emb021

There is no answer regarding 'how many hats' can you wear. That is going to depend on you, your time, and your interests. I know of many people who have several hats, I have a few myself. I do have a few issues/guidelines on the topic. * Be mindful of your time & interest. Don't get forced into taking a job you really don't want. Don't allow 'we need someone' as an excuse (see more on this below). * Be mindful of others. Be sure this is something you really want. You may be taking a job away from someone else. A big problem is of finding people to fill positions. I think too often they don't spend the time of really recruiting. There are many people who would probably be willing (and able) to do the job, but no one bothered to ask. There are some who are really uncomfortable of saying "I want that position". They feel they have to be asked first. I think too often councils/district look to already existing volunteers to fill positions, and not widen their circle to former scouts and scouters. * Key unit leaders should NOT take addition 'key' positions in other units or above the unit level. They can be involved above the unit, but not in a 'key' position. What do I mean. A Scoutmaster, Cubmaster (or Den Leader), Crew Advisor, or Skipper, should not take on other 'key' positions such as Lodge/Chapter Adviser, Council/District Committee Chair (not just THE Council/District Committee, but the many subcommittees, such as Training, etc), Commissioner, etc. I don't have a problem with them being a training course director (WB, etc) or being an assistant leader or member of committee, but they shouldn't be a key leader. Their first focus should be to their unit. The last is a personal frustration of mine. I don't have the time to be a unit leader, but I DO have the time to be a council-level person. Yet all the time I see unit leaders being made Chairs of various committees. Personally, I feel they should focus on their units, and have people like myself be the chairs.

I have been working off and on on a presentation for my council's University of Scouting event on uniforming. I've tried to figure out what might be the best way of approaching it. Some ideas I had (and tossed): * go over each area of the uniform, explaining what goes where (right sleeve, right side, etc) * giving the participant cut outs (poster board or the like) of uniform shirts (tan boy scout, yellow cub scouter, blue cub scout, green venturer, etc), with a bunch of patches and other insignia items, let them place the items properly (they would also get a few incorrect items to see if they handle it, like putting an AOL knot in the cub scout stuff, etc) instead, I felt a more high level one might be better, touching on: * different BSA-approved uniforms (do you know how many there are currently?? 10. could you name them?) * types of insignia (I have worked out 6 categories). * top 10 uniform mistakes (based on the bad uniforming I see at scouting events), explaining what they are and why they are wrong. * resources- insignia guide, inspection sheets, etc

"Remember the Venture uniform " What Venture uniform? You mean the brief activity shorts with the maroon Venture polo? "The BSA Museum in Kentucky could possibly help too. " Uh, that museum was closed down several years ago and moved to Irving (in a new building next to the National office).

I have never seen anything in writting as to when YPT 'expires'. Unlike SSD, SA, etc, there is no YPT card with an expiration date. I have asked to no avail. If you attend a National event (Jamboree, NOAC, etc), you will be told you need to have 'current' YPT. Again, asking has not gotten a straight answer (1 year? 2? 3?). Most say at least 2 years. Thankfully, with the on-line YPT (tho you need to have your council provide the Venturing one on their website, the other is available thru BSA's OLS), its very easy to do it every year or so. (when it was only available via video presentation by a proper trainer, it was a pain meeting that 'current' requirement).

The site contains a lot of older british scouting materials, such as old program materials, and the Gilcraft series.

You know, a lot of these uniform questions could be answered if people would just 1) BUY a copy of the Insignia Guide (available at your scout shop or from National Supply, new edition comes out every year or two, #33066E), 2) READ IT. A LOT of bad uniforming information could be resolved by this. But then I like being a hopeless optimist...

The saveventure site is run by Craig Murray. Terry Grove, as I indicated in my message, is the person with the collection of Eagle medal. He brings them to NOAC, Jamboree, and other events.

