OutdoorThinker

For the record CivilWarThinker is not being kidnapped. He is coming willingly...well, he doesnt know where we are going yet, but regardless, he is putting caution to the wind and knows that his sister, a scout, is trustworthy and is looking forward to the trip. The look on his face will be priceless when the destination is finally revealed.

Should be interesting, as it will be the first time I am really meshing the biological family with the Venturing family. Maybe the crew will be blessed with having another Thinker among its ranks.

Truly, truly a high adventure at Cabela's! Apparently Boy Scouts like to shop...cause there were hoards of them.

OGE, I know we skipped a room full of dead, I mean "taken" deer, but was there really more that we missed?

We are gonna be gone camping next weekend. WAHOO!! The crew's off to Gettysburg!

19...which is old/young enough to put me in the ever fascinating conundrum that is the 18-21 year old age bracket in Boy Scouts...I wear an adult hat part of the time and a youth hat the other part of the time (well, actually, I wear the same baseball cap all of the time..except for council banquets)...I suppose it's the color of my shirt that changes.

Although we dont have an official policy within our Crew about gameboys, walkmans and the like, some still listen to music with headphones while on car rides ---there was one trip we were on where all of the boys wore headphones around their neck the entire 8+ hour ride and the joke was that the headphones actually kept their heads attached. We finally discovered without the headphones their heads stayed attached.

Actually, our crew quite enjoys the car rides without headphones. We have been known to sing at the top of our lungs to Disney soundtracks and oldies radio stations. I can personally attest to the fact that OGE has been known to belt out some songs from Pochantas and a few bars of Brown Eyed Girl, Jack and Diane and lots of the Beatles. (I hope I didnt let out any secret, OGE...you should share your Jethro Tull song, too, cause it's funny and fitting!!!). We in the crew also use long car rides to catch up current events, learn more aboutthe history of Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting, talk about current classes, future plans of college, studying abroad and jobs. Car rides are important socializing times for us.

When I said gold was district, I meant region

I just returned from new leaders training and the start up films -- the most exciting three hours of my life! But beyond that, we were talking about the Scout Oath and we were talking about being mentally awake. What does that mean to you? How about your scouts?

Cub Scouts are blue

Boy Scouts are Red

Venturing are Green

Council are Silver

District are Gold

What color are National loops? Did I miss any other loop colors?

At camp our motto was "the thirteenth point of the scout law is a scout is flexible."

I am a lifetime member of Girl Scouts. I have my Silver Award, but never finished my Gold...something I regret, but I cant do anything about it now.

As a Venturer, I am working on my Bronze...it's sooo close I can taste it.

As an "adult" (so strange, because I am still a youth Venturer..at at times I am actually frightened at being a responsible adult) I am a Girl Scout leader, an ASM for my Boy Scout troop, a graduate of National Camping School in the Scoutcraft area, a trained LNT instructor and a merit badge counselor for nine merit badges.

Yes OGE, the Met as in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit would NOT be about underwear, but rather clothing that arent pants. Muse was talking about wanting to go there.

The Boxer Rebellion? China? Really, OGE? You know, I LOVE China. (For all of you who don't know it's a toss up between a research trip to China..well, there's still a lot up in the air about it, but that or going back to camp as the Commisioner next summer).

OGE, I am all about going to the Met...you think we can get Uncle Rocket and the rest of the crew to want to go?

I was reading the New York Times today and discovered there will be an exhibit at the Met until Feb. 8th entitled "Braveheart" and it's about men wearing kilts and other types of non-pants (like grass skirts, togas and robes during Biblical times). I thought that the exhibit was timely and figured I would share, in case any of you get to NYC before the exhibit closes -- our crew is heading to NYC, hey OGE, what do you think?

Wallace, I know at camp, the tree climbing above six feet is a no-no or the scout needs to be belayed.

I know that the rule sounds rediculous, and that particular standard is new as of 2003 to the National Camping Standard, but it's taken pretty seriously.

Adrianvs

I paged through my copy of Rovering to Success by Baden-Powell (a favorite birthday gift of mine this past year) and I didnt find anything about knobby knees, although I would love to read the passage if you ever do find out where B-P wrote it.

Just after joining my Venturing Crew, I spent some time in England and Scotland...actually, I have quite an entertaining story about the Baden-Powell house, but that's for another time in another post...but when we were at the Tower of London, we ran into a large group of coed teens in kilts and scout shirts. They turned out to be a Scottish Venturing Crew (or Venturing equivalent).

