abernajb

Hello everyone,

Perhaps a bit of history and a more behind the scenes look would help to alleviate some of the concerns.

First, we know it may not be what you were looking for. I too would someday like to see a National Venturing weeklong activity, put on at a National Level. But this year, it wasn't happening. And as we got closer to the Centennial Year, with no Centennial Activity for Venturers on the horizon, the Youth of our Council VOA asked if they could put on one, using our annual event the Fall Fun Rally as the event. This event, the largest annual gathering of Venturers in the country with more than 700 in attendance annually (historically there have been over 2000 people in attendance) is really only one of two events that could have been named as such. The other is the Winterfest in Gatlinburg, a good event I'll be at with a GSLAC contingent in a couple weeks. Gatlinburg is primarily an Exploring event (though there will be hundreds of Venturers there too), and does very well as a annual regional event on a weekend just as the Fall Fun Rally.

In any case, for the date, that's a hard thing to pick even within just a council. At a certain point, you can't avoid everything. And this year, if you were to have a national event for Venturing, you'd have to steer clear of the Jamboree, and summer camps. That pretty much means it has to be done during the school year. We know this will limit attendance, but we're going to do everything we can to make this work better. People will likely have to miss one day of school if you have to drive more than 6 hours, but all I can say is that we're certain you'll have the experience to balance that. Life is about choices, and the youth we tend to get in Venturing are busy no matter which weekend we choose. High School Dances, College Football, and even NFL games will be impossible to miss in the fall. Will everyone be able to attend? No. Other events are hard to attend because of the cost. Trust me, we are sensitive to these and will do what we can to alleviate these issues.

We're also sensitive to the fact its a weekend event which may be outside easy driving distance for most folks. We're in the process of lining up blocks at neighboring hotels, and we'll be making suggestions for getting in and out of St. Louis. For those of you in driving distance, we're looking at doing a ride share board for people from councils to share, and encouraging councils to get contingents together (such as people in the Southern Region do annually for Gatlinburg). One advantage to doing this just in suburban St. Louis is that our airport (served by the major carriers) is only about 35 minutes to Beaumont.

From our standpoint, we don't see this as being the only way to hold a National event. I think this year this is the designated National Event, but in the future, I would see other councils asking for that designation (with a demonstrated plan as we did) or maybe National putting something on, after proving there is a market for it this year. For me its important that we make this successful, because this is the first event of its type, and whatever happens here will impact how the future of 'National Venturing Events' happens. So I would ask the Venturing community to offer suggestions on improving this, especially with 8 months to do so.

If you have an idea, or would like to help with the event, feel free to contact the FFR committee. We'll be posting a suggestion board, FAQ, and staff volunteer form at the www.fallfunrally.org website in the coming days.

I look forward to meeting many of you at this event, and continuing the discussion on how to improve the event in the coming months.

Thanks,

Jeff Abernathy

Fall Fun Rally Advisor -- 2010

Greater St. Louis Area Council

Check out the Swift Venturing Base outside Saint Louis. I think its exactly what you are looking for when it comes to Summer Camps. They have been runnign a mulit-week Summer camp aimed exclusively at Venturing and Exploring for over 35 years.

http://www.stlbsa.org/Camping/Summer+Camps/Venturing/

The Swift Base is a Venturing Program run by Venturers and has been for a long, long time. Its not a converted Boy Scout camp for the week of Venturers, its a Venturing program through and through. One of the biggest advantages of it is the cost--$160 inclusive of food and tentage. I worked there for 5 years, and it really is a great secret in the midwest.