To answer the original question. Those that have completed the course and are working on their tickets are welcome (I would say even encouraged) to join in the singing of the WB song. Heck, in my area, most of those working on their ticket wear their paricipant neckerchiefs until they do earn their beads, so they stand out.

The person you are looking for is Terry Grove, a scouter in the central florida council. He has published a book on the eagle scout award, now in its fourth (?) edition. I have is contact info at home. Will have to dig it up.

Check out the USScouting Service Project website. Also, LFL and LFL/Exploring are NOT Scouting programs.

What Eamonn says. First off, Venturers/Sea Scouts should be award of what is available to them (5 Bronze, Gold, Silver, Ranger, Quest, Trust, 4-level Sea Scout advancement, Small Boat Handler, Qualified Seaman, World Consevation Award, etc). As noted, in a traditional Sea Scout ship, your ship's program should be built around advancement. Most Sea Scout events will recognize it. I know with the Regional Commodore's Cup in my area, all events are tied to SS advancement, and we will even note what events will tie to what advancement. In non-traditional ships and in Venturing Crews, many practice 'stealth advancement', in which the adults track what the kids do, then after a point (say a major event), point out what advancement they have done, so they understand what extra they need to do to get something.

I guess what I need to do is pull out my Explorer Program Helps that would be relavent, and scan them: Explorers with Disabilities Program Helps Exploring High Adventure Guide Sports Exploring Program Helps Explorer Program Helps for Youth Groups of all Faiths Problem will be finding a place to get them on-line. Have to see if the USScouting Service Project people will post them. I REALLY wish the PTC Venturing training groups would work to expand/update these, especially the Sports and Religious Life ones, because they DO have training courses for those areas... And maybe we can get some kind of grass roots effort going to put something together for arts & hobbies.

"A lot of the adults in Venturing don't really know enough about what it is or could be. " Too true. And what is said is that there are a LOT of resources out there to help. Materials on the National site, the USScouting Service site, some great classes at Philmont, etc. "We have the Units that seem to be very much like a youth club." True. And this can usually be solved by having a SPECIALITY. This gives the crew a goal and theme to what they do. It also helps them in recruiting. They are just a "Venturing Crew", but a "Venturing Crew that does high adventure stuff" or a "Venturing Crew that does Indian Lore", etc. "Now, If I can also add an opinion regarding Venturing Program Helps. Emb021, made a great reference to a 90's edition of Explorer Program Helps. Comparing the Explorer Program Helps and our current Venturing Leaders Manual. " The current Venturing Leaders Manual is actually a combination of 3 works. they took the previous Explorer Leaders Manual, did some updates to Venturing and addded in the Outdoor Post Program Helps. In a later reprint they added the Ethical Controversies stuff. Personally, I think they need to pull out all that Outdoor stuff from the VLM and put it in a separate "Venturing Program Helps". Not all crews do outdoor stuff, and its a waste for them. And as someone else has pointed out, what if your crew is a Sports crew, or youth ministries, or arts & hobbies? Nothing for them.

"It doesn't mention parents attending the meetings. Aren't parents supposed to be encouraged to participate in the scout program with their son?" First off, what is the purpose for parents to be at that meeting (or all meetings)? I don't believe in (except for certain cases like Beavah mentioned) in closed committee meetings, but I have to question what the reasons for some parents to just come and 'hang out' at the committee meeting, any more then coming and 'hanging out' at the troop meetings. Unless they are members, they have no input or say in what is going on. And I would have to wonder if they are just there to cause problems. Yes, parents are encouraged to participate in the program, but they aren't participating by hanging out at meetings. As mentioned, too often those that do so have an ulterior motive in doing so. Again, Beavah gave ways that parents can help out if they don't want to be registered committee members or ASMs.

