not seen anything in my manual or in the online insignia guide that talks about it. I have been wondering about this since I saw youth sea scouts wearing knots at Jambo, and I was presented a SCUBA knot recently." yes, knots are allowed on the youth Sea Scout uniform. considering we had the immediate past National Boatswain on our booth staff, and his uniform had knots, that's a good indication its ok. However, note that unofficial knots, like that SCUBA knots, are frowned upon.

"I've seen Venturers wearing all kinds of clothing. And I've seen them 110% uniformed. I also have a WB Staff member who wore a pair of Dark grey shorts from Jack Wolfskin. I also have a pair of their Dark Grey Trousers that are great." Actually, with Venturing from day one, we have been allowed to get charcoal gray pants/shorts from ANY source and be in uniform. We are NOT required to get the ones from National Supply. Further, with Venturing, each crew can choose their OWN uniform, that need not be the dark green shirt with charcoal gray pants/shorts.

you don't say "2" to salute, but "2" to put your hand down. 1 is to salute, 2 to put your hand down

"By the way, perdidochas, I almost actually fell off my chair when I read your post. I just became advancement chair, and that's why I do it too. For the power." and the cool uniform, too. admit it!

Well, there are a few ideas to do. One is to incorporate things that can be see only at dark: star gazing, setup a sheet with a light to attract night bugs. To make this more effective, make the boys use red lens on their lights to get their eyes more light sensitive. If you have the time to set things up, you can do night geocaching. You can use small reflective items on trees to help mark the trail, that is shown only with flashlights.

Woapalanne- yesh. some people. I've had a few cr*ppy encounters with scouters, but I think that tops me.

"No, laser tag is playing tag with lasers instead of your hands. Look at the words "laser" "tag" -- tag with lasers. It doesn't necessarily have to involve "guns" (it usually does but it doesn't have to). Laser tag is tag but played from a distance instead of running up and smacking someone." I'll say this once: stop being an idiot. Look it up yourself. Wikipedia has a decent article on it. Laser tag is played with people running around shooting "laser guns" at each other or targets. Its the shooting of others the BSA has an issue with, same as with paintball. If you ONLY use paintball to shot just targets, no problem. But that's not what people know and understand in regards to laser tag/paintball, but running around and shooting others.

"As long as you're not "shooting guns at each other", then laser tag should be ok, right?" This is tiresome. Its NOT laser tag then. Laser tag IS running around shooting 'laser guns' at each others, with harnesses on to know that you made a hit. Its not an allowed scouting activity. I've been to a few laser tag places locally with work and another group I'm. You want to play 'flashlight tag' or the like, go ahead, but laser tag is out.

"I've been thinking of getting a copy of these rules myself. Lazer tag is prohibited? That was a shocker. Scratch that activity off next year's calendar." Well, feel free to get the Rules & Regs of the BSA. AFAIK, laser tag is not mentioned there. Its in the Guide to Safe Scouting, which you and everyone else can read on-line. The G2SS has been widely available for years and has all the prohibited activities listed. If you went thru basic leader training, this should have been pointed out to you. "As an Eagle Scout, who was a merit badge councilor at a scout camp, and is continuing to teach scouts as an adult volunteer, I really didn't see the point in having to take IOLS." And if you had bothered to read the Training Updates at the National website, you would read that those leaders who can show proficiency in what IOLS covers, you can test out. I would, however, recommend you drop the attitude of 'i know all this, I was a scout/eagle scout, why do I need this training'. Just because you were a scout or even an eagle scout doesn't mean you know everything you should know as a scouter.

There is some flexibility in troop organization to a degree. The number of patrols is going to dictate a lot of that. If you have a small number of patrols (2 or 3?), do you really need an ASPL? I was a dual PL/ASPL, and really only stepped up to cover for the SPL when he was unavailable. In this case, your other youth leaders (scribe, QM, Librarian) remain in their patrols. The SPL would just eat with a patrol or with the adults. If you have a larger number of patrols, then you could implement a 'senior patrol/leadership corps', which has the ASPL as their PL, and the various youth leaders (scribe, QM, librarian, instructors, etc) would be in that group. The SPL would eat with this group. At the Jamboree, the 4 troop youth leaders (SPL, ASPL, QM, Scribe) along with the 4 adult leaders (SM & 3 ASM) all eat with the four patrols (1 youth & 1 adult each). You also see this at WB during some of the program. Depending on how many adults come along on a trip, you can do it that way, or have the adults eat separately.

"Can anyone provide the BSA regulations that govern what patches may be worn on a scout uniform and where?" Yeah. Its called the Insignia Guide. Its available in print and on-line (tho the on-line version is out of date). The print version has been around for decades. Note that a "Council Shoulder Patch" is a patch issued BY YOUR COUNCIL to represent it. So individual units have no business creating their own. The whole purpose of CSPs is to have a patch to represent the whole council. So creating CSPs that can only be worn or is only worn by a small group is kind of self defeating.

