4CouncilsScouter

@@George The Corps of Discovery was brought up, and, in short, the response was that it's still an unofficial BSA program. That being said too: "In addition for membership, any VOA Advisor, ADC for Venturing, Crew Advisor, Kodiak Course Director, or Venturing Roundtable Commissioner should be able to select members to the Corps of Discovery. Membership in the Corps should be a compliment to the young person, but not a great big celebration. It is not intended that the Corps become an Honor Society or a form of recognition as a variety of recognition is already in place in the Venturi

This last week at the National Scout Jamboree, the National Venturing Committee fielded two events for the Venturers in Foxtrot Base Camp: a Venturing Town Hall Meeting and Region Venturing Break-Out Meetings. The first of the two was in two parts, an advisors-only session and a youth only-session. I was only able to attend the first one, and here were the major points from it: There is talks of creating an honor society exclusively for Venturing. This idea was thrown out by one of the National committee guys, Kenneth King. In short, this program required applicants to take a pledge of s

Confirming @ post. This is what a good friend posted to the 2017 Jamboree Foxtrot Base Camp group. "PLEASE READ CAREFULLY At the Boy Scout National Board Meeting, that just concluded this week, the Chief Scout Executive, Michael Surbaugh, requested that a Task Force be established to study the feasibility of allowing girls to join both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. This would be a shocking reversal from our established tradition but would better reflect today’s society. To repeat, this would only be a study to see the feasibility of girls being integrated into the Boy Scouts. One possib

Bear in mind, this was 5 years ago. This was before the crack-down on Venturing/Sea Scouting YPT. Right now, the current dynamics of treating 18-20 year olds as adults has clouded YPT/Training/Program topics in Venturing. To clarify to my previous post, my crew for the first two years looked like this: Five Advisors/Committee Members (Over 21) Three male 14-17 year-olds Two female 18-19 year-olds Two male 18-20 year-olds. Did we know that 18-20 year olds were considered "youth" by the historical YPT standards? Yes. However, the two young women were also members of my council's camp staf

@@jc2008 I would ask your Scout Executive or Area Training Chair (if one exists) for clarification. Because no formal training exists for council committee chairs/members, I would say you have three options if your SE or area can't provide clarification: Review the Orientation Guide for Council Officers and Executive Board Members. See if a council executive board orientation is offered. If you've attended Wood Badge or Philmont Leadership Challenge, I personally would say you're qualified to wear it in relation to your council-level position.

@@jc2008 Great question! This came up at a Philmont Training Center conference I went to a couple years back that went over council training committee operations, so I'll give a short and a long answer from what I remember. Short: Many registered adult positions in Scouting don't have defined "trained" requirements, and the majority of these positions that don't have defined requirements are those that exist at the national, region, area, and council levels. In most cases, any Scouter who's been selected to serve at these levels have enough experience/trainings that a patch isn't nece

@@518Advisor Welcome to Scouter.com! In short, any Venturing activities that have male and female participants (specifically those under 21) should have co-ed adult (over 21) leadership. Now, that being said, my crew had similar scenario when it started up. When we had less than eight active Venturers, we would frequently have only only four to five attending overnight activities. The ladies in the crew had fathers who were advisors, and the other guys were either brothers or grew up with the brothers through Boy Scouting. For the first two years, our female advisor was very transi

Found another article about this: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boy-scout-leaders-discuss-offering-more-opportunities-girls-n754541 I know a region Venturing advisor I met at Jambo 2013, and I think she's down at the national office this week for a Jambo 2017 meeting. I'll reach out to her and ask if she's heard anything while she's there.

In the councils I've been a part of, it's really hit or miss. It honestly comes down to culture created in each unit. I've known 100+ boy troops that have grandfathers still volunteering even though their sons have left, and I've known 15 boy troops that retain adults. The common factor in both, in what I've seen, is how the adult leadership treats and values their volunteers.

@@NJCubScouter I went to NAM in 2015 when it was in Atlanta. For the most the part, NAM is really just a gathering of council Key 3 and the "gold shoulders". In theory, any volunteer, professional, youth member, and family of a volunteer/professional could attend. In practice, the majority of attendees are council Key 3 members, and area, region, and national members. There's also few up-and-coming district/council professionals and national/region youth officers that attend. For the most part, just about every session is an option for attendees to attend. There's a few business meetin

@@beavalo2 Yeah, for the most part, councils that do have some kind of supplemental training for Cub Scout leaders (not counting roundtable), and I've seen it called University of Scouting, Baden-Powell University, College of Cub Scouting, Pow-wow, etc. It really depends on your council and what they call it.