"The president I believe is a volunteer position. I was talking about the Chief Executive. I found the 900,000 amount on a website that was actually very unfriendly to scouting so I did not list it but should have. The $900,000 claim is on www.scoutingforall.com which promotes things I do not agree with. My point is not about who goets paid what. Top CEO's do make a ton of money. So be it. " You 'believe' the BSA President is a volunteer position? FYI, yes the National President of the BSA is an elected volunteer position, just like your Council President is an elected volunteer position. The Chief Scout Executive is a paid position. I am not sure how much. There are sites (like guidestar) that will provide that info. I've seen 'discussions' regarding his pay on other forums. What he is being pay is, I understand, in line with the pay of Executive Directors (which is what the CSE is) of other non-profit organizations of the size of the BSA. Comparing his pay to the CEOs of for profit companies is a mistake. The pay of ED does not get close to the pay of many CEOs. They don't get 'tons of money'.

"I think dat's partly because Venturers really don't have a clue yet about their own program, eh? Lisa'bob has a good point when she calls 'em idiosyncratic. " Well, I have to disagree with that assesment. Venturing is a continuation of the Explorer program and elements which date back to the 1930s. In the late 1940s, National started to see the emergence of Explorer Scout Posts focusing on a particular area, like archaeology. In the 1950s, a California businessman named William Spurgeon had a lot of success in establishing career-oriented Posts. The trend toward specialization in something became a big trend in Explorers Nationally. Into the 1960s and 70s this continued until the idea was that every post was expected to clearly declare what their specialty was. Career Explorer Posts became a major part. Eventually in the 1980s and 90s, Posts were loosly organized into one of several 'clusters', most of them careers (Law Enforcement, Engineering, etc), but also Outdoors, etc. The problem is that in the 1980s and 90s, most scouters thought of Explorers as 'that career oriented program over there'. This overshadowed the many 'traditional' Explorer posts that existed out there like High Adventure, Indian Lore, Youth Ministries, etc. But these sort of Posts DID exist, and were increasing in numbers. This is why when the 1998 split of Exploring into Ventuirng and LFL/Exploring occured that in some councils you were left with many healthy Venturing Crews, but in other councils Venturing was non-existant. I remember after the split spending a LOT of time on-line explaining to scouters about what Venturing is. As they had NO clue about what pre-1998 Exploring was REALLY about (ie, it was more then just career stuff), explaining Venturing was tough. I remember one poster just not understanding the concept of Crews having a speciality ("but troops don't do that!"). However, I do have to agree with Beavah about the lack of resources. In the 1990s National created a series of about 20-30 Explorer Program Helps for a wide range of Posts. While most of them were aimed at careers, there WERE ones aimed at others like High Adventure, Sports, Youth Ministries, and the like. Sadly, after the 1998 split, all of these resources which SHOULD have been continued under Venturing were dropped. I've even told those at National that they need to bring these back into print (atleast on CD or on-line) and create more for the many 'other' kind of Crews out there. Sadly, they don't see the value in this.