"Now my question is: if the red strip may not be available in the near future, what colot trained strips will Venturers and their leaders be wearing?" Why should the red strip not be available in the future if BOTH Cub Scout leaders AND Venturing leaders (and Venturers) are supposed to wear it and not the green/tan?? I think whoever wrote that wasn't thinking...

Sometimes its useful to look at other orgs. I'm also a member of Toastmasters, which is an international org devoted to public speaking & leadership. The group has been around about 80 years or so. TM is open to ALL who are 18 and older. (AFAIK, that's really the only membership restriction: you must be an adult). TM basically went co-ed sometime in the 70s, and I believe it was things like Title IX and the like that had an effect, as many clubs were chartered to government bodies, and when issues like gender restrictions became an issue, TM knew they had to change or risk loosing many clubs. (sound familiar?? My Fraternity went thru similiar issues at the same time) The only membership restriction is that we basically have 2 types of clubs: open clubs and corporate clubs. Open clubs are open to everyone and anyone to join. Corporate clubs are chartered to companies, who restrict membership to just their employees. Now there are 'open corporate clubs', clubs chartered to companies, but which do NOT restrict their membership to company employees. But that's the only kind of membership restriction (other then age) that is allowed.

"Aside from the title change I really do not see much of a difference between the two trainings. If the VLSC syllabus was used it is a uniform training no different from ILSC, IMO this is just more nonsense and unnecessary change for the sake of change from National that serves no real purpose." Having done VLSC and having read over the beta version of ILSC, there is a big difference between the 2 courses. ILSC was created as a venturing version of TLT. Its focus is on the crew leaders, not all the venturers, as VLSC was. It spends time on crew organization and positions, which VLSC lacked, and tacks on the poorly done servant leader training from TLT. Whether or not its unnecessary, you need to understand what's going on. National, with their recent re-org that got rid of the program division, feels that the end-all be-all of training is WB and "WBjr", NYLT. Hence, they want both Boy Scouts and Venturers to go to NYLT. So Venturing youth training must come in line with Boy Scout training. So VLSC goes away in favor of the venturing version of TLT, ILSC, and Kodiak & Kodiak-X gets pushed aside as "just" experiental leadership training. "Then they wonder why Venturing doesn't get any respect, it is because those *&%$ at National have no real vision or even a basic understanding of what Venturing is supposed to be about." Its worse then that. Since they got rid of the program division (no more "silos", if you are familiar with that term from the corporate world), we now have what I call "function silos", who don't seem to talk with each other. We have 3 people in different groups doing "venturing", and they aren't necessary talking to each other. And I bet the National Venturing Cabinet is frustrated, as they are under only one of those 3, and have no say over the other 2. "Sorry to disagree with you but this is the kind of lack of direction that will lead to the eventual death of Venturing." Sorry, but what are you disagreeing with me about??? I didn't express a view, just passing along information. Everything below "cut here" is from the original message, not my word. Don't assume you know my feelings on this. I've only really expressed them to people off-line.

"I went with the green trained strip on the poly/wool shirt. Red Trained strips are for Cub Scouters and Cub Scouts." Red trained strips are for Cub Scouters AND Venturing leaders and Venturers. This is stated in the insignia guide. (i point this out as I've had people try to argue with me about it) green/tan are for Boy Scout/Varsity Scouts & their leaders. No guidence for commissioners/district people who aren't program specific that I could see.

All- This is going around the net, and there is an updated October 2010 training update at the National site that has this info. Just in case some haven't seen it, am posting it here. For those aware of the changes occuring, this is not unexpected. =========cut here============ Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC) is being replaced by a new course entitled Introduction to Leadership Skills for Crews or ILSC. Originally the title was to be Crew Leadership Training (CLT) and during the review of the syllabus, the writers agreed the title Introduction to Leadership Skills for Crews was a more fitting title and described the course more accurately. The purpose of ILSC is to teach crew members with leadership positions what their new job is and how to most effectively reach success in that role. ILSC is intended to help Venturers in leadership positions within their crew understand their responsibilities and equip them with organizational and leadership skills to fulfill those responsibilities. ILSC is the first course in the series of leadership training offered to Venturers and is a replacement for VLSC. Completion of this course is a prerequisite for Venturers to participate in the more advanced leadership courses National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) and the National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience (NAYLE). It is also required for Kodiak. You may ask, "Why the change...?" The goal is to have a uniform, aligned training platform for all programs so that those Scouters may transition smoothly from one course to the next regardless of what type of unit they belong to. All but the intro is now "program neutral" and each course needs the same basic info as prerequisite. The Volunteer Development Team expects this course to be released to the Scouting community within 30 days. Watch the training page on scouting.org for updates. Training page: www.scouting.org/volunteer/training

As noted, the YPT issue delayed things. The new manual was supposed to come out in Aug/Sept. Now I am being told it will be out in the next 30 days or so. On the Venturing side, this issue caused them to yank the Venturer Handbook off the shelves to address the lack of YPT info on them. So people aren't able to find Venturer manuals (whereas the current Sea Scout Manual is still out there. Go figure).