I've been in touch with some of the event leadership, and this is our update so far: Our camp currently doesn't have many fully-enclosed indoor structures, so indoor events would be very limited. The primary way into the camp is a low-water crossing, so we're concerned about getting participants in and out of the event. The lighting and storm hazards have us concerned about whether we'll be able to have ziplining, shooting sports, and aquatics. And, a potential for tornadoes has been added. We're supposed to make a decision tomorrow night after having another 24 hours to see how the weather

This weekend, my council's Venturing committee and Venturing Officers' Association planned a spring campout for crews to attend. Being on the council Venturing committee, it's been fantastic to see the youth step up take on planning responsibilities. Unfortunately, here's where we are at today: The forecast calls for "potential [storms] to be severe with large hail and damaging winds" and "heavy flooding rainfall". This is supposed to come in on Friday and Saturday. The majority of our activities are outdoor based, e.g. shooting sports, climbing/rappelling, zip-lining, kayaking, and sail

To give a little insight, Over the summer at Philmont Training Center, I got to talk to the NOVA specialist from the National Service Center and several professionals who oversee STEM Scouting at a council or national level. This was their general explanation: Traditionally, Scouting has prepared youth through outdoor and high adventure settings. However, we've learned through programs like Exploring and Venturing that we can still accomplish this goal without a monthly campout or a week at a summer camp. The STEM Scouts program was the brainchild of former Chief Scout Executive Wayne

Oh wow, I know the Scouter who's in the article. I'll ask him next time I see him, but I did contact the local Scout council (Indian Nations #488). As far as I could tell, the council knew nothing about this and were quick to point any uniforming questions to National. Back to the issue though, I wonder what's going to happen when the Cherokee Nation realizes they can't modify a uniform protected by a Congressional charter? Also, this type of award already exists. My $0.02.

I wasn't really looking him to admit guilt or find fault. More so, it confirms the validity of the BSA's current (and potential) co-ed programs. As long as the BSA can justify their work is to the benefit of American, male youth, they will have fulfilled their Congressional charter. Heck, the BSA could incorporate an investment company or construction firm if they felt it was to the benefit of the youth we serve. However, I still believe the BSA will ensure its younger-age programs have the ability to be co-ed units with single-gender dens/patrols. This will allow boys and girls, who d

Truth be told, I have a young man in my crew who wants to become a professional Scouter, and he will be moving to a college about eight hours north of where we meet. Obliviously, this isn't very conducive for him to be regularly active with our unit, so I've been working with him to find a new crew closer to his college. During this, he brought up the idea of staying registered in our crew to still be considered a Venturer, but he would find a council/district position in his new area. His justification being that these positions should be more project or event focused, in theory, and it would

I reached out to my council's attorney, who also moonlights at a local university for tort (contract) law, and this is the response I got: Evening , In response to your question concerning the Boy Scouts of America Congressional Charter, specifically our purpose/mission as dictated by said document, I have prepared this overview for you. "The purposes of the ...[boy Scouts of America]... are to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patr

I think a co-ed Boy Scouts of America has been coming down the pipe for a while now. When Exploring became co-ed in the early 70s, there was a lot of controversy about the BSA leaving its roots and not serving its mission. But, 40 years down the line, we're still kicking and the BSA hasn't folded. From what I've observed,The BSA is slowly drifting towards aligning itself with other members of WOSM. Right now, I believe its less than a dozen national Scouting organizations (NSO) have an out-right ban on homosexual orientation, so there's an example there. Another case, the Scout Association

I know right now; there are several councils out east requiring all registered, adult leaders to be "trained", and I know there is at-least one council either in Oklahoma or Texas going to that system. I believe they are staggering the integration of the plan though, e.g. first year: all unit leaders trained, second year: all direct contact adult leaders trained, third year: all registered adult leaders trained.

I was asked to consider serving on my council's alumni committee today, and I received a packet of various alumni initiatives being started across the BSA. One of the ideas in the packet was to reach-out to college-age and young adults to serve at the council and district-level as registered volunteers. Having been an assistant NYLT course director and volunteer for my daughter's Venturing crew, I know the capabilities of young adults. However, there's a few roadblocks I see in the BSA: The only volunteer, registered positions available for adults 18-20 years-old are: Merit Badge Counsel

Hey Tiger Foot, A pack trainer is considered "trained" when they have completed Youth Protection (Y01) and the Pack Committee position training. At this time, there isn't a formal module or training solely for the pack trainer position. That being said, the pack trainer position is designed to give each pack a single, dedicated volunteer who's only role is training and adult development. So, for example, a pack trainer may organize a pack training day to facilitate a classroom or "live" training for new committee members or den leadership. Throughout the year, the pack trainer should b

deanofmac, No problem, thanks for letting us share a bit of insight. Seconding Col. Flagg's idea, getting some kind of advancement tracking software would be great a resource for your troop. I'd check into Scoutbook and with your council. I know some have started offering the service for free to Scouting units, and there are plans to fully integrate Scoutbook with the BSA's advancement systems!

Generally speaking, we expect our unit leadership to provide a program using the most-up-to-date information available. However, at the end of the day, the BSA is a volunteer organization. We rely on our volunteers to do their own research, e.g. Bryan on Scouting, ScoutingWire, Guide to Advancement, but any volunteer will tell this isn't a perfect system. Not saying this right, many unit leaders and Scouts will defer to what's in the handbook they had they joined the unit. If unit leadership is not attending roundtable, or doing their own research, it's very easy for volunteers to take the

Hedgehog, That's our crew's thoughts exactly! In the past, we've tried to ask the local high school counselor and/or a law enforcement officer to deliver a comparable training using the syllabus, and we've always gotten positive feedback from this. Good news though, I've heard through an area Venturing advisor that there's talk at the national level of reworking the training.