Ok, let me take a stab (background info, I was a Boy Scout and briefly an Explorer as a youth. Was an ASM for years, and an Associate Advisor in an Explorer Post which became a Venturing Crew). First off, please review the methods of Boy Scouting and Venturing. Please note that they are NOT the same. The difference in Boy Scouting and Venturing is not so much in terms of 'Venturing can do X that Boy Scouts can't". Instead its a little more fundamental. The BS program is well laid out. ALL troops should be following it. Meetings are fairly structured and are focused around helping the boys advance toward First Class and prepare them for that month's camping trip. The camping trips build off what was covering at meetings. A BIG part of what a troop does is help boys advance. A lot of their program time is geared toward getting the boys to First Class. From that point on, leadership & merit badges gets the boys to Eagle. Boys not advancing is not good. Troops not advancing boys is not good. this is how troops are measured. We've talking about how Venturing Crews will pick a specialty. This is important and too often misunderstood. By having a specialty, the Crew has a theme that they focus on. It's not an exclusive focus (nothing stops a high adventure crew from doing a bowling night event). But there is NO such thing as a Boy Scout troop with a specialty, really. Yes, a troop may be known as a "high adventure troop" in their area, but doing high adventure can NOT interfere with them providing the boy scout program and making sure their kids are moving to First Class and then on to Eagle. If you look at such 'high adventure troops', what you will find is troops that allow their old boys (ie, the ones who are beyond working toward First Class) to go off and doing neat high adventure trips. But only AFTER they have been working to help the younger kids advance, etc. With their specialty, crews build their program around it. Meeting programs tie in with it, which leads to their non-meeting activities. Advancement is NOT important. Yes, there is Venturing advancement, but a Crew is NOT expected to build their program around making sure all the crew is advancing (they can if they want to, but its not a requirement or expectation). Now, a troop might try out some of the things that Venturing crew do, but they would do so for maybe a month. they are NOT going to build their year-round program around a specialty, and they are not going to focus on this specialty at the expense of doing the Boy Scout Program. Now, when I was involved with a Venturing Crew, the crew I was in is a Historical Reneactment Crew, focusing on the Seminole Wars and early Florida History. So our meetings were focused on that topic: maybe working on our outfits or gear, having guest speakers, etc. Our trips would be trips to museums, going to weekend re-enactments. If we were a Boy Scout troop, how could we be doing this AND doing the Boy Scout program. Just doesn't work. This all makes for Venturing to be a more flexible program. Thus, a youth does not just 'join a Venturing Crew'. They join a crew that has the program that THEY want. If their church has a religious-life Crew and that's what they want, they join that. If their is a re-anactment crew, maybe that. Or an Indian Lore Crew or a high adventure crew or a patch trading crew or a role playing game crew or a youth service crew.

Go to "Open Discussion- Program". This section isn't about those kind of "Issues".

"The Venture/Ranger handbook states, "venturing is a catalyst." on page 2. The BSA uses the word Venturing throughout all of its liturature as the action (verb) of the program (noun). High Adventure is available to scouts 14 and over within a troop. A troop may have a high adventure patrol or activities." I am not sure the point of your statement here. As noted, Venturing is the BSA's program for 14-21 youth, while Venture is an optional program for Boy Scout Troops to allow 13 and older boys to do high adventure/sports activities on their own (as a Venture Patrol). Also, its the Venturer Handbook/Ranger Guidebook, not Venture Handbook. Please take a look at the on-line Language of Scouting here: http://www.scouting.org/identity/los/index.html I recommend you look up the terms Venture, Venture Patrol, Venturer, Venturing, Venturing Crew, etc and LEARN THE TERMS. Its very important that you know and understand these terms and that you teach them. Some of the biggest problems we in Venturing face is the confusion by scouters regarding the Venture patrol and Venturing. Too often people think that the Venture Patrol is nothing more the "Venturing in the Troop" and this leads to nonsense like having Venture Patrol members wearing the green shirt with red loops, etc.

"Ok, again I dont see the big deal. They go on events, they have input to the program, they can go and do whatever the crew allows, they can mentor crew members. Even in a fraternity/sorority the members eventually graduate (even Bluto did) in a Venture crew its age defined, not academic status defined." First off, its "VenturING Crew". Again, in college clubs, ALL students are members and can be officers, have input, etc. ADVISORS DO NOT HAVE THE SAME LEVEL of involvment, input. There is usually an intentional separation. Having been a college student and involved with such groups, I can tell you from first hand experience THIS IS a big deal. In an APO chapter, an over-21 student member can be the Chapter President, but in a Venturing Crew no way, they can only be an adult advisor or the like. BIG DIFFERENCE.

"I may not be understanding the issue with over 21 college students, they become an associate advisor or a committee member, they dont have to leave the crew, their role changes." The thing is why should their role change just because they are over 21? In an APO chapter, (or any college club), if you are a student you can be an active member of the group, an officer, etc. But in a Venturing Crew at 21 you have to give that all up and only be an 'adult' member of the crew.