FOG:

If a Scout of yours gets caught on a tower of 30 feet and is not belayed at camp, the program area can be shut down by the BSA. It was a reality this summer at camp, a real bummer for the boys, but I wanted to keep my program area open and I wanted to keep my job, so if the boys went off the ground, they stayed below six feet.

The question of the six feet or above, scouts must be belayed is BSA Camping Manditory Standard 67. Unfortunately my standards book is not at school with me, so I can not quote it for you, but it it's written in the BSA Camping Standards,if you have access to them, take a look.

I have qualms with the First Aid MB. I dont like the requirement where the scouts are supposed to explore CPR...I feel that they should either take offical training or it should not be a requirement. A little knowledge can do a lot of damage.

I also feel that the Pioneering MB needs a new cover photograph. There are a number of scouts on top of a tower that is lashed together. According to BSA National Standards for camp, scouts can not have their feet off the ground higher than six feet without being belayed. It is quite obvious that these scouts on the Pioneering MB are much higher than six feet and they are not belayed.

Our Venturing Crew is both a high adventure crew and a community service crew. We've done a lot of really neat community service -- including building a playground for children at a women's shelter (still one of the most fun things our crew has done), sent two teams to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, and we're currently doing work with Scoutreach. Anyway, we're looking for our next projects and I was just interested to see what other types of community service troops and crews are involved in.

We have a University of Scouting in the early spring. This year will be the first year I am involved, so I am really not sure how large our UoS actually is. I know that this year there will be a number of Venturing Crew classes offered --- in fact some of the crew members from the council are teaching classes this year. They have me teaching the LNT class.

Well, our crew goes over events scheuduled. We plan events -- we've been doing a lot of planning around helping the Scoutreach groups. We talk about different equipment and safety measures that we'll need to deal with during our adventures. Recently we've been doing a lot of talking about recruitment. We do some talking about the advancements...our advisors do some encouraging about finishing our Bronze Awards. Our crew is kind of in charge of the council youth round table, too, so we discuss different council issues too.

On the screen the meetings seem somewhat dull, but our meetings really are quite the opposite. I look forward to that hour and a half every two weeks.

We've got some very crazy dynamics within the crew --- think dysfunctional family that truly loves each other deep down, complete with brothers, sisters, a crazy uncle and the coolest dad -- and it's the banter, the very low key atmosphere and the quirks (ie we all take our shoes off before the meeting begins, we all call one of our advisors Dad and the other Uncle Rocket) of our crew that makes our meetings fun.

This is not the most exciting beauty of nature moment, but it will be forever burned in my memory. During my council's second Venture Crew Rendezvous (a gathering of all the crews from the council)at the summer camp where I worked this summer, we had the great fortune of having a beautifully clear night and a bright full moon. The moon reflected off of the lake and really lit up camp. A couple of people at a time began wandering down by the lake's edge just to see the moon on the lake. Before we knew it everyone attending the event was on the edges of the lake silently looking at the moon...then someone started to sing "One Tin Soldier"...there we were the majority of our council's crew youth and adults singing "One Tin Soldier" looking at the bright moon reflecting on the lake. My summer camp is undoubtedly my favorite place in the whole wide world (I've decided I want to be married in the chapel), but that particularly memory is the camp at it's peak in beauty.

Santa came early for me. I asked for a lightweight one person backpacking tent to go along with the backpack that I got for my birthday earlier this year. Well, prior to going on my trip to the Pine Barrens (which by the way ROCKED!!! The weather was awesome..OGE, we have to talk about my reputation as the Princess of Percipatiation), I got to open a Christmas present...it was a backpacking tent!

I still have a Boy Scout uniform shirt of the tan color with an ASM patch on my list.

By the way, I recommend http://www.utilikilt.com for kilts (Boy Scout uniform or not)..they offer more design options and a couple of camo options.

Having been a bagpiper and knowing many a guy who will proudly sport a kilt (including the one I am dating), I am all about a kilt option for the Boy Scout uniform.

I definately remember a Venturing Crew discussion about our uniforms almost four years ago, and kilts were discussed, grant it a lot of things were discussed and we're all wearing the official green shirts now anyway, but kilts were mentioned --that may have been my first conversation with OGE...

I just returned from a Council Venturing Roundtable where I discovered that the OA will be starting to form Venturing Crews. I have yet to be able to comprehend the OA's need for Venturing Crews and maybe you all can enlighten me, because they wont let me join for another two years or so.

The OA is an honors and service society of the Boy Scouting, how does Venturing fit in?

Why dont these OA boys join their home crews?