"I am starting to understand why there is so much confusion in BSA regarding Venture." Well, when people get confused by the name, it doesn't help. Venture and Venturing are NOT interchangable terms. They are NOT the same program. Venture is an option program for old boys within a Boy Scout Troop, were they form a Venture Patrol. VenturING is the BSA's co-ed program for youth 14-21. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't confuse the terms. "They made an effort to educate the pack and troop leaders that were present, but from what I am hearing from seasoned leaders, this can not be the norm. It seams (and this is only my impression) that once a scouter takes a training, it would be beneath them to ever take that training again. " Always a problem. Solution is to use Roundtables, which are ongoing supplemental training, as your venue for this. There are a LOT of resources. BSA has several videos on Venturing. The USScouting Service Project site have a lot of great PPT presentations you can use. "I have heard in the past that there was confusion at the district/council level about what kinds of events troops and crews could participate in together. I don't think that's the main issue any more though. I know that crews are "allowed" to participate in things like camporees, etc.. What I don't know is whether, or how, they are encourage to attend." The thing to realize is "What's in it for the Venturing Crews" to atten Camporees, Scout Shows, etc? Too often Camporees are aimed solely at the Boy Scouts, with little or nothing for the Venturers. Too often they view the Venturers solely as staff. Scout Shows can also be a problem because most Crews are too small to setup and staff their own booth. What is more successful is having a single booth for all Venturing/Sea Scout units in the council, as a way to promote Venturing/Sea Scouting to everyone. A better idea is to have events JUST for Venturers. Get Venturers from other councils to come. In my area almost all the council-level Venturing events promote themselves to the venturers in other councils. Its thus not surprising to have 2 or 3 or more crews from other councils coming to your Venturing event. As to College crews, yes the 21 cut off for adults is a problem, as there are many college students who are over 21. One of the reasons I wish the BSA would bring back Rovers, as the typical cut off is 25/26. Getting Alpha Phi Omega chapters goins is a better idea, however, I can tell you that many APO chapters are ALSO Venturing Crews...

Its time for the boys to learn how elections are run. In a tie vote for an election, you run the election again. If you have a three-way tie, or if you have 3 candidates and none get a majority, you run the election again with all 3 candidates. (the 'drop the candidate with the least votes is ONLY allowed if such a policy is documented in an organizations rules').

"To answer you, Mr Blansten, "1) I would see an immediate and significant drop in UNITS within my District. Kansas City, because of its history within the Mormon migration, has more than a few LDS packs and troops. They'd be gone, instantly. I do not even think they would wait for the recharter cycle. " "2) I would have families who would drop Scouting for Royal Rangers and AWANA, almost instantly. These families believe that the Godhead is a major part of growth and development for their kids. " Mr. Bransten's question was regarding dropping the DRP, NOT dropping "Duty to God" from the Oath or a "Scout is Reverent" from the Law. Why would dropping the DRP cause this reaction? Doing so would not negate what is in the Oath/Law.

"Brag vests and segments? Is the Brag vest the Red vest? If so, most of our boys wear those, but what is a segment? I'm not familiar with that term." Brag vest is another term for the red patch vest. Segments. this is a term for a small patch that is worn next to/attached to another patch, never by itself. for instance, you may have a large patch (council patch or a summer camp patch), then wear small segment patches right next to that patch it indicate things like the year you attended that summer camp, or the activities you did in that council or at that camp. Here are a couple of links to the segments used in the Transatlantic Council: http://www.citilink.com/~blkeagle/tacsegs.htm and http://www.citilink.com/~blkeagle/tapocket.htm I can't tell you the source for the segments being mentioned. Am not aware of national making them. But the other suggestions are also a possibility. Not sure if they still allow the wearing the denner tab or not (check the Insignia Guide). And denner patches should be cheap/easy to find on eBay.